DVD Release of new L & H UCLA/LOC restorations

[Paul Penna]

Robert Harris has some troubling things to say on the Home Theater Forum:

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... ay.367630/

[Marr&Colton]

Received my set late last week from Amazon.

Checked all 6 DVDs and here's my personal assessment:

Some of the shorts are noticeably much cleaner than the 2011 RHI 10-disc set.
Echoing the review linked in earlier post, I noticed some almost looked like HD video, not film.
Sons of the Desert looked the same as the RHI set release.

These are definitely improved transfers, but, to my old film tastes, sometimes lack the "film-feel" sharpness
and "original print" contrast that was prevalent in the 2011 RHI set.

I certainly applaud the care and work that went into these new discs!

[Paul Penna]

Checked all 6 DVDs and here's my personal assessment:

Just to verify - you have the DVD version, not the Blu-Ray, correct?

[Marr&Colton]

Yes, I have the DVD version--but also have the RHI set in DVD, which I am comparing it to.

Other than clearer resolution from a Blu-Ray, the differences I noted in comparison to 35mm film probably wouldn't be solved with an upgrade to Blu-Ray. The DVD version is plenty clean.

[Thad Komorowski]

From the Blu-Ray:







Say whatever you want to about these (I've heard it all) but they still look pretty good to me.

[Nick_M]

I saw some of the UCLA L&H restorations in 35mm, and they look great. So when I heard the people in charge boast about further cleanup on computers, I took it to mean that they would eventually be over-processed. I've seen so many restorations on home video, from every boutique label, introduce artifacts worse than any possible damage (Napoleon being one of the most egregious), that it's easy for me to believe that this set has major restoration flaws.

[Marr&Colton]

No doubt about it---this new release IS an improvement. Is it what movie patrons saw in the 1930s?
I remember many 35mm screenings in theatres in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s.....even the best film prints properly projected didn't look like what we are used to today on Blu-Ray.

[1963jpl]

Robert Harris has some troubling things to say on the Home Theater Forum:

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... ay.367630/

Randy Skretvedt offers his perspective too. He knows these films inside and out. I trust his judgment.

I've only spot checked the set so far, but the films I've looked at are a significant improvement over those in The Essential Collection DVD set.

[silentfilm]

The a short story on the release at We Are Movie Geeks.

[bigshot]

I think this is just petty rivalry between competing restoration teams. It really doesn't matter. I've bought every iteration of the L&H films going all the way back to the VHS days, and I'll buy this one too. There is a yin and yang to old films. One transfer might be better for this, another better for that. I love these films, so I will pull out another $50 to get a new and improved version. These are considerably better than the Way Out West/Sons of the Desert blu-ray that came out a year or so ago, leagues ahead of the European DVDs, and a different universe than the old VHS. Just like I have three or four different versions of the Keaton features, I don't mind having multiple versions of these. I remember back when I was amazed that I owned a VHS of Sons of the Desert that I could watch anytime I wanted. I'm still amazed and delighted.

I don't demand perfection. Only God is perfect. I just want a decent HD presentation of films I love. This fills that bill better than any other release. I have no doubt it will make me happy. I'm sure the DVD versions will be fine too. DVDs look a lot better than they used to. On older films, there isn't a great deal of difference in image quality sometimes.

By the way, if you click through those screen caps, don't scroll down while your wife is in the room!

[Smari1989]

This may be an incredibly obvious question if one's read all the posts here, but I don't have it in me to read the whole thread right now, so -- do these restorations contain the original opening titles, or are they derived from the late 1930s reissues (such as many, or most of the video releases of Laurel & Hardy's shorts have been in the past)?

To be clear, the opening titles aren't that important to me, I'm just curious!

[1963jpl]

This may be an incredibly obvious question if one's read all the posts here, but I don't have it in me to read the whole thread right now, so -- do these restorations contain the original opening titles, or are they derived from the late 1930s reissues (such as many, or most of the video releases of Laurel & Hardy's shorts have been in the past)?

To be clear, the opening titles aren't that important to me, I'm just curious!

