The new A Little Night Music DVD..- Page 2

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/29/07 at 3:41pm

Yes, the print used is hardly a humiliation. And considering that it wasn't recorded in stereo, the Dolby-ized soundtrack isn't bad. Some of the singing is a bit metalic, but it's nice and loud and clear. I salute them for bringing it out.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 7:50pm

I just got around to watching this today... I've been putting it off for pretty much any excuse I could think of. Finally, curiosity of revisiting the "scene of the crime" got the best of me, and I gave it a go.

Auggie27---I have to say that I really like your take on the film and your "review" given in this thread. I agree with pretty much everything you said.

It seems that Prince was mostly concerned with hiding Taylor's weight gains in deep (often creepy) shadows that he forgot to actually direct her scenes. The first time Frederick and Desiree meet after 14 years in her dressing room was so HEAVY, he might as well have told her that her daughter was dead. It came closer to Shakespearean tragedy than it did to light musical comedy. By the time Cariou launched into "You Must Meet My Wife" I found myself thinking, "This song doesn't belong in this somber, melancholy scene!" Yet it's the direction of the scene that throws everything off.

I also found myself concentrating (shallowly) on Len Cariou's "Austen Powers" teeth. If that boy was going to go before the cameras opposite the likes of Liz Taylor, he should have had them capped for God's sake. That was pretty much a given in Hollywood "back in the day," but he seemed to have missed that memo, entirely. And it really shows in so many of his closeups. He looks often looks like Mr. Humphries from "Are You Being Served?" ...and that's just wrong.

I'll stop now.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse.

[jordanromero2]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 7:58pm

I'm gonna have to get this. I don't care if it's a bootleg!

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 8:05pm

It's not a bootleg. This IS a legit release.

And it looks much better than a bootleg of this film would look, as Auggie has said.

But it's not restored. It's full of scratches, dust and grain.

Still, it HAS been color-corrected (from whatever master elements they used), and the pastel pallet is actually very nice in the interior scenes. I also like the set decoration, particularly. There is a great amount of attention to detail.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 11:26am

Best12: Yes, the "...Must Meet My Wife" sequence has an Ibsen-like ponderous feel. Since writing in this thread, I've gone back to the DVD at least twice, curiously looking for more to love. It reminds me of beloved films that turned up late at night on TV when I was a kid. They'd invariably shoe-horn a much edited version into a spot with many commercials, and whole chunks were just gone. That's the impression we're left with here -- seeing a ghost of what used to be there. (Wouldn't we kill for deleted material, outtakes, etc? Of course it's all gone, but it might explain something..) In a way, the film seems to have been conceived with a grand(er) scale, more GIGI, maybe, and then edited down to feel "intimate."

Having posted that Taylor "almost" brings off "Clowns," on repeat viewings I wince in places, at her head bobbing this way/that, at key moments when merely being still and letting the song -- and this beautiful woman singing it -- sell the material. It's exasperating when her instincts do her in. Best12, if you have thoughts on the "Clowns" sequence, share them. You were so right about Prince finding the wildly wrong tone for the late-night rendezvous of "...wife." In a way, that scene had the melancholy weight of the "Clown" scene -- so that it almost felt repetitive when we got there for the eleven o'clock spot. I know, I know, speculation, maybe too much analysis. I cannot wrap my brain around a man like Harold Prince making such errors -- with material he helped shape and create!

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 11:58am

Auggie27---You just said exactly what I was thinking when I watched "Clowns."

By the time we get to that "bring the room down" song, the room has already been "brought down" low many times before. It does feel repetitive, and even extraneous. How sad is that?

And "Send In the Clowns" ISN'T the singular number that sums this movie or play up, either emotionally or thematically. It's only ONE of them. There are really three. The other two "observation" songs (one for the old, and one for the young) that they had the mindlessness to CUT: "Liasons" and "The Miller's Son." So, we only hear the "fools" get to summarize their POV. But the three "smiles" of the summer night are thrown out, even though the intial dialogue in the first scene, setting them up, remains!

Back to "Clowns," I will say that Taylor understands the song, from an acting standpoint. Desiree IS angry when she starts to sing these lyrics. Good for her, for getting to the heart of it. I think she "gets by" vocally on this number, but then falls down completely on the (so-dark-you-can't-see-anything) reprise of "Clowns" out by the pavilion. She really sounds dreadful then, and trading melodic phrases with Cariou doesn't help her any.

There are glimpses when the cast DOES capture the right tone that should have been carried throughout the film.

