OK, this summer we had the Spielberg/Cruise take on WAR OF THE WORLDS, this November will see a deluxe DVD release of the 1953 George Pal/Byron Haskin WAR OF THE WORLDS...why not finally give this a DVD release? (It would have been a perfect bonus feature on the 1953 WAR OF THE WORLDS.) Director Byron Haskin once again turns his attention to Mars, even using the Martian war machines from Pal's WAR OF THE WORLDS here. A sadly neglected staple of late-night TV.
shareI totally agree with all of your posts and the others regarding the pitiful treatment of RCOM has recieved (not) from Paramount.
The only thing I could possible throw up there in their defense is that because of the photographic process used in the film (Techniscope), a modern DVD release would look pretty grainy and perhaps not meet their quality control standards.
Incidentally, I distinctly remember back in the 70's I worked at two different television stations that used 16mm reduction prints for local broadcast and I borrowed their prints of RCOM to screen at home....Certain reels of the film had a severe quality degradation to them, on top of the generally grainy quality overall. I'm afraid that perhaps these reels had sustained some sort of damage back in the 60's and had to be replaced with dupe material...if you have access to the film, check specifically the scene where the meteor passes over the actors when they are hiding in the caves, and Friday rescues Paul Mantee.
Anyway, hope something can be done, since this film is too good to be lost forever.
The film looked fine on recent AMC broadcasts...nice color, crisp image. (Unfortunately, unlike their previous practice of showing movies uninterrupted, AMC now chops their films up and fills them full of commercials.) And given the DVD releases of a number of other (and older) films, this one should be able to weather the digital transfer. I wonder if Paramount may have simply overlooked it.
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