Mr. Bongo Films

[Roger Ryan]

Thanks for that detail Roger Ryan. It sounds like an ideal release of The Stranger would be an HD scan of the MGM print with the Library of Congress ending.

Actually, I suspect the MGM print may be another generation down from the Library of Congress print, although it's difficult to tell just looking at the extant DVD. For me, the ideal release would be a digitally repaired (removing scratches and speckles) Library of Congress print with the missing footage inserted from the MGM print. Safe to say, the Mr. Bongo release will not be doing this!

[GaryC]

Chimes at Midnight will be getting a UK cinema reissue via Mr Bongo on 1 May. The running time as passed by the BBFC is 116:09.

The only time I've seen this film before now was the last time it was shown on British television - as part of the Welles retrospective BBC2 put on in late 1985 following Welles's death.

[FrauBlucher]

Chimes at Midnight will be released June 29.

[FrauBlucher]

Trailer...Chimes at Midnight

[rapta]

Latest word is that The Stranger has been cancelled for some reason. Will report back when we hear more as to why...my guess is an unsuitable master.

[FrauBlucher]

David Buttle anwsers a few questions about the upcomming Orson Welles releases.

[tenia]

Unfortunately for Bongo, Buttle is essentially telling us not to buy the individual UK releases but to wait for the box set which will contain extras.
He also tell us not to buy Immortal Story but wait for a BD to be released from a brand new HD master.

Weird sales technique, IMO.

[rapta]

Yep, very odd. Cancelled Falstaff for the time being, and will only get it if the box set idea is scrapped (for whatever reason).

[Calvin]

Blu-Ray releases of Fellini's Casanova, The Saragossa Manuscript and The Hourglass Sanatorium on September 7th

[What A Disgrace]

Okay, I'm actually going to buy a Mr Bongo release. I refuse to miss out on those two Wojech Has films.

[ellipsis7]

CASANOVA should be a port in of the rather nice HD transfer of the recent restoration used by Carlotta on their BR, and hopefully similarly will include Italian & English release versions of the soundtrack...

[Drucker]

Okay, I'm actually going to buy a Mr Bongo release. I refuse to miss out on those two Wojech Has films.

Saragossa Manuscript available in a region-free edition from Zebra.

[sir_luke]

So is The Hourglass Sanatorium

[FrauBlucher]

Ugh, all the more reason to wait out Criterion's release next year.

[tenia]

I just had a look at some screen caps and it is awful. It's like the brightness settings has been set up 20 points too high.

[Roger Ryan]

The restoration done by Filmoteca Española that is making the rounds on DCP this year has weak black levels as well. I was under the impression they were working with less-than-ideal elements. Viewing the Mr. Bongo trailer for CHIMES, the image looks about the same* as the DCP I saw screened twice in the past two months. Do the screen caps you've seen look worse?

*Apart from the fact that the trailer on YouTube is stretched horizontally which was not a problem with the DCP.

[Drucker]

Does anyone else have the Mr. Bongo DVD of this film, from a few years ago? Honestly, the grading/color temperature (apologies for not using right terms) didn't seem drastically different than the Spanish restoration shown at Film Forum.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

There are details on the Spanish restoration here. They worked from the original negative and based the grading of the English version on "the grading instructions of the print presented at Cannes in 1966," plus some post-Cannes changes that Welles made at some point or another in a print at the Swedish Film Institute. If this is really what the DCP looks like then I don't know what to think, since the restoration team seems to have done their due diligence—but I can't imagine the screen caps I've seen of the Bongo disc reflect what Welles had in mind.

[Cremildo]

They don't reflect what I SAW in 1967.

Like hell you can remember such detail from a screening nearly half a century ago.

[Roger Ryan]

...They worked from the original negative...

I have a hard time believing this since the Filmoteca Española DCP has "cigarette burns" visible for every reel change in additional to the usual wear-and-tear you'd expect with a print that has been run through a projector numerous times. I saw the film twice projected from 35mm (in 1993 and 2006) and both times the film looked and sounded better than this current DCP making the rounds. I don't doubt that the restoration team were very careful in selecting the correct shots (a short documentary on the restoration I saw in late April noted how Welles requested certain shots to be flipped or zoomed in to hide a nearby highway), but I can't believe this is the best the film can look.

[Drucker]

Here's Gielgud (compressed from 1080) from the BD:

As has been repeatedly pointed out, the Spanish restoration certainly isn't perfect, and certainly doesn't have piercing blacks, but it certainly isn't that washed-out looking.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

...They worked from the original negative...

I have a hard time believing this since the Filmoteca Española DCP has "cigarette burns" visible for every reel change in additional to the usual wear-and-tear you'd expect with a print that has been run through a projector numerous times. I saw the film twice projected from 35mm (in 1993 and 2006) and both times the film looked and sounded better than this current DCP making the rounds. I don't doubt that the restoration team were very careful in selecting the correct shots (a short documentary on the restoration I saw in late April noted how Welles requested certain shots to be flipped or zoomed in to hide a nearby highway), but I can't believe this is the best the film can look.

Searching for more on this, I find that you made a post along these lines in a Wellesnet thread, which contains a useful follow-up from another poster speculating that the Filmoteca didn't have access to the negative materials (which ended up in the hands of the Saltzman estate). There's also a worrying comment that Michael Dawson has a negative for Chimes but (as of last month) had not been contacted by anyone at Criterion; granted that Dawson was producer of the understandably controversial Othello restoration, but if I were Criterion I certainly wouldn't forgo the possibility that he might have something superior to the Filmoteca restoration, which from the sound of things is no world-beater.

[Roger Ryan]

...There's also a worrying comment that Michael Dawson has a negative for Chimes but (as of last month) had not been contacted by anyone at Criterion; granted that Dawson was producer of the understandably controversial Othello restoration, but if I were Criterion I certainly wouldn't forgo the possibility that he might have something superior to the Filmoteca restoration, which from the sound of things is no world-beater.

If it's any consolation, Dawson alerted Criterion's Issa Clubb (via Skype) on June 9th that he had possession of CHIMES elements. This exchange happened immediately following a panel presentation during the third day of a Welles Centenary celebration in Detroit/Ann Arbor (I was standing next to Dawson as he spoke with Clubb).

[tenia]

It seems Too Much Johnson BD suffers from the same overblown aspect than Chimes.

[tenia]

Well, the Macbeth / Othello Carlotta package wasn't bad, and Criterion might be topping this for Othello at least, hopefully getting a bit around the 92 restoration.
The Carlotta Mr Arkadin BD also looks good, but it only has this version. I guess you can't have it all, but it's good start isn't it ?

But yes, as somebody too young to have been able to be aware earlier about Welles' movies like Chimes or Too Much Johnson, I was very eager about Bongo's BDs, and they're so disappointing it is frustrating.

I can now only hope the Immortal Story Gaumont restoration won't turn out too filtered.