Hello!

CineSavant stopped collating a ‘best Blu-ray of the year list’, but we still sneak peeks at those by others. Just published is this year’s impressive list from Kyu Hyun Kim, over at his movies-but-also-other-academic-stuff page Q Branch Mirror Site.

Mr. Kim’s taste is eclectic, and he has a refreshing approach to film talk. Better yet, more than half of the films he chooses are things I wouldn’t necessariy even know about, so reading him widens my horizons. Then again, the other half fits right into my ingrown biases, so I feel reassured and comforted. You know American males, all anxious and insecure.

No matter what, you’ll find some interesting writing there. You might need to back-page a bit. The date on the article is February 9, 2025.

Coming in about 60 days:

I haven’t seen an official announcement, but Amazon is carrying an April 15 date for a John Ford picture that ought to look really good on 4K Ultra HD, his 1963 John Wayne – Lee Marvin comedy Donovan’s Reef.

We’re always loved the show, which is generally taken as a low-wattage knockabout comedy concocted for a working vacation in Hawaii. But hey, the film feels like one unending pleasant ritual. It has formal qualities that echo with Ford’s earlier South Seas Pictures, some of his military shows, and even his westerns. And it’s a thing of beauty that makes (we think) a very cool construction out of 1960s kitsch — the ‘Tiny Bubbles’ main theme.

One of the discs’s two commentaries is by Joseph McBride, who I hope launches a major defense of the show.

And we just know that, in your heart of hearts, you’re dying for a more detailed history of of a vintage Hollywood movie studio. Advisor-consultant Gary Teetzel found an interesting page called Duke Wayne: A Filmography. The articles I see listed seem to be more about other angles on Hollywood history.

Gary reports that this one on the Monogram Pictures Corporation offers a handy guide explaining how the films in the Monogram library have been sliced n’ diced and divided up over the years. It’s not exactly trendy material for Entertainment Tonight, but it’s great history just the same. When the Monogram company dissolved, the titles really scattered … most ended up at Warners, Paramount and Columbia. The article’s notes even list aspect ratios. I saw one note reading  ‘Renewal also claimed by Wade Williams.’

The article ends with seemingly endlss list of titles, all diagrammed to show how they migrated into different film libraries over time. Each has an informative note: is it a forgotten western, a serial, or something better known?

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Michael McQuarrie again saves the day. Someone uploaded a freaky Godzilla- related audio track that I almost need explained to me … a dance mix incorporating Toho monster signature roars.

We always loved the way Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and their brethren arrived on screen with the fade up of a logo, and a mighty roar. I likened the pattern to the way Disney and Warners began their cartoons with giant faces of the featured animated characters … at the cartoon matinees, even three-year-olds understood they were going to see Mickey Mouse or Porky Pig, and the cheering commenced.

Anyway, we found this track amusing … we think it’s called “Godzilla’s Coming to Town”:

And a worthy blast from the past … from 2012, enjoy the A Capella grandeur of

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

First up is an eye-opening link provided by Joe Dante … this one lifted from the ‘Click Americana’ Vintage & Retro Memories Page.

Back in the early 1950s, one could buy an educational toy (You know — for kids!) that taught lessons about atomic energy, an activity ‘Atomic Energy Lab.’ The unattributed article describes the toy in detail and has close-up photos of its contents.

The activities promised:

•  See paths of alpha particles speeding at 12,500 miles per second!

•  Watch actual atomic disintegration – right before your eyes!

•  Prospect for Uranium with Geiger-Mueller Counter!

•  Sneak U-235 into the local water supply!

It’s all real. The lab kit also contained some actual radioactive material, as explained in the article. Was it the original ‘glow in the dark’ toy?

And from our dependable contact Michael McQuarrie comes another unusual item, from the Internet Archive Page, one so good, we’ve written a longer report.

At film school long ago we saw the 34-minute documentary feature December 7th, by John Ford and Gregg Toland, and only noted that much of its footage of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 was staged recreations and special visual effects. In news programs and documentaries, these scenes had often been passed off as actual newsreel footage. Most of the ‘enemy’ planes we see are American, optically darkened to obscure insignia, as in the snap above.

