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I woud like to discuss with you the theme about the alegedd lost of original technicolor photography in Fox fims shot in technicolor.

As many of you may know, Fox did a great stupidity decades ago, to deserve the "hall of shame" of fim preservation. They simply copied the technicolor negatives to crap CRI color films, which had a garbage rendering of shadow tones, and twron away the technicolor original negatives.

The films Leave her to Heaven and Drum Among Mohank were digitaly restored in High resolution, but the restorers could not get back the shadow detais of the original fim, cause the CRI máster simply did not registered such details. The weak color of the digital restoration is said to be result of the poor quality of the surviving CRI máster.
So they said the Original Technicolor Photography Work It's Lost !!!


Take a look:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank


It's far from look like original technicolor, and quite silly sometimes
But if we look to many original technicolor prints, especially from 30's and early 40's, the prints hade a poor shadow detail too, with little nuances, looking somewhat dark.

Is a original technicolor print enough to say the original photography survived??? After all the original film was saw in such prints anyway when released.
I believe there are original technicolor prints for these films.


Why the digital restoration could not at least fix the middle range and highlights of the image?????


I really would like that a expert in technicolor could respond my questions.

Just an observation; but look at Colbert in this frame grab from the blu-ray you mentioned. I can readily see now why she preferred her left side of the face to be photographed in movies! The right hand side has a slight lazy eye, a small, but noticeable, scar on her cheek, and a dimple on her chin when smiling.

If you cover up one side of her face and then the other, you will see the difference.

Yes, Colbert and Lombard have this peculiar thing, pretier side for photography.


Robert A Harris about Fox CRI máster and destruction of negatives:


http://www.hometheaterforum.com/topic/3 ... the-1970s/" target="_blank



"Around 1976, with an apparent fear of nitrate stock, certain execs at Fox decided that it would be appropriate to "convert" to safety any and all nitrate holdings.

There are two ways to perform this. The first, and least expensive, would be to create new safety fine grains from each of the original black & white nitrate Technicolor records, and then re-composite said records to a new color dupe negative. This would be performed after a test print had been produced, checking for dupes, alignment of records and other potential problems.

The precise same methodology would deal with black & white productions, less the alignment tests.

These actions would have preserved the library AT ITS ORIGINAL QUALITY.

Once all elements would be produced, tested and answer printed, the original nitrate elements would go into archival storage, lest they be needed again. The LoC, UCLA, GEH, or MOMA would all have been perfect places to shepherd the elements.

The other way to "preserve" an entire library would be the route taken by Fox, one of the most notoriously idiotic things ever done in the history of film, and IMHO worse than the great silent purge at Universal, c. 1948.

What these knights of film preservation did, was to take original Technicolor negatives, and without testing, combine the records to a single safety color dupe negative stock called CRI, thus saving one generation of loss, and not going through an intermediate stage.

CRI stock was not meant for archival printing, and generally has a shelf life of less than ten years, properly stored, before it quickly begins to fade.

The fact that proper alignment was not done was error one.

The fact that CRI stock was used was error two.

Had proper testing been performed, there would have been nothing wrong using CRI as an immediate printing element, but not for archival use. While the resultant prints could potentially, if created from fully exposed negatives, be very pretty, there were registration errors printed in, and color timing generally did not replicate the original intent of the filmmakers.

Once the CRIs were produced, the lab then made error three.

New separation masters, from partially registered, improperly graded, and in many cases, overly dupey and contrasty CRIs were struck. These new "archival" elements, replicated in quick and dirty separated records, what had been improperly exposed to the CRI.

Once all of these miracles were performed, every original nitrate Technicolor three-strip negative was junked. Every (I believe one survived) set of three-strip nitrate fine grains were junked.

Every black & white nitrate negative was junked.

Every black & white fine grain master was junked of Fox's holdings. A small number may have survived at archives.

Fortunately, the Fox nitrate studio prints went to UCLA.

Rumor has it, that the nitrate elements were taken out into the Pacific on barges, and dumped, but that may just be rumor.

Today, because of the unprofessionalism of those who came before them, do the best that they can with what survives.

None of the Techniciolor films have been restored, no matter what you may read. Films such as The Black Swan, which won the Academy Award for Best Color Cinematography, and Leave Her to Heaven, with its beautiful Technicolorish tones are digital clean-ups based upon the extant elements, with a good attempt at making them look nice. But far from original.

While digital technology is helpful, it cannot repair the damage done to these films.

Every time I think of this unfortunate situation, Henry Hull's words, as spoken in both Jesse James and The Return of Frank James come to mind.

Fortunately, every other studio had the foresight and technical knowledge to take care of and properly store their libraries.

Let's look to the bright side.

RAH "

If you look from the perspective of the early 70s, Fox probably did what they thought was best from a business standpoint at the time.

This was when the AFI and other organizations were highlighting problems with nitrate materials (remember the "Nitrate Won't Wait!" campaign?) Legal and administrative staff at the studio might have raised the issue of potential libility and insurance problems coming from storing the materials. As far as donating it to an institution, they may not have wanted the potential financial obligations that might have come from supporting the institution's storage and restoration work on the materials.

In a commercial sense, the only outlet left for these films was television. I'm guessing that's why they took the route they did - quick, inexpensive work that would have produced elements suitable for tv syndication. At that time, there was a big "nostalgia boom" and probably thought interest in the films would probably die out with the generation that grew up with them.

Let's be thankful we've got what we have.

Thank God that M-G-M and Warner Bros. didn't do that!! Imagine films such as GWTW and "Oz" in the same state as some of these 20th Century Fox films! I've seen Shirley Temple sing "Animal Crackers In My Soup" in one of her Fox Films a million times, and I always wondered why the same jump-cut was in the middle of it on every single print, [???] (some footage is missing - only about 20 frames or so, but its in the middle of the song), and I've often wondered why Fox have never repaired this damage, even though they have taken the time to colourize this film?? Well now I know!! The jump cut is inherent in the actual negative! So unless they ever find a nitrate print from 1935 that film will always look murky and have jump-cuts in it!

Thanks for the input folks.

But back to the original questions, if someone can help:

-Why the original photographyfor such films it's considered lost, if the original technicolor prints have a similar issue with details in shadows ???

-Why the current digital technology can't get back the technicolor look at least to the midle range and some of the hightlights, at least???

-If original technicolor prints survived for these films, why can't the the image of the prints be aligned and combined somehow with the CRI máster (sharper with better definition) to get some of the colors of print and the sharpness/efinition of the CRI másters (shot from câmera negatives) ?????