I haven't watched the entire set yet, but the films I have watched have the original titles. It looks like the "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy" intro for Brats had to be recreated; it must not be present on any of the available prints.

Berthmarks and Brats are also available with their original and reissue soundtracks.

[dodonoseo]

The ones I've watched so far look great, a vast improvement on the versions in the RHI set, and for the first time one can appreciate the production values and see that the early 30s Roach shorts were as slick as any studio product at that time. Granted L&H movies were about making one laugh, not admiring the sets or locations. But the flat, soupy gray-scale of most of the existing versions does take something away-after all, these WERE films that were distributed by MGM!

[sethb]

Berthmarks and Brats are also available with their original and reissue soundtracks.

Although I haven't yet seen the new L&H set, in the DVD version of BRATS that I do have with the original score, the volume level of the music is very low for the first several minutes of the film. It's a shame, because the tune ["Satisfied"] is snappy, well-played and a perfect accompaniment to the on-screen action.

Since BRATS is an early talkie, I'm wondering if that low volume was deliberate and represented a hesitation on the part of Roach to use underscoring in the first place, which was a new technique at that time. Or is the low volume just a case of poor mixing for the original soundtrack, or for the DVD remastering? SETH

[1963jpl]

Berthmarks and Brats are also available with their original and reissue soundtracks.

Although I haven't yet seen the new L&H set, in the DVD version of BRATS that I do have with the original score, the volume level of the music is very low for the first several minutes of the film. It's a shame, because the tune ["Satisfied"] is snappy, well-played and a perfect accompaniment to the on-screen action.

Since BRATS is an early talkie, I'm wondering if that low volume was deliberate and represented a hesitation on the part of Roach to use underscoring in the first place, which was a new technique at that time. Or is the low volume just a case of poor mixing for the original soundtrack, or for the DVD remastering? SETH

I can only say that the 1930 Brats soundtrack on this new set sounds good to my ear.

[1963jpl]

The ones I've watched so far look great, a vast improvement on the versions in the RHI set, and for the first time one can appreciate the production values and see that the early 30s Roach shorts were as slick as any studio product at that time. Granted L&H movies were about making one laugh, not admiring the sets or locations. But the flat, soupy gray-scale of most of the existing versions does take something away-after all, these WERE films that were distributed by MGM!

I noticed something in Way Out West that I have never seen before: a wire on the harness that is lifting Dinah the mule onto the saloon balcony is visible in one shot. Way Out West is certainly sharper and cleaner here than the version on The Essentials Collection.

[martinola]

Since BRATS is an early talkie, I'm wondering if that low volume was deliberate and represented a hesitation on the part of Roach to use underscoring in the first place, which was a new technique at that time. Or is the low volume just a case of poor mixing for the original soundtrack

While I have no first hand knowledge of the original Post-Production of "Brats", I can say that I think it likely was caused by early issues with mixing. I worked in a Post-Production house in the 80s that still had the 35mm dubbers. They were old machines that only ran in one direction. (If you were mixing to a photographic optical track, there would be no point to being able to reverse.) Anyway, I noticed a tendency for us to get as close as we could to a good mix and then move on as studio time was expensive. This type of thing may be part of what was at play in "Brats".

Along the same lines; I had a print of "Busy Bodies" back in the 70s that had the music track mixed way too low in the second reel. I believe the same situation was at work. Fortunately some modern mixing engineers are willing to "push the levels" between the effects and dialogue to improve things somewhat during re-mastering. On the other hand - I dunno.

- Martin

[bigshot]

Deep Discount sent me a shipping notice today. Should be fun!

[Marr&Colton]

Just decided to sell my new set just received last week.
DVD 6 disc set for $36 with free media mail shipping in USA.
Listed on the Exchange section of Nitrateville.

[Salty Dog]

Deep Discount sent me a shipping notice today. Should be fun!

I placed an order with them a while ago. Have not received a shipping notice yet.

[silentfilm]

My BluRay from Amazon is out for delivery!

