Well, I don't begrudge RH's making a little extra on the side, he deserves it I suppose, but I dislike his method and especially if he really wasn't involved in the colorization. I recall how he flipped out (properly so) when KING KONG and MIGHTY JOE were colorized for VHS, claiming that it not only looked bad but was a desecration of O'Brien's work, so, technological advances aside, I can't fathom (20,000 or otherwise) how he could acquiesce in the colorization even of his own stuff...and it's not excusable for (and hypocritical of) him to have participated in the colorization of other people's work.
Okay....
Yes, someone posted on EARTH VS. in reply to my question there, that the logo is back on the "togggled" print there as well -- it was a little unclear whether it was the '56 logo but it appears it is. I don't know why studios insist on mucking around with their films, including dropping or changing their own logo. Warners is especially egregious in this (they cut out the logos from films they now control but which were released by other studios: ZERO HOUR!, ADVISE & CONSENT, SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, etc., and worse, usually subsitute their own, modern, WB logo). But in early VHS days Columbia excised its original logo from several releases, either dropping it altogether, or splicing in their 80s version (on KWAI, and IT CAME FROM too), or splicing in their "Home Video Collection" instead (their early and awful, GUNS OF NAVARONE, which was also time-compressed and not even pan & scan -- just the middle section of the picture seen on the tape). Luckily these substitutions were later corrected, until I saw the absence of Columbia on the b&w EARTH VS. and IT CAME FROM DVDs. But the b&w disc for 20 MILLION did retain the logo, at beginning and end (it wasn't on the others at the end). Certainly it's much easier just to reproduce the movie intact than remove something, and especially insert something new in its place.
I think you're right about STRAIGHT-JACKET being the headless lady Columbia opening, but I'm surmising more than remembering -- I don't recall ever seeing that butchered logo -- amazing! But it sounds like Castle, and the correct film. I checked some sources to see if anyone mentioned it anywhere but found nothing. However, it reminded me that that film was sort of enjoyable, and as I haven't seen it in 35+ years, I may have to seek it out again. If I do, I'll be able to know the logo issue, one way or another.
How lucky you are to have been in Mr. Ackerman's home. I've seen a few filmed glances inside and would I love to be able to see it. I thought from something I caught a quick glimpse of that he has the original moon rocket (Spaceship Luna) from DESTINATION MOON, but I couldn't be sure as I got only a very brief look. That's one of my faves.
Back to Ray H -- I'd heard that his father had helped him engineer the saucers in EARTH VS. (as he helped on other projects), and they were always fascinating subjects for animation. But it made me think that one of the greatest, most outrageous, losses of vintage props was the boneheaded decision to destroy the three Martian warships from 53's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. A Boy Scout copper drive!!?? Please! Not only were these incredible looking, nifty models, but, of course, they realy worked -- electrical wiring, sparks, the lot. Could have burned down Paramount with all that stuff. Even though studios routinely destroyed such things, in some cases, you still have to wonder -- what the hell were they thinking? George Pal especially -- he could've snuck at least one out of the joint, under his coat or something.
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obit1
17 years ago
Yes, the old Ackermansion. I went three times...then he moved into a huge house in the Los Feliz area of Hollywood and his wife, Wendayne, had him move all his artifacts in the huge basement. It wasn't the same.
In the old Ackermansion every single square inch of that house had something fantasy oriented in it....a toy...a movie prop....a mask...he even had things in his refridgerator! I remember seeing the necks and heads that sprouted out of the Loch Ness Monster in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. They were all about eight inches tall and on a stand and because Ackerman trusted us (my friend and I were "in the business") he let us wander alone. When I came upon the little snake necks topped off with thumb-sized heads of the Loa characters I couldn't resist...I gently reached up and carefully bent the aged foam rubber a bit on the neck and head of one of them and....the foam rubber began to crumble like week old bread.
uh-oh
So, before the thing could become an I LOVE LUCY episode, I very carefully moved the neck back.
My FAVORITE props that he had, which were really ON LOAN to him from Dennis Muren, were all the King Kong and Son of Kong puppets. I liked the stegosaur the best...it was HUGE...like three feet long and two feet at the highest point.
Now, of course, "Uncle Forry" is in a smaller apartment and has very little props left...(He sold all of the stop motion stuff of Ray's...the little lighthouse (BEAST) and the Golden Gate Bridge and clocktower(IT) and the Crossbow(7th Voyage) to Peter Jackson.
But it's now BOB BURNS who has the best collection...and it's all REAL. Bob has the Kong and Mighty Joe armatures...fully restored...and just about everything you could imagine. I went over to Bob's house with writer David Schow when Dave was putting together a new edition of his OUTER LIMITS book and Bob had some behind the scenes of the show so that helped in getting shots for the book you wouldn't see anywhere else.
