Hello!

I think we’re all looking for some sane distractions. Joe Dante circulated this page with some interesting, well-chosen quotes by a short list of stars, accompanied by good images.

The page is by Dean Brierly, the editor of Black & White magazine. The newest entry seems to be from 2015, and shows us some interesting things Robert Ryan had to say. Other names listed include Jan Sterling, William Holden, Lee Van Cleef and Ernest Borgnine, just to name four. Light reading, maybe, but relaxing in these days of high blood pressure.

And Wayne Schmidt forwards this BfI featurette about the revival of an original 1977 35mm Technicolor print of Star Wars, the original version that wasn’t yet part of a longer series. You know, this is the real, suppressed picture where Han Solo shoots first.

It’s amusing that the English restoration people make so much of the ability to see an original print from 1977, in perfect condition … it doesn’t matter that it’s not in 70mm and may not even have a stereophonic soundtrack. An older generation of film fans that haunted repertory theaters, the Director’s Guild, museum screenings, etc., were routinely exposed to vintage studio prints, sometimes in nitrate, that blew away what we could see on TV. It was an addiction.

The featurette is a good little primer on archive activities … and it proves that the Star Wars that conquered the world and won the Oscars is technically a ‘lost’ movie, buried by its maker. The BfI was able to access a preserved opening title crawl for their screening, with the original not-episode-IV text.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson