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View Full Version : question re: "The Discontented Canary"


thebiach
12-30-2007, 03:27 PM
okay so the other day I was watching the "Evelyn Prentice" DVD with Myrna Loy & William Powell...one of the bonus features is the Harman-Ising MGM cartoon "The Discontented Canary"...this was a two-strip technicolor cartoon (mostly reds and greens)...well I noticed that throughout the cartoon there seemed to be parts where the two technicolor strips weren't properly aligned, which gave the movie the appearance of 3-D (minus the glasses)....pretty awful looking to say the least...

I know with today's restoration abilities, taking multiple black-and-white negatives, and dying them cyan, magenta and green (or is it yellow?) and running them through a digital process will give three-strip technicolor films a better alignment than they originally had...I'm assuming that this will work for two-strip technicolor films too, if you have the original negatives...

I know MGM lost most of their original negatives in a fire...

my question is: is there any way to fix this misalignment of the film strips if no negative exists? was this the only know print in existence? if this was the original final cut (not negative), wouldn't they have gone back and fixed it? or was it lack of restoration resources when they made this print back in the day, and unfortunately its all we have left?? would all other copies (16 MM, etc.) have this same defect?

and why the hell did they use DVNR on this cartoon???

rex racer
12-30-2007, 06:33 PM
http:forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?t=4825 (http://forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?t=4825)

Here's an earlier thread which has quite a bit of info. Since then I have obtained an excellent Chromacolor 16mm print I located in England which has none of the anomalies of the 35mm print. I've had it digitally mastered via a Rank wetgate unit and am currently working on an "unoffical" ;) DVD presentation of the Complete Happy Harmonies from 1934-38. First set is 85% done ...:D...

dw

:confused: (Anyone got an unedited digital copy of "The Good Little Monkeys??" it's been the hardest title for me to find!!!!)

thebiach
12-30-2007, 08:53 PM
I knew I'd get an answer on here...and let me know when you get those dvd's finished...I would like a copy...