We went through his museum and I about died.
Let us say that I was able to put my hand inside of the mechanical Tyrannosaurus head from DINOSAURUS....and...sit in the restored Time Machine....Bob let me manipulate the Kong and Joe Young armatures...pet the stop motion Loch Ness Monster from Dr. Lao (i moved NOTHING!!!!) I held the last Zanti Misfit in the palm of my hand and was astounded that they were brown (I always imagined them to be dark gray) Needless to say, I had a blast.
Now MOST of George Pal's suff got lost in a fire, but the late expert modelmaker Tom Scherman, recreated in exact size and painstaking detail the spaceship Luna..and..the Ark? from When Worlds Collide,
a beautiful miniature of the Time Machine as well as restoring the original for a George Pal exhibit a couple of decades ago. The Loch Ness Monster from Lao and the bejeweled dragon from Brothers Grimm were on display too in specially constructed settings for this exhibit. I think Burns has just about all of this exhibit in his museum now .
Oh, Christ! I've rambled on and hi-jacked the thread!
http://www.woodywelch.com
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hobnob53
17 years ago
Hey, don't apologize for getting a little off-point! Great stuff. Although I'm sorry Peter Jackson got all the RH models...they'll just disappear into the depths of New Zealand somewhere, and he doesn't deserve such things -- especially after that travesty of a KK remake, about which I seem to be one of about six people who thought it was not merely way overrated, but actually lousy.
You mean there's only one Zanti misfit left? Poor little guy. They were among the most frightening critters ever made for TV, and good stop-motion given the era, medium and budget. Good old Projects Unlimited. Funny, I always did think of them as being brown (and black) in "real life". Great faces too...Dick Cheney, if he were an alien insect. I said "if".
Isn't is amazing how many Hollywood celebs lost their memorabilia in fires? George Pal's stuff -- I didn't know that. I just read yesterday that the same thing happened a number of years ago to Kim Novak, a lot of VERTIGO paraphernalia and so on. And many others. You'd think they could've afforded better fireproofing. But I did know the Time Machine's saga, and glad that it's been saved. Nice that Luna and the Ark have been rebuilt, but still, not quite the same thing. But apropos of that, maybe someone could rebuild the Martian craft from TWOTW.
You're one of the most interesting and best-informed posters anywhere on IMDb, and much appreciate your taking the time to share with us peons! Always a pleasure.
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obit1
17 years ago
OOO...OOOO...(that's my Tootie impression from the old Car 54 Where Are You?) I forgot to tell you that Tom Scherman for that same George Pal exhibit built (or should I say "rebuilt) the farmhouse scene
from War of the Worlds and it was on the floor and took up about 15 feet of exhibit space against a wall. He rebuilt three of the full sized Martian war machines, the wrecked farmhouse and surrounding set pieces, ...the only thing missing were little figures of Ann Robinson and Bat Masterson (ok, Gene Barry)
The war machines were made out of copper and plastic and, to make them as realistic as possible, I seem to remember they were hung from the ceiling by all too obvious piano wires. Tom Scherman was an amazing art director and loved the George Pal films...anyway, to show you how talented he was, he was hired by W.E.D. (that's the imagineering dept. at Disney) to recreate the Nautilus from the Disney version of 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea for DisneyWorld in Florida. Tom had many different sized Nautiluses that he made and they were beautiful! He designed the interior of his living room to look like Nemo's chamber, and he even had a pipe organ which he designed to look like the one in the film. A few years later he died of cancer I believe.
Many of the people that I met and worked with when I first came to Hollywood in the seventies were wonderful artists and, even better than that, they were crazy as a soup sandwhich....which I found to be just charming and wonderful. I'm glad that I was able to come out here and get into the industry as soon as I did because so many of these guys whose films I grew up watching and were able to meet, have sadly passed on.
Tom Scherman, George Pal, Wah Chang, Tim Baar, Gene Warren sr., Dave Allen, Lain Liska, etc.
Also, when the big beautiful Brachiosaurus walked onto the scene in Jurassic Park with its thick hide slipping over its muscles, all hyper real....it was the dividing point, I believe, between the worlds of fantasy and wonder and folk art special effects that I grew up with and the new age of high tech computers and animators who put their fingers on a computer mouse instead of the sculptured rubber hide of a model.
It's not that I am living in the past...it's just that I refuse to ignore it. :D
http://www.woodywelch.com
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hobnob53
17 years ago
I'm with you, obit. You and I are obviously about the same age and it's important to make sure those who come after have at least some appreciation of what came before. (Yeah, just like we did!)
