War Of The Worlds and This Island Earth Never Had It So Good
Watched both these as fresh transfers, War on TCM, Earth a new-released
Blu-Ray. Neither have looked better … ever. War of the Worlds is long venerated
by my age group. Paramount had it back in theatres during the mid-sixties, leased
to NBC for 2-21-67 broadcast, then did new ad accessories for a 1977 combo withWhen Worlds Collideaimed at theatres drunk on Star Wars and kin. Earlier upgrade for War of the Worlds exposed wires to hoist up Martian spacecraft, a
trauma to some who didn’t like fx tricks laid bare. Latest tweak restores the illusion by erasing 53’s flaw, which wasn’t evident then
due to IB Tech prints softer than dead-sharp imagery we are heir to. I can
enjoy War, wires or no, being not a purist one way or the other. What pleases
me is less movie magic than how Paramount creates a 50’s sound stage
other-worldliness of theatre fronts (Samson and Delilah is playing, so why do
townfolk bother about saucers landing nearby?), a campground with fire and tents
where you can feel walls around Gene Barry and companions, then a square dance flavored by hot dogs and way of life that won’t be back. No wonder space invaders
wanted us in 1953, life so serene as it appears to be here.
This Island Earth has a trick I never expected to see/hear on Blu-Ray,
Perspecta sound, an ersatz stereo where voices could be heard from left or
right according to player placement, a neat trick even if it won’t achieve high-fidelity
as practiced by 20th Fox in their multi-track releases. Perspecta
was used by Paramount, MGM, Universal, others, as cheap alternative to true
stereo. Theatres got a decoder to play back Perspecta as recorded on otherwise
ordinary soundtracks. The Liberty had Perspecta, probably before stereo (MGM
was enhancing tracks to some of their cartoons in the early 50’s), but the
control panel, which looked like an elaborate ham radio, was put to storage and
left there even unto the mid-70’s when I came upon it and wondered what-heck “Perspecta”
was. There was a collector I met in the mid-80’s who put me wise. Turns out it
was a simple process … you could get gear from Radio Shack and build your own
decoder, so he said, not reckoning with my utter lack of tech skill. What perked
ears was Michael’s assurance that any 16mm print of a Perspecta release that
had a variable density track would play back with separated sound, provided you
had a decoder. So here I apparently was with 16mm tracks I could bounce all
over the room, only rub being lack of a device to rightly do it. Being not
science-geek enough to construct that, I let Perspecta remain the stuff of
collecting dreams. Now that comes true thanks to effort of master minds
Jack Theakston, Greg Kintz, and Bob Furmanek, their study, then application, of Perspecta
enabling us to experience the process anew after sixty-five years. This Island
Earth is available from Shout! Factory, War Of The Worlds had on Blu-Ray and even 4K.
Perspecta was a cleaver solution for using a mono optical track for simulated stereo. It used low frequency tones as a control track to direct the sound left, right, or center, with a notch filter to keep the control tones from going out to the theater's speaker system.
Perspecta was also used in several Japanese movies - Criterion remastered Kurosawa's "Yojimbo", "Sanjuro", and "The Hidden Fortress" with the original Perspecta tracks on an alternate 3 channel track on the blu-ray.
I first saw WAR OF THE WORLDS in a theatre in the 1960s. Half way through the movie a restaurant next door to the cinema caught fire. The theatre had to be evacuated. Talk about realism.
Nice still from This Island Earth. Faith Domergue said in an interview, that the jumpsuit she had to wear in these scenes was so tight, that she just didn't bother with any underwear.
The only movies I ever heard my father talk about seeing on their original release were "The Scoundrel", "Island of Lost Souls", "International House", and "War of the Worlds". It had a big effect on him.
Opportunistic re-releases took a new shape in the video era. Big new movies were often anticipated by VHS and DVD editions of earlier takes on the same material. Many were the usual PD titles repackaged yet again. Some were newly made knockoffs of whatever Disney was doing. But some big players opened their vaults.
I'm not sure we would have gotten VCI's restored Green Hornet serials without the big-budget comedy reboot; likewise Warner's Nancy Drew programmers or a fresh release of the Moore-Silverheels Lone Ranger movies. When Universal rolled out sets of the classic monsters, they were tied to the launch of a hoped-for Van Helsing franchise. We may not see the deceptive packaging of years past, but whatever's big today can't help but influence what gets brought up from the basement.