When Desiree shows up at her mother's, right before A Weekend in the Country begins... I suddenly felt like I was watching the movie that was meant to be. Taylor's light comedy with Gingold (Mme. Armfeldt) and Franks (Fredrika) is borderline-delightful. And I would say that much of A Weekend in the Country feels "right."

I particularly agree with your thoughts on Lesley-Anne Down. It isn't that she's too old, but rather too sophisticated to "be" Anne Egerman. Part of it is her Gibson Girl hairdo. She should have had less of that "up-swept" look. It might have helped her appearance. And then, I would have directed her to be a little more "giggly" and overly dramatic (like the teenager that she really is)... I think she might have been able to pull it off then.

As for Erik/Henrik---This is the part that I played about a thousand years ago. Christopher Guard is "intense" enough and has the right look... but the character does need to come off as a bit comical with his stuffed-shirted, "bound" approach to life. There are (seemingly) unintentional LAUGHS to be found playing this part, and Guard gets none of them. All you have to do is go back to the source material ("Smiles of a Summer Night") to see what I'm talking about. He's not a buffoon, don't misunderstand me. But it's a much more interesting, layered role---if you can manage to be tragic, intense AND funny all in the same moment. And I kinda hated his voice too. Henrik needs to "loftily" reach to the rafters for that high B in "Later." Without it, the song falls flat.

Updated On: 7/15/07 at 11:58 AM

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 8:18pm

I actually think Guard is pretty great in the role--and I liek that his role has been transposed (Sondheim said in the Sondheim Review that this the movie uses the lower key he wrote it in--it was only casting for the stage version that changed things) though that may be partly because now it's in a key I can sing...

Auggie I think your'e dead on with most of your views and I really enjoyed reading your review--I have a soft spot for the movie and defend it a lot but part of the reason I defend it is because among theatre fans the general urban legend on the movie is that it's unwatchable--a bad movie musical to end all bad movie musicals--and IMHo wqhen put up agains the likes of Mame it simply isn't. Faint praise maybe but...

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[baddadnpa]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 10:22pm

You should cancel your Amazon orders and get it through Footlight Records. I got mine in 3 days after ordering it.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 4:55am

I actually got mine from DeepDiscount right after it was brough up on here--got it in a few days after

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[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 7:34pm

And just cuz i've talked a lot about the film here and barely anything about the DVD I have to say that even though I knew to expect nothing--and am truly glad we got this on DVD finally--the DVD presentation is pretty sad... I have one other Hen's Tooth DVD, of Neil Jordan's spectacular The COmpany of Wolves and I suppose they basically just do what they can with the material given--that one is a decent print so comes off better (though is pretty frustrating when you read about the region 2 special edition)

Back to Music, it truly doesn't look much better than my 80s pro video tape--and that was recorded at EP/SLP. But there is better colour as others have said (I do kinda wonder why they even bother claiming it's in widescreen--I have some other 1.66:1 aspect ratio films and I swear there's more of a border)

Now we need to get Image back interested in trying to release Pacific Overtures and I'll be one happy Sondheim fanatic

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 8:50pm

This may be a bit of a tangent, but I'll give it a quick whirl...

1.66:1 is in that awkward ratio BETWEEN TV sizes.

Films were made in many ratios, going back throughout the history of the medium. The most common are:

1.33:1 (true 4x3 full frame)
1.66:1
1.78:1 (or 1.77:1 which is true 16x9)
1.85:1
2.35:1

There are many other ratios used, particularly in the 1950s and '60s when they were experimenting with wide screen film to compete with television.

TV sets are made in only two different screen ratios:

4x3 (which is closest to 1.33:1)
16x9 (which is closest to 1.78:1)

In order to make the movies fit into these two TV sizes, the film ratio either has to be cropped off or letterboxed to maintain its full image.

For wide screen (16x9) TVs the DVD format decided to take advantage of the horizontal information available on their 480 screen lines and instead of creating the "black bars" that everyone is familiar with on the video (basically losing around 1/3 of the available video image just for those bars, they decided to allow an "anamorphic" image to be encoded on the DVD. But when an anamorphic image is displayed on standard 4x3 TV sets, the DVD player itself generates those black bars so that the image doesn't look stretched out vertically (long, skinny heads, etc).

Most movies made today are either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1, both being wide screen formats, and nearly all the studios now do the anamorphic transfers (aka "enhanced for 16x9 TV sets"). They look much better on HDTVs.

