Observation re: THE CROWD on TCM this evening...

[Robert Israel Music]

This is entirely off this topic, but the misinformation about the running time for METROPOLIS is absurd. The 16mm copy had practically all of the footage from the 1927 full length release–roughly 153 minutes, but in fact, it ran a little bit less as it is missing five to ten minutes of scenes. This gets into the discussion of 24 frames per second compared with (NOT versus) 16 frames per second. As simply put as possible:

If you have 9 feet of 35mm film, that means you have 144 separate images. Project it at 24 frames of these images PER second, and you have 6 seconds of moving image. The same exact 9 feet of film projected at 16 frames PER second means that the same exact footage now runs at 9 seconds.The images are identical, the footage has not been altered one single bit, but the velocity of the film through the projector has been significantly changed and the projected image, in its moving form, has been altered dramatically.

Fritz Lang was the author and director, the one producing and supervising all the aspects of the METROPOLIS production (including the editing), and it was his vision and experience, his understanding and taste regarding what he wanted projected when this film appeared in cinemas–he made very clear that 24 frames per second, 90 feet of film at a rate of ten minutes, 27.432 meters of film would be the correct running speed of the film. It is fine that there are those who feel this is too fast...fine, that falls into a matter of taste which is completely subjective, but then you must not claim that Fritz Lang's work has been ruined by the current editions because they are presenting the film at the speed the director indicated. Second takes, alternate takes are of no argument here because they were still assembled under the direction of Fritz Lang and the running speed was still the same. (The New Zealand copy did not provide gigantic amounts of footage, nevertheless, it was important to the restoration). Did independent theaters project at a different rate? Possibly, but this would have been directly against Lang's wishes.

A fellow Nitrateville contributor/visitor suggested that when watching natural film projected on a large screen, in a large theater, may allow the human eye to scan much more of a "canvas" and hence, the receiving of information is possibly different from that of when watching on a small screen, particularly a television screen at home. In other words, the speed seems less to affect us because we are scanning much more rapidly. (I do not know if I agree with this entirely, but it is a good point of view worth exploring). Again, it seems to come down to a question of taste, viewing experiences, and how much we allow ourselves to be influenced by natural movement via sound film and televised images. Even well into the late 1930s, slowing down the speed of a camera while filming, to allow the final projected image to appear much faster than was actually shot, was very common. Even in the 1920s, studios used this technique to great effect. To assume that all films were projected at "natural" speed is completely false and inaccurate. Even by 1925, Erno Rapee (perhaps one of cinema's first and arguably greatest scorers of motion pictures) wrote that the average speed of projecting film was 90 feet per minute–24 frames per second.

There is certainly room for interpretation when presenting pre-sound era films these days, but then one must certainly take a responsible role and have good reasons for why one would go against a presentation practice of the day when the case is that documentation exists and substantiates a thoroughly valid decision made by the film makers themselves at the time of the original production and premiere.

With all due respect to the engagements of debate and argument, vituperative attacks upon the Murnau Stiftung, particularly those which are based upon a conflict of taste, are not effective means in garnering support for a potentially valid point of view. I am very grateful for their work, their investment of money and time, their assembling of a group of well educated and seasoned professionals (Martin Koerber is beyond reproach, and Enno Patalas' initial work is a keystone in this project), to continue the process of restoring Fritz Lang's magnificent production. I have had the tremendous privilege and honor to conduct Gottfried Huppertz's brilliant score to the latest restoration with full symphony orchestra and the current restored edition. It is safe to say that I know this score intimately well, as I do this film. It still has the power to excite, to stun, to overwhelm a viewer with staggering results. For me, the film images and the music work perfectly as Fritz Lang had intended them...at 24 frames per second.

Robert Israel

[Real_McCoy]

nice post but these people are not worthy of your trust. the disc looks like a joke going way too fast. why not show Birth of a Nation at sound speed? it would look ridiculous, yes. I am on here and I dont care if 400 million people dont agree with me. They are wrong. Metropolis was shown in 3 1/2 hour mode in its initial run. Then the film was stolen and destroyed. Those are the facts - all the bullshit from Murnau Stiftung cannot alter that. They created the worst restoration ever done. They blew a golden opportunity to make that movie right after the terrible wrongs of the past. Thats the worst part of it.
They made the destruction of Metropolis a virtue and lied about it.

[Danny Burk]

nice post but these people are not worthy of your trust. the disc looks like a joke going way too fast. why not show Birth of a Nation at sound speed? it would look ridiculous, yes. I am on here and I dont care if 400 million people dont agree with me. They are wrong. Metropolis was shown in 3 1/2 hour mode in its initial run. Then the film was stolen and destroyed. Those are the facts - all the bullshit from Murnau Stiftung cannot alter that. They created the worst restoration ever done. They blew a golden opportunity to make that movie right after the terrible wrongs of the past. Thats the worst part of it.
They made the destruction of Metropolis a virtue and lied about it.

