House of Wax/Mystery of the Wax Museum Blu-ray Specs

[Christopher Jacobs]

if I remamber well, many 3D flms uses a single 35mm frame to place the stereo image, splitting and compressing each image Left/right on a single 35mm frame.

That creates some softness and a reduction of horizontal resolution in 50%.


Indeed that approuch was time saver since before that the 3D shouting involves use two câmeras and many more work and technical dificulties.

HOUSE OF WAX was projected that way in 1970s-80s re-issues using a special anamorphic 3-D lens (a collector friend of mine used to have a print), but in the 1950s it was run from two 35mm prints on two interlocked 35mm projectors.

[Derek Gee]

if I remamber well, many 3D flms uses a single 35mm frame to place the stereo image, splitting and compressing each image Left/right on a single 35mm frame.

That creates some softness and a reduction of horizontal resolution in 50%.


Indeed that approuch was time saver since before that the 3D shouting involves use two câmeras and many more work and technical dificulties.

HOUSE OF WAX was projected that way in 1970s-80s re-issues using a special anamorphic 3-D lens (a collector friend of mine used to have a print), but in the 1950s it was run from two 35mm prints on two interlocked 35mm projectors.

The first HOUSE OF WAX 3D reissue in the 70s (1972) printed both left and right frames in a single 70mm frame. Later re-issues used the over-under 35mm format where each frame was printed half-height within a single 35mm frame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Over- ... _image.JPG" target="_blank

Currently, most of the showings in my area have been twin 35mm prints with interlocked projectors. How long that will continue now that a digital version is available is unknown...

Derek

[Christopher Jacobs]

if I remamber well, many 3D flms uses a single 35mm frame to place the stereo image, splitting and compressing each image Left/right on a single 35mm frame.

That creates some softness and a reduction of horizontal resolution in 50%.


Indeed that approuch was time saver since before that the 3D shouting involves use two câmeras and many more work and technical dificulties.

HOUSE OF WAX was projected that way in 1970s-80s re-issues using a special anamorphic 3-D lens (a collector friend of mine used to have a print), but in the 1950s it was run from two 35mm prints on two interlocked 35mm projectors.

The first HOUSE OF WAX 3D reissue in the 70s (1972) printed both left and right frames in a single 70mm frame. Later re-issues used the over-under 35mm format where each frame was printed half-height within a single 35mm frame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Over- ... _image.JPG" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Currently, most of the showings in my area have been twin 35mm prints with interlocked projectors. How long that will continue now that a digital version is available is unknown...

Derek

Over-and-under 3-D was used for widescreen "scope" ratio films, and I projected a couple of those in my day. I'm 99% positive my friend's print was side-by-side anamorphic. He did not have the 3-D lens (or required silver screen or glasses), but he did have an anamorphic lens so he could watch it as two normal images side by side. I think he finally traded the print off for some other film. The side-by-side anamorphic 3-D system was also used for such classics as THE STEWARDESSES, which was the final film to play at our old Dakota Theatre, which had opened in 1907 as a vaudeville house and was torn down in September 1971.

You're lucky to be able to see interlocked 3-D, which is extremely rare these days outside of special festivals like the recent one at the Hollywood Egyptian. I've seen only DIAL M FOR MURDER and PARDON MY BACKFIRE in 2-projector 35mm 3-D, and that was back in the late 70s or early 80s. One big advantage of digital cinema is the ease with which any theatre can now run very effective and more or less glitch-free 3-D without a huge additional investment or complicated system with well-trained operators, much less splicing in of exact lengths of black leader to keep right and left images in sync after a film break on one projector. And I can even do it in my basement theatre ( http://www.blu-ray.com/community/galler ... Blu-Velvet" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank ) with 3-D Blu-rays! So recycled SD version of MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM or not, I'm still looking forward to the 3-D Blu-ray of HOUSE OF WAX.

[Scoundrel]

" I'm not quite sure how people don't understand the word "bonus". Yes, it would be great to have had a new version of the film, but no-one could or should expect that when it is simply an extra feature on a disc..."