And with old movies (pre mid-1950s) the ratio is 4x3 (1.33:1) and they play full frame on standard TVs.

But some movies of that era, and even a few more recent ones, use the 1.66:1 ratio, and that creates a problem for the DVD world, and for "purist" DVD consumers. If they just do a 4x3 letterboxed image, with the small black bars at the top and bottom, they get complaints that the image is softer, not as detailed, and DVD fans wonder why they didn't make it anamorphic/enhanced? But if they do the "16x9 enhanced" image on a 1.66:1 film, they will actually CUT OFF a bit of the visual information on the top and bottom in order to make the anamorphic image display correctly. Then consumers yell that some of the image seems to be missing on certain shots, etc. And they're right.

Disney has taken a lot of crap for this both ways. Lately they've been choosing to do the 16x9 enhanced image on their 1.66:1 movies, which means some of the top and bottom are missing, and the black bars generated on your TV set are actually in the 1.78:1 ratio. That would explain why sometimes the bars look bigger on certain DVDs you have with this ratio.

"A Little Night Music" was done without "16x9 enhancement," which means they're not cutting off any of the top/bottom ratio on your screen... so the black bars look smaller and there's more screen image vertically. But this is the true, correct, and full picture image for that in-between ratio.

*sits down*

A long-winded tangent, but that's the complete explanation for the "Black Bar Blues."

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 3:59pm

Nah if you've not noticed I appreciate tangents So thanks--I pretty much knew all that being a home entertainment/DVD geek about the aspect ratios changing after 1952 or 53 (being a Disney geek I just know it was after Peter Pan) which is when they start being different, widescreen or not than academy/traditional tv ratios--and the controversy with Disney (I think a lot of Disney ended up being done in 1.78:1)--I gues 1.85:1 is technically widescreen format but I usually think of it as "normal" format for modern movies with 2.35:1 being widescreen just cuz that seems easier--but then of course when you throw DVDs into it it confuses people...

However back to Night Music--I guess it's the non anamorphic that makes the letterboxing seem even smaller than other discs I have that I thought were in the same aspect ratio. I still wonder if it's the true one though--framing for the most part looks decent (if you can call Hal Prince's framing decent ) but when the openign credits barely fit in the image, etc, it raises some questions (again thoughI have no doubt this was the best possible copy they could find)

[Paulyd]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 4:57pm

I havent seen the DVD version yet, but i'm interested in peoples comments on here.

Henstooth arent usually known for great transfers, so they probably got the first print that was avaialble to them. There must more somewhere out there that are probably better, but knowing Henstooth, why bother paying for a better if your going to churn out a barebones disc.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 5:17pm

The reason the opening credits are going off the screen at the beginning (i.e., Taylor's credit, etc.) is because they aren't within the picture-safe area on standard-def TVs (which is 90 percent of the actual image). Any info outside of picture-safe is potentially cut off on various monitors. Most standard def TVs have over-scan, and that's what you're seeing here.

Since the main title sequence didn't account for television display, the people at Henstooth should have "scaled down" the opening slightly to account for this problem in the print they used. But they didn't. So you get a few names that are (borderline) cut off.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:45pm

Pauly knowing Image's woes with this title--they said they couldn't justify any resotration costs and that the best prints out there were all basically unreleasable in their words--which is why they dropped their planned release--I think Henstooth perhaps deserve th ebenefit and this was the best version.

On the Sondheim forum some have mentioned that it seems to be from a PAL source bcause the audio is pitched up and it has some PAL speed up, I haven't been anal enough yet to compare directly with my vinyl of the soundtrack or the soundtrack bonus song on the cast album CD but I actually didn't notice this (and I listen to the soundtrack a *lot*)--and usually it's the first thing I notice--like with the current Collector's Edition of The Last Unicorn where you really hear the pitch up in Jimmy Webb's songs (they used a German digital copy of the film).

*edit* ok apparantly I am anal enough--doing a brief comparison witht he movie Glamorous Life bonus track on the CD and the DVD I don't notice a pitch up in the sound--though it's hard to compare directly as the dvd version is longer with its dialogue...

I do know about TV overscan--Hen's Tooth actually window framed (i think that's the term) the whole movie slightly--so if you check out the whole frame with dvd options my tv doesn't miss the sides--but some tvs probably still would (you're right though that the titles probably ideally shoulda been windowboxed a bit more extremely as they are often for academy aperture releases). All the text does fit in the image you're right--but I still find lots of it much further to the edge than most movies would be framed at. Still everything was cheap about Corman's productions so...

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