You've made your point......over and over. Time to stop....as NV rules say, you can make the point 2 times but not ten.

[Donald Binks]

As per usual, an erudite post from Mr. Israel which should sort things out for the disbelievers (it didn't unfortunately - see above) - and also I thank him for his commendations re the Murneau Stiftung. Without this organisation, we who appreciate the wonders of the silent film would not have the wonderful material that is now before us.

I can well understand why premier houses would seek to run films at 24fps (Mr. Israel's reference to Erno Rapee). Would this speed not guarantee a clearer image and reduce the flicker effect given by projecting at some of the slower speeds?

[oldposterho]

So were projectors running on electric motors by 1927 or were they still hand cranked? I guess if they had motors the projectionist had some sort of rheostat that could control the projection speed? Otherwise it seems like the speed would be pretty much fixed by the projector manufacturer and the quality and quantity of the electricity at the theater.

FWIW, I watched the Murnau Metropolis a few weeks ago and to tell the truth, didn't notice the speed at all, was just digging on the new footage of The Thin Man and how much it helps the story. That said, 29 or 30 fps would be absurd, I can't imagine why that was on the score, unless it's some metric thing that doesn't translate to rill 'Merican measurments...

[entredeuxguerres]

So were projectors running on electric motors by 1927...

Long before--as well as being available for attachment to the camera also.

[Real_McCoy]

nice post but these people are not worthy of your trust. the disc looks like a joke going way too fast. why not show Birth of a Nation at sound speed? it would look ridiculous, yes. I am on here and I dont care if 400 million people dont agree with me. They are wrong. Metropolis was shown in 3 1/2 hour mode in its initial run. Then the film was stolen and destroyed. Those are the facts - all the bullshit from Murnau Stiftung cannot alter that. They created the worst restoration ever done. They blew a golden opportunity to make that movie right after the terrible wrongs of the past. Thats the worst part of it.
They made the destruction of Metropolis a virtue and lied about it.

You've made your point......over and over. Time to stop....as NV rules say, you can make the point 2 times but not ten.

thanks for calling me a troll. guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Davis might have demanded that his name be removed since they were altering his score.

I would have thought it more likely if he knew what was being done to his music (and the film) he would have requested a replacement score. Guess it depends whether he would have any say in the matter at that stage. Seems a bloody cheek, though...

Interestingly Vidor came over to England when THE CROWD was shown at the London Film Festival. I came across the booklet recently and couldn't remember if I'd realised this as I was at college at the time. Turns out his talk / interview was in the smaller NFT auditorium so a ticket would have been hard to obtain, but fancy doing that to a director of Vidor's calibre...

[Mike Gebert]

Although this thread went way off the original subject, it's worth pointing out that The Crowd is currently on Criterion Channel in the Davis-scored version. Mind you, it's clearly an old transfer that looks like watching the laserdisc. Nevertheless, it's there and worth catching on one of its rare appearances. Just think of it like watching some collector's 16mm dupe in a church basement.

[Frame Rate]

Although this thread went way off the original subject, it's worth pointing out that The Crowd is currently on Criterion Channel in the Davis-scored version. Mind you, it's clearly an old transfer that looks like watching the laserdisc. Nevertheless, it's there and worth catching on one of its rare appearances. Just think of it like watching some collector's 16mm dupe in a church basement.

Carl Davis' score for THE CROWD lasts 105 minutes on the MGM Home Video VHS and Laserdisc releases, while the alternate transfer TCM has used for NTSC television runs a brisk 98 minutes. If anyone has either a foreign/PAL commercial VHS copy or a home recording of the film from when it ran on British television, please chime in with those running times too. As to the length of the Criterion stream -- maybe we'll find out soon.

[Mike Gebert]

93:19 on Criterion, undoubtedly the same transfer as TCM uses.

[Histogram]

The Thames version of "The Crowd" with the Carl Davis score that is on the Arte channel online is 104'.

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/023149-00 ... der-masse/

[Mike Gebert]

Is that difference the PAL to NTSC differential? I've never heard of any cuts to the film, though I know early on there was a different "happy" ending (but I've never heard of it being shown in modern times).

[Paul Penna]

Is that difference the PAL to NTSC differential? I've never heard of any cuts to the film, though I know early on there was a different "happy" ending (but I've never heard of it being shown in modern times).