So, your definition of "bonus" is similar to "Charity"...

That out of the goodness of their hearts, WB decided to issue a substandard 480i, incorrectly
reproduced "extra" and I should be happy for it.

How many viewers will be turned off by the film because of some one not doing good work in the first place...?

Sorry, that's just not smart business...IMHO.

[silentmovies742]

" I'm not quite sure how people don't understand the word "bonus". Yes, it would be great to have had a new version of the film, but no-one could or should expect that when it is simply an extra feature on a disc..."

So, your definition of "bonus" is similar to "Charity"...

That out of the goodness of their hearts, WB decided to issue a substandard 480i, incorrectly
reproduced "extra" and I should be happy for it.

How many viewers will be turned off by the film because of some one not doing good work in the first place...?

Sorry, that's just not smart business...IMHO.

Well, I know what bonus means, let's put it that way. If I was buying a DVD advertised as Mystery of the Wax Museum then I feel I would have a right to complain. If I'm getting the film as a free extra, then I'm not going to complain. Yes, we would all like a wonderful, sparkling print of the film on a DVD of its own. For whatever reason, that isn't happening at the moment and so we make do and mend with what is essentially a free but inferior print. Next thing, we'll be complaining to someone on youtube for putting up their print of a public domain film so that we can see it, but doing so before they've paid to have it restored. And, to answer your question, anyone interested in watching a 1933 horror film in the first place is not going to be put off by the fact the colours aren't correct - if they expect all the films they watch from that era and beyond to look nice and shiny before they can be enjoyed then they are going to be extremely disappointed.

[Scoundrel]

" ... anyone interested in watching a 1933 horror film in the first place is not going to be put off by the fact the
colours aren't correct - if they expect all the films they watch from that era and beyond to look nice and shiny
before they can be enjoyed then they are going to be extremely disappointed..."

So, that's the same argument we heard in the 60's and 70's..

"They're old...that's the way they are supposed to look.."

Sorry.

With the advancements in technology that is available today, there is no excuse for such shoddy
second hand work.

Try again.

[silentmovies742]

" ... anyone interested in watching a 1933 horror film in the first place is not going to be put off by the fact the
colours aren't correct - if they expect all the films they watch from that era and beyond to look nice and shiny
before they can be enjoyed then they are going to be extremely disappointed..."

So, that's the same argument we heard in the 60's and 70's..

"They're old...that's the way they are supposed to look.."

Sorry.

With the advancements in technology that is available today, there is no excuse for such shoddy
second hand work.

Try again.

As far as I'm aware, this print was mastered fifteen or twenty years ago - which is no doubt why it is being included FREE rather than being released separately.

[Jack Theakston]

Re: HOUSE OF WAX

Yes, the original release was Stereovision side-by-side, BUT, Stereovision also made a side-by-side 70mm print, too, which believe played at the Chinese in Hollywood. The stereo tracks were long gone by then, but the optical Warnerphonic "effects" track was mixed into the surround track on that print.

The 3-D "renaissance" of the '70s and '80s was mostly over/under, that is true. When it worked, it was great, but more often than not, it did not work.

[Christopher Jacobs]

[quote="Jack Theakston"]Re: HOUSE OF WAX

Yes, the original release was Stereovision side-by-side, BUT, Stereovision also made a side-by-side 70mm print, too, which believe played at the Chinese in Hollywood. The stereo tracks were long gone by then, but the optical Warnerphonic "effects" track was mixed into the surround track on that print.

The 3-D "renaissance" of the '70s and '80s was mostly over/under, that is true. When it worked, it was great, but more often than not, it did not work.[/quote]

I remember SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE and STARCHASER: LEGEND OF ORIN as working just fine as far as 3-D projection presentation of what was on the film, but SPACEHUNTER, especially, had a number of shots where the camera convergence in the shooting frequently made it too much of an eyestrain to watch until they changed shots. STARCHASER was a cartoon (pre-digital) that had its backgrounds calculated by computer in 3-D for tracing by the artists and was often quite spectacular in its 3-D effects. By the later 80s, the 3-D films and films with 3-D sequences (like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 6: FREDDY'S DEAD) seemed to switch to blue-red glasses instead of polaroid (most likely to be playable on more screens instead of only the few available silver screens), and while it worked, it greatly reduced the image quality and effectiveness of the 3-D.

