That's Entertainment: Part 2 (1976)

[David Alp]

A heads up for those film buffs in the UK. "That's Entertainment! Part 2" has just started over on BBC2 and BBC2-HD. I am watching it in HD, and now I can definitely see that Turner Entertainment has upgraded ALL (or maybe 99%) of the clips they are utilising in this film from their M-G-M film library.

I remember when I first watched this movie on UK Television in about 1981 or 1982 when I was only 11 the film had a very patchwork feel to it. Some of the clips were quite good; but others were really rough and covered in tramline scratches and looked washed out etc.

But now, its very obvious that they have replaced all of those battered clips with the restored versions of the same clip, from their film library. Kudos to them for doing it! It must have been a massive job..

I have even spotted some High Definition clips of films that have NEVER had a blu-ray release before; such as "For Me And My Gal" (1942).

In fact! What is ironic about this -- is that the stunning restoration that has been done over the years to the older Technicolor MGM films - leaves the newly-shot 1976 sequences with Fred Astair and Gene Kelly looking grainy and dull and cruddy because in 1976 they had stopped using a 3 strip Technicolor camera, and were only using a monopack camera, which was not as good.

[Phototone]

Interesting. Thats Entertainment Part 2 was a feature film compilation intended to be exhibited in 35mm in theaters. If the complete feature was digitized recently in HD, then the whole thing would be higher resolution than the previous video version. That's Entertainment (all three) were shot and mastered on film, to make film prints for theater use long before HD came along, and 35mm has more potential resolution than HD video does. Having seen at least one of these in a theatrical release, on 35mm, I didn't notice any inferior clips (other than due to their age making them less sharp). Technicolor 3-strip cameras were mostly obsolete by mid 1950's, and all Technicolor releases after that were shot on conventional color negative film stock on regular 35mm cameras, long before the new scenes for That's Entertainment Part 2 were filmed. I would say it was more a choice to make the new segments less than vibrant, than limitations of technology. A "monopak" or conventional 35mm Eastmancolor negative film stock does not have to be dull. Look at all the fabulous movies made after the discontinuation of the Three-strip camera. Technicolor continued to use their dye-transfer style of release print long after the use of the 3-strip camera was discontinued. Technicolor release prints tend to have a much longer shelf-life resistance from fading than Eastmancolor prints do, but we are talking about negative image capture here, not prints.