The PAL>NTSC differential is 4%. A film running 105 minutes at 24fps on NTSC would be 100min 48sec at 25fps on PAL. But 105>93 minutes difference is about 11%.

[Nick_M]

A few years ago, I caught a screening at The Autry of a 35mm print with the original sound track. It ran about 90 minutes at 24fps with a tiny bit of step-printing to cover scattered missing frames.

[Jonathan]

If anyone has either a foreign/PAL commercial VHS copy or a home recording of the film from when it ran on British television, please chime in with those running times too.

My ex-VHS recording of the original 1980s UK Channel 4 broadcast, with ads removed, of Photoplay's version is 1:43:32 (similar to the Arte timing). As this was a specially created "video presentation" - as stated before the MGM logo - PAL speed-up is probably a red herring here. It wasn't simply a film print being broadcast at 25fps. Photoplay's telecine method, developed for the HOLLYWOOD series and revolutionary in its day, allowed for any frame rate and - though I don't know about THE CROWD in particular - I have read that Kevin Brownlow sometimes did not maintain a constant frame rate throughout a film but preferred to adjust it for different scenes. He might also have decided on a speed slower than 24fps for the whole film (as suggested back in 2015 by the OP of this thread!)

[Frame Rate]

If anyone has either a foreign/PAL commercial VHS copy or a home recording of the film from when it ran on British television, please chime in with those running times too.

My ex-VHS recording of the original 1980s UK Channel 4 broadcast, with ads removed, of Photoplay's version is 1:43:32 (similar to the Arte timing). As this was a specially created "video presentation" - as stated before the MGM logo - PAL speed-up is probably a red herring here. It wasn't simply a film print being broadcast at 25fps. Photoplay's telecine method, developed for the HOLLYWOOD series and revolutionary in its day, allowed for any frame rate and - though I don't know about THE CROWD in particular - I have read that Kevin Brownlow sometimes did not maintain a constant frame rate throughout a film but preferred to adjust it for different scenes. He might also have decided on a speed slower than 24fps for the whole film (as suggested back in 2015 by the OP of this thread!)

So the UK's original 1980s telecast of the film included interruptions for advertising? Hmm.. Do you recall if the other Brownlow/Gill/Davis restorations were also broken up for ads when they first ran in Britain?

With the running time of your ~40-year old off-air recording roughly matching the length of the ~30-year old VHS and Laserdisc copies subsequently sold in the US, my guess is that back then, MGM Home Video must have used as source material either a dub of Photoplay Productions' PAL analog video master (run through then-state-of-the-art conversion technology) or an alternate analog NTSC video master also made by Photoplay in anticipation of televising in America.

Nevertheless, when the film finally debuted on American TCM the running time was considerably shorter, strongly suggesting that Warner's technicians either did a second transfer (with or without Photoplay's approval) and altered/accelerated Davis' score to fit the result -- or simply accelerated (by the technology available at the time) both the picture and sound of the same video master previously used for the US Laser and VHS releases.

[Jonathan]

So the UK's original 1980s telecast of the film included interruptions for advertising? Hmm.. Do you recall if the other Brownlow/Gill/Davis restorations were also broken up for ads when they first ran in Britain?

Yes, all of them, at least in the 1980s and '90s when they were televised on Channel 4 which is a commercial UK channel, though in its early years, C4 had trouble securing enough advertisers, which occasionally led to programmes without breaks - or breaks without adverts! The Davis scores even seemed designed - or adapted in the video versions - for ad breaks, halting or slowing to a pause rather than being faded out.

[Histogram]

Play both versions side-by-side with the longer one sped up to see if they have the same content.

Or check the pitch of the scores. The simple analog way of changing speed means comparable increase or decrease in pitch (like fast/slow records and tapes). More-complex digital speed changes allow maintaining pitch; but it seems that this discrepancy is from a while ago, so probably not a digital adjustment.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

So the UK's original 1980s telecast of the film included interruptions for advertising? Hmm.. Do you recall if the other Brownlow/Gill/Davis restorations were also broken up for ads when they first ran in Britain?

Yes, all of them, at least in the 1980s and '90s when they were televised on Channel 4 which is a commercial UK channel, though in its early years, C4 had trouble securing enough advertisers, which occasionally led to programmes without breaks - or breaks without adverts! The Davis scores even seemed designed - or adapted in the video versions - for ad breaks, halting or slowing to a pause rather than being faded out.

Although I find ads an irritant generally, it did seem daft that when the BBC showed longer films or double-bills, that there wasn't a short intermission, either as built into the film or between films in order to enable viewers to go to the lavatory without missing anything.

[syd]

From the documentary, The Men who Made the Movies.

King Vidor talks about his movie The Crowd:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SQOxFFQn1vw