Only years later on a PBS TV screening did we realize that this release version, which won a 1944 Oscar, had been cut down from a complete original documentary feature that was more than twice as long, 82 minutes in duration. The full-length version wasn’t widely distributed. It is full-blown morale-building propaganda reportedly written by Budd Schulberg. If this long version had been available, it would have been a good focus for Stephen Mamber’s documentary class. The idea of ‘authenticity’ hadn’t yet been codified for documentaries … and neither had the definition of a documentary, either.

John Ford’s first Navy documentary The Battle of Midway faked some its content as well, with sentimental speeches of ‘ordinary Americans’ voiced by stars like Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell. The original full-length December 7th went even further, concocting a fantastic drama taking place ‘outside of time,’ as in the play  Our Town. At the very ‘Our Town-ish’ finale of December 7th, a ghostly sailor who died at Pearl Harbor walks through a cemetery. He is none other than actor Dana Andrews. He lectures us on what the valiant war dead expect us to do … you know, safeguard democracy. It’s emotional, patriotic and very well done.

The full-length December 7th begins as a ‘fantasy documentary’ taking place just before the Pearl Harbor attack. Walter Huston plays Uncle Sam, in full costume. He has a debate about war preparedness in Honolulu with his conscience, identified as ‘Mr. C.’  He’s played by character actor Harry Davenport.

It’s likely that John Ford had a free hand with his morale-building film, and that the War Department later saw fit to cut it down by 60%. As if defending his film, Ford puts his War Department mandate right on the screen:

The public saw a version missing the entire 40 minutes of fanciful debate between Uncle Sam and his Conscience … but we can see it now in this uncut Internet Archive encoding. Walter Huston’s enthusiastic Uncle Sam and the pragmatic Mr. C explain Hawaii’s history, its economic importance and its multi-racial population — and ask whether the Japanese on the island are loyal American citizens. Life in Honolulu is illustrated with marvelous documentary footage, but also many staged scenes. We see Japanese spies gathering info and the Japanese consul meeting with a Nazi official. At least one Japanese character is played by a Chinese-American actor familiar from other 1940s films.

The film eventually contradicts the propaganda of Hollywood movies like  Air Force, concluding that the Japanese Americans of Oahu are mostly loyal citizens. The narrator states that known Japanese agents were arrested, but adds that “Not one single solitary act of sabotage was committed on the 7th.” Just the same, the earlier arguments cast doubt on the loyalty of the Japanese population. We understand why the War Department would chop the feature December 7th from a feature film down to a short subject. They spelled out what they wanted John Ford to film, but likely changed their minds when they saw the completed movie. We would think that the War Department of 1943 would not want to encourage discussion of the loyalty or disloyalty of Japanese Americans — many thousands of them were imprisoned in increasingly controversial internment camps.

Patriotic propaganda aside, Ford and Toland’s images of wartime Honolulu — with its Japanese American population mostly going about its business — are pretty special. Even with its weird fantasy concept, it’s a powerful attempt at a fair-minded documentary.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

The Hollywood Reporter is particularly patriotic this week … Writers Scott Roxborough and Patrick Brzeski compile a not-bad list of movies familiar and obscure that just don’t like Nazis of any stripe.

It’s a cleverly-chosen list that includes, with good arguments,  The Empire Strikes Back,  Soldier of Orange and the misunderstood  Starship Troopers.

And because we didn’t encounter any desirable film-related, non-political links, we’re trying an offhand photo feature …. residents of Los Angeles will find no revelations here — expect some nice boring notes. The photos are un-retouched snaps. They enlarge, if’n you should want a better look.

↑  Readers sometimes ask about ‘glamorous’ Hollywood, and I like to post pictures of The Hollywood Sign now and then. It’s a couple of miles North of CineSavant Central, and is our common checkpoint to see what the weather’s like. We walk out to the street, and if we can’t see the sign, there must be fog, smog, or a fire somewhere.

The first shot above is on Gower street almost at Santa Monica Blvd. We took these pictures because it was the first really clear day after the fires … everything looked uncommonly clean.

