Of Transitions and More Transitions

 

Three Blind Mice from Dr. No, Me the Fourth Blind Mouse Till 5/27/2000

The Night Film Ended

I touched before on what happened twenty-five years ago at a Columbus show. At left is what reminded me, a flyer to promote their Chaplin Festival for those weary of dealer rooms and screenings downstairs. Couple of us stepped in momentarily to see how their print of City Lights looked. Note I said “print” because film was still all that shows dealt circa 2000, or so we assumed. City Lights, once eyes adjusted, was stunning, at least in comparison with 16mm seen before, me blurting Whose print is this? as though maybe it had been snatched off Chaplin’s Swiss shelves. A tabletop projector no bigger than a breadbox spoke truth to presumptions I’d had since first threading 8mm. Here was the future, and it was digital. Nobody’s City Lights, no matter where from, could look so good as this. My friend and I exchanged a glance, him a film dealer of long standing … not sure which said “It’s over” first, probably we did in unison. Ever see long-standing way of life dashed upon rocks of reality? Mine was that evening, goal going forward but to dispose of what thirty-five years had accumulated, or see it perish upon analog’s pyre. Should I have seen this coming? There'd been signs a perceptive mind might note (not mine, obviously). I had lately leaped upon a Big Reel ad where Dr. No and From Russia with Love were offered on 16mm and IB Technicolor at prices way lower than any seventies/eighties collector could expect. The seller admitted that no way would he have parted with these before, but laser discs worked plenty OK, and it was but matter of time before both Bonds would be available on that new and promising DVD format. I didn’t argue his points, preferring the films over winning an argument as to their obvious-to-me superiority. So who made the wiser call? I’d say my seller. He took my money and let me have his horse-collars. I should have read his tea leaves, for these two rarities had come far too easy.

Here I Am in 1999 Telling Eugene Morgan That Digital Had No Business to Be Invented.

May 27, 2000 was when I became Georgie Minifer among a company of Eugene Morgans. They understood what my notion of filmic purity was not prepared to grasp. Talking points (mine): Technicolor could never be faithfully duplicated on disc … my original 1957 Kodak print of The Mummy, among first generated for television, cannot be approached, let alone surpassed, for depth and clarity … just let Disney try and make their Silly Symphony DVD’s look good as my IB’s. Georgie summed up my posture when he said Get a horse!, attitude more a product of sentiment than recognition of times having changed. Had years at seek and struggle come to this? Every quarry I chased now laughed back at me. The Mummy for instance. It sat years in the basement of a to-say-the-least eccentric collector in Philadelphia. Why would I otherwise travel to Philadelphia? Mike lived in a houseful of clocks, curtains all drawn, no shaft of sunlight to be had. I got my Mummy plus others that after 2000 spelled, so what? The thrill was in the getting and knowing mine was possibly the cleanest 1957 print of The Mummy in Christendom. Again, so what? It would be worth asking who owns it at present, or if The Mummy over intervening twenty-five years crumbled to vinegared dust not unlike Imhotep himself. Arguing fails where logic no longer backs you up. And yet my ’57 Mummy side-by-side with even Universal’s 4K might reveal values unsuspected by modern, let alone way-back, viewership. It’s easy to say Here’s the Best when what was best before is beyond reach of comparison, my Mummy unique for what I endured to get him. Off this tack already, or I’m liable to go in search of the long-gone relic.

Nuts to Your Digital Reclaim ... My 1948 Kodak Scram! on 16mm Will Always Look Better.

There were many points of collecting pride, among them quest for the definitive print of a favorite subject, this back of my Mummy hunt, but also of Laurel-Hardy comedies initially got from Blackhawk Films and satisfactory till eyes fell upon 16mm generated during the late forties when the two-reelers were printed for non-theatrical rental purpose and to fill syndicated TV packages. Never could Blackhawk approach beauty of these. We’ve all seen Scram!, but never like I saw Scram! on 1948 stock, there being an edge code above the sprocket holes to confirm the printing date. You had to be a way out-there Laurel and Hardy enthusiast for any of this to make a difference, pride of ownership enjoyed largely by oneself and equally dedicated collectors who might venture by. My 1948 Laurel-Hardys had integrity, you see, even if few beyond myself divined it, a same way for any (extreme) collector, I suppose. Picture someone … someone you otherwise like and respect … running up excitedly to show off his 1913 Buffalo head nickel. Think hard before you react. His/her self-worth may hang in the balance (her? Doubt it, as we may assume women always had better things to do than chase after Buffalo nickels). Why do you do this film thing? was a question pointed often at me, so much that I began to wonder myself. A family reunion, thirty at least years back, saw me invited to explain why I collected movies and what-not, accent on what-not. Others stood up to tell of their hobbies, all healthy, recognizable pursuits. Perhaps it was mood of the moment that made me meditate on why indeed did I invest so much of life so far in things so fleeting. Did I already sense a design for living soon to evaporate? Fact a mere handful of men were alive even then to repair 16mm projectors was incentive to bail, too many of us willfully blind to note it. Not quitting then was to put off the inevitable, but were we premature to give up ghost that film collecting had become?

The Only Chilly Willy I'll Watch Is the One Directed by Tex Avery ... Am I Missing Out on Good Things?