No matter that many grabbed the tails of falling bombs instead of comets. I got a shelf load of what had been largely unavailable or overpriced.
Many pre-Scope Tom & Jerrys carry the Perspecta logo too. From the Tom & Jerry filmography page on Wikipedia:
"[...] Many pre-1952 cartoons were reissued with Perspecta Sound, which was introduced in 1954. MGM also reissued its cartoons before the introduction of Perspecta Sound. Because of the 1965 MGM vault fire, original film elements of pre-1952 MGM cartoons are now lost, leaving only the backup prints in existence (usually the altered reissue prints), although some prints survived, like pencil sketches."
And here is Cartoon Research's notes on MGM cartoon reissues and Perspecta: http://www.cartoonresearch.com/mgm.html
I have seen the Perspecta Sound credit on most MGM films from '53 or so on until around 1960. It apparently did not mean some of these shows did not have true 4 track mag stereo sound as well. I remember seeing an ad for a Brooklyn showing of GIGI which says it was it "True stereophonic sound" so someone must have gotten wise to Perspecta---and there is a credit for it on GIGI's title cards. I watched THIS ISLAND EARTH on the blu ray last weekend and enjoyed it though the sound movement seemed a bit gimmicky... though real stereo releases of the time did have directional dialog and effects. There is apparently a 4K restoration of WAR OF THE WORLDS available for streaming, I think on ITUNES, which according to posts on Home Theater Forum is even better than that shown on TCM. Isn't it great that people like Jack Theakston and Bob Furmanek are bringing us these tech marvels from the fifites? They deserve an Oscar.
Read the book. Find out what the movie could have been. It's good however like a lot of movies it could have been so much better: https://www.amazon.com/This-Island-Earth-Raymond-Jones/dp/1503095363
I really hate WAR OF THE WORLDS. I remember seeing it with some enthusiasm along with other friends when it was announced on a broadcast TV channel. The thing that got me, and my friends, upset was the abrupt ending that, even if it does make some sense, it feel like a big anticlimax even though things like that actually happen in our real lives as well.
As usual, I'm late to the party, but glad you enjoyed the Perspecta track, John. It was a lot of work, but the lion's share of the credit really ought to go to Greg Kintz, who did the final mastering and all the technical wizardry that was necessary for this to even happen. We had a heck of a lot of trouble getting the thing to work (contrary to some "experts," decoding the system properly isn't so easy), but the end result was truly worth it, as THIS ISLAND EARTH is one of the system's more aggressive mixes.
An interesting tangent about Perspecta—it was developed by Bob Fine and "Red" Eberenz at Fine Recording, Inc. in New York. Loews Inc. (as well as Paramount) sunk a considerable amount of money into the system, but on the West Coast, MGM was looking at other options. Red related a story to me that Douglas Shearer was trying to push for the ERPI stereo system––three variable density tracks in the space of one––and that at the press screening for Perspecta Loews put on, Shearer had his friends sabotage the equipment so that the screening (and the system) were a failure. Loews caught wind of this and relegated Shearer to a testing stage for the rest of his career.
This beautiful restoration of War of the Worlds is available to buy in 4K on iTunes for about $10.00. You can also download a 1080p version to keep on your computer.
18 Comments:
Perspecta was a cleaver solution for using a mono optical track for simulated stereo. It used low frequency tones as a control track to direct the sound left, right, or center, with a notch filter to keep the control tones from going out to the theater's speaker system.
Perspecta was also used in several Japanese movies - Criterion remastered Kurosawa's "Yojimbo", "Sanjuro", and "The Hidden Fortress" with the original Perspecta tracks on an alternate 3 channel track on the blu-ray.
Did not know that about Criterion. Kudos to them!
I first saw WAR OF THE WORLDS in a theatre in the 1960s. Half way through the movie a restaurant next door to the cinema caught fire. The theatre had to be evacuated. Talk about realism.
Nice still from This Island Earth. Faith Domergue said in an interview, that the jumpsuit she had to wear in these scenes was so tight, that she just didn't bother with any underwear.
While most opt for Forbidden Planet (or War of the Worlds), I think This Island Earth is the real Fifties science fiction masterpiece.
The only movies I ever heard my father talk about seeing on their original release were "The Scoundrel", "Island of Lost Souls", "International House", and "War of the Worlds". It had a big effect on him.