[Bob Furmanek]

Our latest article, "An In-Depth Look at HOUSE OF WAX" is now on the website. I hope that you enjoy it!

http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/House-of-Wax" target="_blank"

[Derek Gee]

The 3-D "renaissance" of the '70s and '80s was mostly over/under, that is true. When it worked, it was great, but more often than not, it did not work.

I saw nearly every 3D over/under film that came out in the 80s, and they always "worked". I never saw an operator goof it up, but those were union projectionists in my city.

Derek

[Jack Theakston]

You were lucky! Many theaters, even recent installations with people who knew what they were doing, had some major light and alignment issues.

[Bob Furmanek]

Not only that, the overall quality of the photography was very poor with LOTS of alignment issues.

They were a giant step back from the overall quality of the 1953 features.

[antoniod]

I acquired an original Technicolor print of MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM for the AFI/LoC collection in the early 1970s. It was a perfect print, from Jack L. Warner's personal collection. (At that time, Mr. Warner was being very friendly, and a major donor to AFI who paid for the construction of AFI's small theatre in the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts).

An Eastmancolor negative was step-printed from this nitrate by Don Malkames, then developed, graded and printed at Guffanti Film Labs (great skill all around, both entities long gone). We brought the answer print from the new negative to a theatre where we put it up on one projector, the original nitrate print on the other projector, ran them simultaneously, and kept switching back and forth. You couldn't tell the difference between the original and the copy, it was that good.

David Shepard

Soooooo, the problem was not with the new 35MM negative (Everson, "Classics of the Horror Film"), but with-I guess-a 16MM reduction made for the TV/Rental prints. I remember thinking that the theatrical print I saw in Boston was not as bad as Everson had lad me to believe it would be.

[Christopher Jacobs]

I acquired an original Technicolor print of MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM for the AFI/LoC collection in the early 1970s. It was a perfect print, from Jack L. Warner's personal collection. (At that time, Mr. Warner was being very friendly, and a major donor to AFI who paid for the construction of AFI's small theatre in the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts).

An Eastmancolor negative was step-printed from this nitrate by Don Malkames, then developed, graded and printed at Guffanti Film Labs (great skill all around, both entities long gone). We brought the answer print from the new negative to a theatre where we put it up on one projector, the original nitrate print on the other projector, ran them simultaneously, and kept switching back and forth. You couldn't tell the difference between the original and the copy, it was that good.

David Shepard

Soooooo, the problem was not with the new 35MM negative (Everson, "Classics of the Horror Film"), but with-I guess-a 16MM reduction made for the TV/Rental prints. I remember thinking that the theatrical print I saw in Boston was not as bad as Everson had lad me to believe it would be.

No, the 16mm rental print that I saw in the mid-1970s also looked quite nice (though 1970s-era prints could well have faded by now). The laserdisc that I got in the early 1990s matched it in color, although naturally the resolution was inherently much lower.

The problem came when WB released MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM as a second feature on the DVD version of HOUSE OF WAX. This time the transfer was very sharp indeed (as DVDs of 1933 Technicolor films go) but some misinformed colorist changed the color balance to look red and blue instead of orangish and greenish, resulting in pinkish fleshtones replacing the quite natural ones in the original and throwing off the rest of the color. This color can be manually corrected by viewers who know it's wrong and also know how to readjust their "tint" settings, a minor hassle, but it's not too hard to make it look pretty close to the way it should -- although of course it must be reset back to the default for regular viewing.

I've not yet seen the new Blu-ray, but according to reports, apparently WB merely ported over the SD transfer of MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM used for the DVD, but I've not heard anywhere for sure whether they also left the faulty color balance or returned it to the correct look that the Laserdisc had. If the color is wrong, it should still be fixable by consumers, but of course a major part of the whole point of digital technology is supposed to be avoiding the need for constant manual adjustments between movies.