It appears, to utter surprise, that collecting 8, 16, even 35mm, is still a thing. Was I amiss to sell out? Check eBay for breathtaking prices realized, for instance these on 16mm: Thunderball ($2,000), three Hitchcocks, Dial M for Murder ($2,263), To Catch a Thief ($2,179), and North by Northwest ($1,375.00). All of foregoing were IB Technicolor prints, final bids frankly more than one would have been obliged to pay during peak years of enthusiasm. When an IB Chilly Willy cartoon from the early sixties gets $100, you know collecting survives with a vengeance. Thinking surely 8mm was a spent format, I looked for listings and found these: The Bride of Frankenstein, 400 feet with magnetic sound, $95.00, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, same, $125.00. Castle horror reels command the best money, it seems. Blackhawk prints go cheaper overall, but no matter constant availability of Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel-Hardy, they always go to somebody, this a sure indication that film is far from finished. Much comes down to modern infatuation with analog, embracing obsolete formats because they are obsolete. To rescue spent history is to ennoble the rescuer, asserting oneself against grain that is digital, celebrating grain inherent to film stock instead, doing for celluloid what listeners do for turntables. Does vinyl continue to outsell CDs? I heard recently it does. Protection of film has become messianic for many. Filmmakers have brought back Vistavision, Quentin Tarantino shot a feature on 70mm, then bought a revival house where he swore only celluloid would be presented. Are there old-timers enough to keep equipment in repair? Old machines are far too fussy for me to cope with again, my memory lane well short of place where sprockets, loops, and antiquated amps hold sway.

You Figure Surely Cartoon Collectors Prefer Blu-Ray, Yet This Laser Disc Box Lately Sold for $450

Presentation became a critical concern once technology showed what was possible.  Seems quaint now for us to sit content before awful TV transmission of favorite movies bowdlerized by commercials, visuals barely better than not seeing the films at all. Video cassettes were first of stair-steps a buying public climbed toward perfection we take for granted. A lot popped corks when VHS first made movies legally available, and even better, uninterrupted. Laser disc took quality to higher levels, but these had to be turned over halfway through features and were pricey besides, LD best suited to connoisseurs who wouldn’t mind outlay and inconvenience. Fast as progress came, it was certain something even better would push laser out, ground given to satellite television and improved cable service supplying classic films shown straight through, plus titles seen after years of being inaccessible. DVD to this seemed an anticlimax, and like laser, would surrender to even better Blu-Ray. Streaming in 4K meanwhile makes discs not similarly 4K less consequential (but wait, I'm increasingly seeing 4K efforts in terms of emperors possibly without clothes, a subject perhaps for a future column). Obscure titles stay in yard that is physical media, a boon especially for a specialized market preferring an "Ultra" High-Def Caligari or upcoming Beau Geste where we get the keepsake disc plus extras and a program booklet. Closest to total immersion is lately wrought in Vegas where one hundred million and a staff of thousands raised a “Sphere” seating 18,600 to experience The Wizard of Oz projected upon a 516-foot-wide screen, admission average $200. Word is they are banking two million a day for a project that took five years to realize. I sound perhaps like a press rep, for I come not to bury this Caesar, but very much to praise his conquest. Purists please note: This attraction has nothing to do with a faithful transmission of The Wizard of Oz, nor is it meant to, Oz instead a physical space where Vegas tourism may capture magic having otherwise left the fabled town (costs up, attendance down, says analysts). A thing costing $2.3 billion to conceive, then build, must surely need time to break even, and we could wonder how much rake-off Warner Bros. is getting. My brain but barely computes at levels like this.

Why Not Do a Sherlock, Jr., Step Into this Vast Landscape, and Stay There Forever After

You Tube has numerous previews, reviews, captures off the enormous round, indoors and out. First thing we note from clips is that they entirely replaced the music, for simple reason you can’t make ancient recording sound right in a pavilion overwhelming as this. Also they trimmed Wizard from 102 minutes down to 75, shades of CBS in gone days, though that network never dreamed of cuts this deep. You cannot enter such a circus with expectation of artistic fidelity. What’s wanted is novelty and sensation, as everyone has seen the movie to death and for $200 has a right to expect something fresh from it. I’ll not visit this Oz unless the Sphere lands locally (how about where our bowling alley burned down a few years back? --- but no, not enough room). Reality as created for Oz includes debris flying out and into the audience during the twister, apples falling upon viewers when the tree begins tossing them, for all I know a live cow landing in our laps when Dorothy spots it through her window. Historic precedent for this sort of experience would include IMAX, Cinerama long before that, Grandeur and Magnafilm when talkies barely were upon us, Sphere surpassing all for wrap-around effect akin to 360-degree spectacles staged by Disney parks, which by the way, what became of those? Research indicated that The Wizard of Oz was the most watched movie ever made. True? Anyway, it was thought a soundest commercial choice. Could Oz play the Sphere for years, or will another subject eventually take its place? What then will they do for an encore? Could any other library classic qualify? Surely nothing black-and-white. If 75 minutes is viewer limit for Oz, then forget a Ben-Hur, 2001, other outsize spectaculars. Managers must be floating possibilities … some 80’s action or sci-fi? The Titanic remake (much too long I should think, but why not start with the iceberg and cull your 75 minutes off that?). Looks like we’re all done with reverence should this model sustain, but so what … movies were always monkeyed with to suit circumstance, and if anyone wants to see The Wizard of Oz presented complete and in fact enhanced to visual brilliance it never knew before, then go get the 4K or stream it tonight off Amazon and bask in sacred glow sans guilt.