I think the Perspecta logo appears on some Scope Tom and Jerry cartoons IIRC.
Opportunistic re-releases took a new shape in the video era. Big new movies were often anticipated by VHS and DVD editions of earlier takes on the same material. Many were the usual PD titles repackaged yet again. Some were newly made knockoffs of whatever Disney was doing. But some big players opened their vaults.
I'm not sure we would have gotten VCI's restored Green Hornet serials without the big-budget comedy reboot; likewise Warner's Nancy Drew programmers or a fresh release of the Moore-Silverheels Lone Ranger movies. When Universal rolled out sets of the classic monsters, they were tied to the launch of a hoped-for Van Helsing franchise. We may not see the deceptive packaging of years past, but whatever's big today can't help but influence what gets brought up from the basement.
No matter that many grabbed the tails of falling bombs instead of comets. I got a shelf load of what had been largely unavailable or overpriced.
@William
Many pre-Scope Tom & Jerrys carry the Perspecta logo too. From the Tom & Jerry filmography page on Wikipedia:
"[...] Many pre-1952 cartoons were reissued with Perspecta Sound, which was introduced in 1954. MGM also reissued its cartoons before the introduction of Perspecta Sound. Because of the 1965 MGM vault fire, original film elements of pre-1952 MGM cartoons are now lost, leaving only the backup prints in existence (usually the altered reissue prints), although some prints survived, like pencil sketches."
And here is Cartoon Research's notes on MGM cartoon reissues and Perspecta:
http://www.cartoonresearch.com/mgm.html
I have seen the Perspecta Sound credit on most MGM films from '53 or so on until around 1960. It apparently did not mean some of these shows did not have true 4 track mag stereo sound as well. I remember seeing an ad for a Brooklyn showing of GIGI which says it was it "True stereophonic sound" so someone must have gotten wise to Perspecta---and there is a credit for it on GIGI's title cards. I watched THIS ISLAND EARTH on the blu ray last weekend and enjoyed it though the sound movement seemed a bit gimmicky... though real stereo releases of the time did have directional dialog and effects. There is apparently a 4K restoration of WAR OF THE WORLDS available for streaming, I think on ITUNES, which according to posts on Home Theater Forum is even better than that shown on TCM. Isn't it great that people like Jack Theakston and Bob Furmanek are bringing us these tech marvels from the fifites? They deserve an Oscar.
Matthew Clark, now Stinky finally has a reason to watch This Island Earth!
Read the book. Find out what the movie could have been. It's good however like a lot of movies it could have been so much better: https://www.amazon.com/This-Island-Earth-Raymond-Jones/dp/1503095363
Looks like they used Faith Domergue's keister as the model for the Metaluna guy's head.
Stinky: You mean Faith Domergue, right? Gr-r-r, Ruf-f-f!
This Island Staten.
Beowulf: Yes.
The Beowulf, Man
I really hate WAR OF THE WORLDS. I remember seeing it with some enthusiasm along with other friends when it was announced on a broadcast TV channel. The thing that got me, and my friends, upset was the abrupt ending that, even if it does make some sense, it feel like a big anticlimax even though things like that actually happen in our real lives as well.
As usual, I'm late to the party, but glad you enjoyed the Perspecta track, John. It was a lot of work, but the lion's share of the credit really ought to go to Greg Kintz, who did the final mastering and all the technical wizardry that was necessary for this to even happen. We had a heck of a lot of trouble getting the thing to work (contrary to some "experts," decoding the system properly isn't so easy), but the end result was truly worth it, as THIS ISLAND EARTH is one of the system's more aggressive mixes.
An interesting tangent about Perspecta—it was developed by Bob Fine and "Red" Eberenz at Fine Recording, Inc. in New York. Loews Inc. (as well as Paramount) sunk a considerable amount of money into the system, but on the West Coast, MGM was looking at other options. Red related a story to me that Douglas Shearer was trying to push for the ERPI stereo system––three variable density tracks in the space of one––and that at the press screening for Perspecta Loews put on, Shearer had his friends sabotage the equipment so that the screening (and the system) were a failure. Loews caught wind of this and relegated Shearer to a testing stage for the rest of his career.
This beautiful restoration of War of the Worlds is available to buy in 4K on iTunes for about $10.00. You can also download a 1080p version to keep
on your computer.
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