Even to the point of recognizing OOOOOO-OOOOOO! But it's Officer "Toody". Remember his first name? Sure you do! I grew up in NYC and my father used to see them filming "Car 54" around various properties we owned, and one day he came back with an autographed photo of Joe E. Ross and Fred Gwynne! I still have it.
"Crazy as a soup sandwich." May I steal that for my seasonal newspaper column? I've got lots of people it can apply to!
Don't worry that by refusing to ignore the past anyone might think you're living in it. Remember the lesson of Elwood P. Dowd:
"I wrestled with reality for 35 years and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it."
(For the sake of the thread....Colorization is not reality!)
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obit1
17 years ago
Yeah...Officer Toody....I misspelled it because I watched too much FACTS OF LIFE (Tootie being Kim Fields character.......well it sounds the same...lol)
No, you can't steal "crazy as a soup sandwhich" because it is the title of a Harlan Ellison story he wrote for the New Twilight Zone in the eighties and he is a big sewer.....wait..he is a big...uh...He will sue you. There. I said it.
Gunther Toody...I can remember his wife always getting on his case. But the part I remember NOW of course is that the late Al Lewis was on the show too (later of course, Grampa Munster with Herman... (Gwynne again) The only reason I remember his name was Schnauser on Car 54 was because my grandparents had a little gray miniature schnauser doggie and, at nine years old, I thought that was funny.
I also thought Soupy Sales was funny.
Now I am going to get on the IMDB Car 54 thread just to see if I was right about the first name of Toody and the last name of Lewis's character.... Schnauser...if a am wrong, I will be very embarrassed and my face will look all pink and flushed...like some monkey has colorized it.
(Back on topic again.)
http://www.woodywelch.com
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hobnob53
17 years ago
Right on Gunther, right on Schnauser -- Leo Schnauser. (And Francis Muldoon.)
As to colorization....
If they ever colorized those great Car 54s, what would they do about the police car itself? In NYC at the time, police cars were painted an olive green and white. But the car used in the series was painted red and white, so that when people saw it on the streets of the Bronx -- where the whole series was filmed on location -- they wouldn't mistake it for a real cop car. But on a black-and-white show, it looked like the real thing. So what would the colorizers do? Dab on fake green to make it look like the real police cars of the era, or make it red, which was the actual color of the specific vehicle used? Quite the colorization conundrum. Humdrum.
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obit1
17 years ago
Yeah, no kidding!
Here's some more crayola fun!
I read this in an article in the eighties when the early colorization began....they colorized a black and white Frank Sinatra movie and because he is Italian, they made his eyes brown.
BROWN!
So much for "Old Blue Eyes!"
http://www.woodywelch.com
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hobnob53
17 years ago
Most colorized eyes make the actor look as if he has jaundice. Yep, the colorized crooner (Frankie S.) looked just that way in the badly (you know, just to differentiate it!) colorized SUDDENLY (1954).
Ever see the colorized Liz Taylor in the 1950 FATHER OF THE BRIDE? At the end of the wedding, she turns and approaches the camera (Specer Tracy's p.o.v.), right into a close-up. Because colorization always made eyes look yellow-gray, and Liz has those violet eyes, the colorizers took special care -- about midway in her approach, suddenly these violet laser beams began shooting out of her pupils, and when she stopped, this unstable violet blob jiggled around her eyeball, fighting off the encroaching yellow-gray. Lovely job.
It reminded me of an interview some colorization flack gave in the late 80s, extolling the wonders of the process. He cited Liz's eyes as an example of how careful and accurate they needed to be in their work, and speaking of her eyes' unique violet color, actually said, quote, "You can't fake that." THAT'S RIGHT, IMBECILE!!! And you couldn't!! Evidently the irony of saying he can't fake something, when that is explicitly what he is attempting to do, eluded him.
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hobnob53
17 years ago
I just bought the colorized version of ICFBTS strictly because, as a rampant purist, I wanted to have a print of the film with the Columbia logo restored. It has been -- at beginning and end. I never saw it on the end before, don't know if that was the case in 1955, but no matter. The print looks great -- IN BLACK & WHITE!
Despite all the hype around about how "good" colorization now looks, how much the process has "improved" over the past twenty years, the colorization in this film looked scarcely any different from what you found on VHS back in the 80s. Granted, the images are sharper, and the colorization doesn't bleed as it used to, but otherwise it's basically the same old deal -- weak, pastel colors pasted on black and white images -- no depth, no real tone of true color. And, as before, backgrounds are either uncolorized, or imbued with a faint sepia tone to mask the lack of color. Other colorized background items such as trees and grass are mostly just smeared green, and things that were (or are assumed to have been) either black, white or some other neutral color (e.g., silver) remain uncolorized, giving them an entirely different tone to colorized stuff in the same shot. Even acknoweldging that I'm a vehement opponent of the process, I was surprised, after reading so many rapt reviews of how wonderful colorization had become, to see that it's essentially little different from what it has always been -- weak colors, poorly done, and, as always, exceedingly fake.
