Warner's The Harvey Girls isn't Savant's idea of a great musical, but it's certainly historically great, and of course has one peerless number: "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", reputed to have been filmed by Judy Garland in two shots of only one take each.
Image Entertainment's The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr. does a very thorough job of recounting the life and times of Hollywood's most maladroit auteur, with many first-hand witnesses to tell the tale, but its promotional slant and lack of perspective (sorry, ol' Ed was not a great anything) limit its appeal.
-----So, on that other major issue: The METROPOLIS release from KINO is definitely going to be at 24 fps., because that's what they contracted to release from the German rights holders: it synchs up with the original score done in 1926-7 that indeed was meant to be shown with the film at 24 fps.
But the restoration of METROPOLIS is screening this month at 20 fps on Europe's arte channel: Correspondent Guido from Germany reported in with the details:
From Last Friday night: Well, Metropolis is running right now and I know it's a crime to watch it while writing emails. But I'm taping it to watch it completely in the next days. As far as the first hour goes, I can make some observations...
The quality is really stunning. Apart from some occasional scratches the print is amazingly clean. Sometimes the whole picture flickers a bit, but not as much as I expected and the picture looks very stable. It's obvious that this version was assembled from many different prints, but the overall quality is consistent and doesn't look like from 1927 at all. The running speed looks okay and natural. This transfer is a bit windowboxed on all sides, and the round edges of the camera aperture are often visible. Good for TVs with too much overscan, so less picture gets cut off - that's how every 1.33 Transfer should be done.
The Bernd Schuldheis music is a bit strange, it definitely isn't something to listen to every day. I really can't remember what the original score is like, but this new version reminds me strongly of Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes and maybe even Fantastic Voyage. Even if it sounds strange, it's very effective.
If you want to mention the next broadcast times on arte on your website: 7th June at 00:10 and 12th June at 00:00. arte can be received all over Europe via satellite, analog and digital on Astra.
Guido continues, on Sunday, June 1: I tried to find out some more about the possibilities of a good Metropolis DVD, but I couldn't find anything really new. This is what I have so far:
- Apparently there will be at least three different releases: one directly from Transit-Film and the Murnau Foundation in Germany, one British release by Eureka Film and the American release by Kino Video. The German and British releases are loosely scheduled for either late 2002 or early 2003 (so says Transit Film), the American DVD will supposedly be released in summer 2003.
- Kino still claims that 24 fps is the correct speed, given by the German restorers. Somebody also mentioned that some paperwork of the original score surfaced, which had the comment "26-28 fps" (!). My impression is that the arte-broadcast at 20fps (it clocked in at about 148 min.) is perfect, everything else would be either too slow or too fast. 28 fps would look like a bad joke, 24 fps would also be far from natural. I think there are some huge misunderstandings between the restorers and the distributors, but there's lots of time to complain.
One other thing: while searching I found out that there was a screening of METROPOLIS yesterday right in the next city around here. Unfortunately the screening and a second one in two weeks are sold out since the cinema venue isn't very big. But I was told that other showings here in Germany were always accompanied by a live orchestra playing the alternative score, and the speed seems to be identical to the arte-broadcast. I heard that there were plans to show METROPOLIS in the famous "Lichtburg" in Essen (still the largest one-screen-cinema in Europe), but that wasn't possible because it is closed for renovation until December. Bye, Guido
Guido runs an interesting-looking German website on film, and is commenting heavily on METROPOLIS there, in German, of course: Guido's home page. I thank him for his generosity.
The important conclusion from Guido's report is that there are two restored METROPOLIS'es on video - the 'correct' 24 fps KINO-licensed one with the original score, and another 'correct' 20 fps version with the Bernd Schuldheis music. KINO's version will surely sound better (nobody has much praise for the other score), there's no denying that. I certainly hope the version that correctly presents the Fritz Lang movie instead of showcasing the musical score surfaces as well, as I would certainly want to see both. Perhaps it will be shown on TCM, or cable? All one need do to see the potential difference is to dig out the old Moroder version of the film, where the action at 24 fps is so distractingly jerky. Thanks for the patience ... Glenn Erickson
Posted by gkleinman at June 04, 2002 11:00 AM