I'm still very much looking forward to the full-HD and 3-D transfer of HOUSE OF WAX on 3-D Blu-ray. If and when MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ever gets its own HD restoration/release (hopefully with some other 2-color Technicolor material in HD like DOCTOR X and some of the Metrotone/Vitaphone shorts), I'll certainly want to get the Blu-ray to have them in HD.

[antoniod]

I acquired an original Technicolor print of MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM for the AFI/LoC collection in the early 1970s. It was a perfect print, from Jack L. Warner's personal collection. (At that time, Mr. Warner was being very friendly, and a major donor to AFI who paid for the construction of AFI's small theatre in the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts).

An Eastmancolor negative was step-printed from this nitrate by Don Malkames, then developed, graded and printed at Guffanti Film Labs (great skill all around, both entities long gone). We brought the answer print from the new negative to a theatre where we put it up on one projector, the original nitrate print on the other projector, ran them simultaneously, and kept switching back and forth. You couldn't tell the difference between the original and the copy, it was that good.

David Shepard

Soooooo, the problem was not with the new 35MM negative (Everson, "Classics of the Horror Film"), but with-I guess-a 16MM reduction made for the TV/Rental prints. I remember thinking that the theatrical print I saw in Boston was not as bad as Everson had lad me to believe it would be.

No, the 16mm rental print that I saw in the mid-1970s also looked quite nice (though 1970s-era prints could well have faded by now). The laserdisc that I got in the early 1990s matched it in color, although naturally the resolution was inherently much lower.

The problem came when WB released MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM as a second feature on the DVD version of HOUSE OF WAX. This time the transfer was very sharp indeed (as DVDs of 1933 Technicolor films go) but some misinformed colorist changed the color balance to look red and blue instead of orangish and greenish, resulting in pinkish fleshtones replacing the quite natural ones in the original and throwing off the rest of the color. This color can be manually corrected by viewers who know it's wrong and also know how to readjust their "tint" settings, a minor hassle, but it's not too hard to make it look pretty close to the way it should -- although of course it must be reset back to the default for regular viewing.

I've not yet seen the new Blu-ray, but according to reports, apparently WB merely ported over the SD transfer of MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM used for the DVD, but I've not heard anywhere for sure whether they also left the faulty color balance or returned it to the correct look that the Laserdisc had. If the color is wrong, it should still be fixable by consumers, but of course a major part of the whole point of digital technology is supposed to be avoiding the need for constant manual adjustments between movies.

I'm still very much looking forward to the full-HD and 3-D transfer of HOUSE OF WAX on 3-D Blu-ray. If and when MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM ever gets its own HD restoration/release (hopefully with some other 2-color Technicolor material in HD like DOCTOR X and some of the Metrotone/Vitaphone shorts), I'll certainly want to get the Blu-ray to have them in HD.

But why did Everson keep complaining about the quality of the 70s restoration? He wrote in "Classics of the Horror Film" in the mid 70s that the restoration was made "as cheaply and with as little effort as possible", "robbing" the film of It's color, that it looked like "a black and white film arificially colored" with "single tones, blues or ambers, dominating for reels at a time", and that the "flaming reds and bubbling greens had vanished entierly" .To be fair, the new prints only had a short burst of blue before reel changes, and were more amber.When I saw a 35mm print in 1976, It looked more like a color film than Everson said it did, but I didn't see flaming reds or bubbling greens-I saw flaming whites and bubbling greys.But other details like Glenda Farrel's nail polish and a pair of dice looked red, and other things looked green, like Fay Wray's dress. This had me confused.I'm sure that was a new print I saw, not an original nitrate-I saw it at a movieplex in Boston.Then when I saw it on TV, it looked a lot worse-It DID look mostly sepia!Was Everson only judging the new version through TV showings?(And did the 16MM print's colors not register well through Telecine machines?).It just looked to me like the 35MM version's color was a lot better than the 16, but still a little washed out.