[BarneyS]

Got my set yesterday and the restorations are wonderful and are miles above what has previously been released on home video. That being said some of the complaints about being overly digitally processed are fair but everyone's mileage will vary. Sons of the Desert looks AMAZING; I can find no fault with it and does display a nice grain. Come Clean though, to pick one example, while obviously beautifully restored and looking far better than before is fairly waxy and grainless. These are still minor complaints though, especially when you put previous releases up against this one. I can't imagine anyone actually being unhappy with this set. The one complaint that I consider serious is that the discs are so damn hard to get out of the case, they are really held in there tightly.

[1963jpl]

Something happened with The Tree in a Test Tube; Stan and Babe's hats look like black holes. Other than that, the image and the colors looks great! It is possible it's something to do with DVD software on my laptop.

But that's a minor complaint. The image quality of these films looks great, by and large. I'm also not understanding these complaints that the films look overprocessed and more like video than film. They look like film to me. Am I dumb?

[Stemphaus]

Got a question for those of you who, like myself, purchased this 4 disc set on blu-ray. In my set on blu-ray Disc 3, within the 2-reeler SCRAM! at the 16:53 time mark there is a visual glitch, and when I freeze frame and advance one-frame-at-a-time to this time mark there appears a lone, out of sequence film frame of the butler at the top of the stairs. When played at normal speed this out of sequence frame produces a noticeable visual glitch.

Is what I've described above evident on other's blu-ray copies? or do I have a lone defective copy?

I checked SCRAM! on my old Vivendi DVD set and this mistake is nowhere in evidence.

Thanks for any insight!

[BarneyS]

Yep I see it too. If you go back to around the 13:01 minute mark you can see it in context where it belongs. It's just after Arthur Houseman falls down the stairs.

Got a question for those of you who, like myself, purchased this 4 disc set on blu-ray. In my set on blu-ray Disc 3, within the 2-reeler SCRAM! at the 16:53 time mark there is a visual glitch, and when I freeze frame and advance one-frame-at-a-time to this time mark there appears a lone, out of sequence film frame of the butler at the top of the stairs. When played at normal speed this out of sequence frame produces a noticeable visual glitch.

Is what I've described above evident on other's blu-ray copies? or do I have a lone defective copy?

I checked SCRAM! on my old Vivendi DVD set and this mistake is nowhere in evidence.

Thanks for any insight!

[Mike Gebert]

I spotchecked the entire set here in "Old Movies in HD."

I'm sure other oddities will turn up, but overall the films look amazingly good. I could be convinced that a few are slightly heavy on the edge enhancement or something else done to heighten the contrast, but I do not at all agree with anything like this:

I've seen so many restorations on home video, from every boutique label, introduce artifacts worse than any possible damage (Napoleon being one of the most egregious), that it's easy for me to believe that this set has major restoration flaws.

[bigshot]

Supposedly the third disc is the worst... I watched Busy Bodies and The Chimp last night and they looked fine. A little soft, and there were a couple of scenes that were very soft, but overall it looked great. Much better than I've ever seen them look before. I think this brouhaha had more to do with egos than it did with image quality.

[Thad Komorowski]

The Chimp is from the single surviving 35mm element that was only discovered a few years ago. If anyone has a better copy, we’d love to see it!

[Solarbearsct]

The Chimp is from the single surviving 35mm element that was only discovered a few years ago. If anyone has a better copy, we’d love to see it!

UCLA Film & Television Archive list The Chimp being preserved from a 35mm nitrate lavender picture master and a 35mm nitrate composite fine grain master.

www.cinema.ucla.edu/support/laurel-and-hardy

[Ray Faiola]

Yep I see it too. If you go back to around the 13:01 minute mark you can see it in context where it belongs. It's just after Arthur Houseman falls down the stairs.

Got a question for those of you who, like myself, purchased this 4 disc set on blu-ray. In my set on blu-ray Disc 3, within the 2-reeler SCRAM! at the 16:53 time mark there is a visual glitch, and when I freeze frame and advance one-frame-at-a-time to this time mark there appears a lone, out of sequence film frame of the butler at the top of the stairs. When played at normal speed this out of sequence frame produces a noticeable visual glitch.

Yeah, I caught this. Bush league error that should have been caught. But there are gems in the set, including THEIR FIRST MISTAKE, which looks and sounds great.