I say again, colorization is a travesty. And to those who still think it looks good, please, watch a movie from the same era actually filmed in color -- and compare that beautiful, real, natural color to this phony colorization. A healthy dose of reality is definitely useful!
(Same thing for EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS, where I just posted a similar review.)
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jic-1
16 years ago
I saw this movie for the first time today, and I didn't realize that it had been colorized until I started reading this thread. Whatever you may think of the process (and while it doesn't offend me, I do think it's generally pointless), they did an excellent job.
And yes, I have watched plenty of color movies made in the '50s.
Movies I've Seen: http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=25003655
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hobnob53
16 years ago
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree. The colorization here is lousy. Ray Harryhausen himself, who so enthused over doing this, was apparently shocked at how bad it turned out: poor colors, wrong colors, weak colors, phony colors...though I can't imagine what he was expecting.
Actually, we do agree that the process is pointless, so that's something. But I'd go back and really look, hard, at some actual color films released by Columbia the same year (1955), such as the James Stewart western The Man From Laramie or John Ford's West Point saga The Long Gray Line, which were filmed in actual color using the same process that ICFBTS would almost certainly have used had it been filmed in color. (Or look at Harryhausen's later color films, such as 1958's The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.) I'm sure if you watch and really compare, you'll see just how bad and inadequate colorization is.
All this quite aside from the fact that the colors shown are all guesswork, not reflecting what the real colors in any scene actually were, but simply made up by colorizers; or at best, poor approximations of the actual color of something, on those extremely rare occasions when they know (or think they know) what color an object was: under either circumstance, they can't recreate a color correctly. (One of Harryhausen's critiques of this travesty was that they made the octopus green, which it was not: it was gray.)
How come you didn't realize the film was colorized? Obviously you'd never seen it, but if you were watching a DVD they offer a menu choice of watching it colorized or correctly (i.e., b&w). If you saw it on TV, the chief clue is that there's no "Color by [whichever company]" credit in the opening credits. All color films -- I mean actual color, not this crap -- carry some credit for whatver company or process (Technicolor, Warnercolor, DeLuxe, etc.) was used in the filming. Of course, there is no comparable credit for black-and-white, or colorization (aside from the after-film DVD credit).
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jic-1
16 years ago
If you saw it on TV, the chief clue is that there's no "Color by [whichever company]" credit in the opening credits. All color films -- I mean actual color, not this crap -- carry some credit for whatver company or process (Technicolor, Warnercolor, DeLuxe, etc.) was used in the filming.
Entirely true. But since I didn't
know that the movie was originally black and white when I sat down to watch it on TV, I wasn't watching out for stuff like color credits.
Movies I've Seen: http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=25003655
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hobnob53
16 years ago
Agreed, the color credit is not the sort of thing one ordinarily would look for or even notice.
One interesting thing about these credits is that they've "restored" (an inaccurate term: they've altered; you cannot "restore" something that was never there in the first place) the proper writing credits, adding co-screenwriter Bernard Gordon's name to the film after over half a century of anonymity. Gordon was blacklisted in 1951, and it wasn't until the early 60s that his name finally began appearing on the films he wrote. By then he was living in Paris, where he stayed until he died, but worked on a lot of American films, or American-financed or -produced films made in Europe. It Came From Beneath the Sea is not the sort of film Gordon would normally have worked on, but he had to accept whatever he was offered, and I'm sure his efforts helped make the movie better than it might otherwise have been.
Please excuse my anti-colorization diatribes. Obviously I feel strongly about tampering with films in any way...except to right historical wrongs, like writing credits.
So, please tell us, jic-1...how did you like the film? Have you watched it in b&w yet?
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16 years ago
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hobnob53
16 years ago
Hey, thanks, wendybrad. Yeah, it amazes me how many people either like, or have no problem with, colorization, but as I've pointed out ad nauseum, if they don't think that constitutes tampering with a film, then why not change dialogue, music, add stuff, delete stuff, digitalize in new actors or other things. If you think one form of molesting movies is acceptable you can't say that other forms aren't. And the originals often aren't made available.
I never heard of that Gojira/Godzilla mess but I'm glad that's lost too. They added a God-awful rock score to the silent film Metropolis a few years ago and it was moronic as well as lousy. All these kinds of things have really been done to some movies, so this argument isn't theoretical.
I just answered your PM. See you in a few days.
hob
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