We do grocery shopping at 7am, normally … a COVID-era habit that showed us that  1) L.A. traffic is much more pleasant near the crack of dawn, and  2) Los Angeles looks great early in the day, too. On this morning we took a car for repair in Hollywood early, hence the non-grocery detour.

A quick check of Hollywood Blvd. looks very different than during the daytime tourist crush. Just above are the Hollywood Roosevelt and the marquee for Disney’s showcase theater the El Capitan, formerly the Paramount.

This is more or less what Grauman’s Chinese looks like now. The actual name changes every few years, changes we long ago decided to ignore.

I was an usher there for a few special events, back in 1972-1973. I’d say, “You know, Lock Martin once worked where we are working now.” Nobody knew what I was talking about.

When visitors come to Hollywood Blvd., they can be unimpressed, or even intimidated by the crowds on the street. Despite some flashy new developments it is still rundown, with many shuttered doors and most of its former picture palace theaters gutted. I snapped this clear picture of a distinctive building at the corner of Hollywood & Highland because the propmakers on  1941 duplicated it perfectly.

If you bring a small child to downtown Hollywood, their biggest memory may be this Dinosaur atop a novelty Museum. I kid you not. He is pretty cheerful. At Christmastime they affix a big Santa Hat onto the dinosaur, obviously imitating me and Gorgo.

And this is a real everyday photo from an early morning grocery run … my favored supermarket has a good view of the Griffith Observatory, a genuine Hollywood icon. Besides its role in many movies, the Observatory is a lasting Hollywood landmark, in a town where very little seems permanent … almost every place my fellow editors once worked ‘back in the day’ of film production has long since been obliterated.

I’ve kept these photos wide and loose in an effort to communicate context. We’re not saying this place is more desirable than others. In the last year we’ve visited the Washington D.C. area, South Bend Indiana, and always-beautiful San Francisco, and all have elements more attractive than my neighborhood.

Back to discs and thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Last week we posted an image from the 1955  Oklahoma!, which prompted correspondent Allen Moss to send in a link he’d found, to a YouTube encoding of a song & dance number from the Fred Zinnemann musical.

Oklahoma was actually filmed twice, once in ordinary CinemaScope and once in the giant 65mm format Todd-AO. A few years back Fox released a full set of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals that included the original Todd-AO version. It was an entirely incompatible system, that ran at 30 frames per second, not 24 …. the picture was brighter and fast action was less blurry. Since the frame rate was more like video, fire and water had a different quality in Todd-AO.

Anyway, we wonder if many people can still tell the difference in a video transfer. The YouTube poster ‘marlbrouk’ adds his own version of ‘Smilebox’ formatting to the equation, which looks rather handsome. He calls it ‘Ultra-Curve.’  I honestly don’t know whether or not the original Road Show performances of the Todd-AO version were projected on a curved screen.

Note: A helpful follow-up from correspondent and mentor Dick Dinman …

Hi Glenn, I saw Oklahoma! and Around the World in 80 Days first run at the Rivoli in N.Y. and can attest to the fact that a giant and deeply curved screen was utilized to absolutely spectacular effect.  Cheers, D.D.

Next up, CineSavant advisor Gary Teetzel was the first to jump on this New York Times article by Ben Kenigsberg about an unusual film restoration.

The Museum of Modern Art has been working for quite a while to properly restore Charlie Chaplin’s 1918 comedy Shoulder Arms. Who knew a restoration was needed?

It’s a World War One combat comedy filmed during the fighting. The restorers say that we’ve never actually seen Chaplin’s original movie, only a reconstituted recut assembled from outtakes. The original negative wore out and deteriorated to the point that no new copies could be made. But Chaplin saved everything. He shot many takes, and ranked them in order of preference to assemble alternate versions. Years afterwards, new cuts were made from 3rd and 4th- ranked takes. The new replacement version was also step-printed so it could be shown at 24 frames per second and not look too jerky. In other words, what’s been shown forever has all been rejected material.

This new reconstruction effort conducted a worldwide archive roundup to collect existing original prints. They’re calling it a work in progress, because a few shots have still only been found in 16mm.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson