Recent Film Restorations

[andyli]

12 animated shorts, mainly by Dave Fleischer and George Pal, restored by Seth McFarlane and The Film Foundation:
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/back ... 2025-04-11

Eight of these are screening at Il Cinema Ritrovato this year, all from 4K restoration.

Additionally, there is another program of Dave Fleischer's cartoon at the festival, with eight more short animation films also restored in 4K but by a different party. They are:

SUPERMAN – THE BULLETEERS
OUT OF THE INKWELL – JUMPING BEANS
BETTY BOOP – S.O.S.
COLOR CLASSICS – SMALL FRY
TALKARTOONS – BIMBO’S INITIATION
INKWELL IMPS – KOKO’S EARTH CONTROL
TALKARTOONS – SWING YOU SINNERS!
BETTY BOOP – SNOW WHITE

The shared restoration notes for this set

Copy from Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons
Restored in 4K between 2022 and 2025 by Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored in collaboration with Paramount Pictures Archives at Cineaste Restoration, Chelsea Rialto Studios, NAAH LLC, Thunderbean Animation 2135 Kensington LLC and Christopher Gray Post Production laboratories. Restoration supervised by Thad Komorowski, production by Jane Fleischer Reid and Mauricio Alvarado in association with Sam Davis. Special thanks to UCLA Film & Television Archive, Academy Film Archive, Mark Kausler, Larry Tremblay, Bruce Lawton and Helge Bernhardt

I wonder if there would be any label interested in bringing either set of restoration out on disc.

[Stefan Andersson]

Upcoming at MoMA: silent film restorations including:
Berlin: Symphony of a City
John M. Stahl’s Memory Lane (1926)
Frank Borzage’s Street Angel (1928)
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5833

[senseabove]

Maybe that WAC Blu-Ray is finally incoming: Stage Door

[FrauBlucher]

Oh how terrific that will be

[Stefan Andersson]

Maybe that WAC Blu-Ray is finally incoming: Stage Door

On the page linked to above, click "Full film card" and scroll down for info about the print source:

The Stage Door print comes from FPA France, courtesy of Blackhawk Films: https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/e ... tage-door/


FPA was formerly Lobster Films:
https://www.fpaclassics.com/en/home

Full film cards are usually posted for all Ritrovato showings.

[senseabove]

Well, it's listed as screening from a DCP:

Cast and Credits
... Prod.: Pandro S. Berman for RKO Radio Pictures. DCP. D.: 87’. Bn.

The Warner DVD is 20+ years old. Presumably they're not showing so ancient an SD can at ICR, and I saw a perfectly fine print of it ~5 years ago, so I'd assume that DCP is new enough to warrant not flying over whatever print showed at the Stanford a few years ago...

[andyli]

A DCP is nice indication but I'd imagine if WAC were to release it it would have been from a fresh 4K scan at this stage (no pun intended). Filmmaker's programs at ICR are usually organized with whatever prints/digital prints they could gather from various parties, so a certain film's presence is not guarantee restoration work has just been done. Incidentally, the Katharine Hepburn program also includes films like Sylvia Scarlett and Adam's Rib.

[senseabove]

Yeah, my supposition/hope rests on the fact that everything else playing in the Hepburn program from a DCP has a disc release, Stage Door is the only DCP without one (e.g. Alice Adams and Adam's Rib, both unreleased in HD, are both 35mm.), I have seen a print of it projected, and the theater where I saw that print often sources prints from the same archives this program has sourced prints (LoC, Academy Archive, etc.).

[FlickeringWindow]

Important to note that Lobster/FPA Classics has DCPs of a lot of RKO films due to their public domain status outside North America and UK. They provided the masters for all those Japanese Blu-rays of 30s/40s RKO films that are still firmly under copyright in North America by Warner Bros (via Turner).

[Stefan Andersson]

Le Beau Serge (1958)
Les Cousins (1959)
Les Bonnes Femmes (1960)
Les Godelureaux (1961)
Landru (1962)
Les Biches (1968)
La Femme infidèle (1969)
Que la bête meure (1969)
Le Boucher (1970)
La Rupture (1970)
Juste avant la nuit (1971)
Les Noces rouges (1973)
https://festival-larochelle.org/retrosp ... e-chabrol/
https://festival-larochelle.org/programmation-2025/

Les Fougères bleues (1977) Françoise Sagan
https://festival-larochelle.org/edition ... tion-2025/

[Aspect]

Holy shit. Finally!

[nowhereisaplace]

I have been looking forward to a restoration for Les Godelureaux - I am honestly baffled by the film and was always hoping that seeing it in a better version would help me with it. Les Bonnes Femmes is a masterpiece so very happy that is on the list!

[Stefan Andersson]

Le droit a la vie, Gance, 1917:
https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/48674.html

[Stefan Andersson]

New Donation portal has been set up to receive tax deductible donations to save silent films:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... ms.386368/

Titles include:

The Affairs of Anatol (1921), Blonde or Brunette (1927), A Gentleman of Paris (1927), The Girl of the Golden West (1915), The Grand Duchess and the Waiter (1926), Hawthorne of the U.S.A. (1919), Lord Jim (1925), The Love Special (1921), Mannequin (1926), Miss Lulu Bett (1922), A Mormon Maid (1917), Redskin (1929), The Round-up (1920), Sally of the Sawdust (1925), Sick Abed (1920), Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1916), The Vanishing American (1925), The Virginian (1914), Wild Horse Mesa (1925).

See also:
https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37446
https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37474

[Stefan Andersson]

Laurel & Hardy features 1931-40 to be restored:
https://www.classicflix.com/blog/2025/0 ... g-and-more

Pack Up Your Troubles will be the UCLA/Film Foundation restoration. UCLA will be the source of most other 35mm elements.

https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/laurel-and-hardy

Mods: posted the above in the ClassicFlix thread also. Posting it here as "restoration info of general interest".

UCLA plans to restore 10 Vietnamese films:
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/my-van-preservation-project

[Stefan Andersson]

Interview with Ben Model + upcoming restoration: Her Cardboard Lover w/ Marion Davies:
https://filmint.nu/ben-model-silent-fil ... remy-carr/

[Stefan Andersson]

East and West, starring Molly Picon, restored by Filmarchiv Austria:
https://www.stummfilmwoche.de/index.php?page=304

Wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna:
https://www.murnau-stiftung.de/filmthea ... a-petrowna
https://therealmofsilence.com/2024/07/2 ... d-1929-30/

[Stefan Andersson]

Only Two Can Play, 4K:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/august-2025 ... k-bfi-imax

[Stefan Andersson]

Convict from Istambul (Uckicky, 1929)
https://www.ufa-filmnaechte.de/filme/de ... us-stambul

Der Rosenkavalier (Wiene, 1925/26)
https://www.ufa-filmnaechte.de/filme/der-rosenkavalier

[Stefan Andersson]

Restoring the 1925 version of The Gold Rush:
https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37481

Restored episodes of The Buster Keaton Show on bluray:
https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=37466

[Stefan Andersson]

Urban Gad´s Der Fremde Vogel (1911), starring Asta Nielsen:
https://www.stummfilm-magazin.de/aktuel ... emde-vogel
https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/de/p ... emde-vogel
https://cinematek.be/en/2025-06-11-19-0 ... emde-vogel

[Stefan Andersson]

Manslaughter, Cecil B. DeMille - see posts 37-38 here:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... 368/page-2

[andyli]

Queen Kelly to pre-open (whatever that means) Venice.

Queen Kelly (1929), the legendary unfinished masterpiece by the great director (Foolish Wives, Greed) and actor (The Grand Illusion, Sunset Boulevard) Erich von Stroheim, produced by and starring the era’s most glamorous film star Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard), is the film chosen for the Pre-opening night, on Tuesday August 26th 2025, of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival (27 August-6 September) of La Biennale di Venezia, to be held in Sala Darsena (Palazzo del Cinema) on the Lido. Queen Kelly will be shown as a world premiere in a new version restored incorporating newly discovered materials.

The restoration is credited to Milestone Films.

EDIT: Sorry didn't notice this piece of news has already been posted in the Milestone thread. Guess I'll just leave it here for future reference.

[andyli]

Venice Classics Line-up:

MATADOR
by PEDRO ALMODÓVAR (Spain, 1986, 102’, Colour)
restored by: Video Mercury Films

BASHÚ, GHARIBEH KOUCHAK (BASHU, THE LITTLE STRANGER)
by BAHRAM BEYZAI (Iran, 1986, 120’, Colour)
restored by: Roashana Studios with the support of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (KANOON) - presented by mk2 Films

LE QUAI DES BRUMES (PORT OF SHADOWS)
by MARCEL CARNÉ (France, 1938, 92’, B/W)
restored by: Studiocanal and la Cinémathèque française with the support of the Centre national du Cinéma et de l’image animée and CHANEL

3:10 TO YUMA
by DELMER DAVES (USA, 1957, 92’, B/W)
restored by: Sony Pictures Entertainment

ANIKI-BÓBÓ
by MANOEL DE OLIVEIRA (Portugal, 1942, 72’, B/W)
restored by: Cinemateca Portuguesa - Museu do Cinema

ROMA ORE 11 (ROME 11:00)
by GIUSEPPE DE SANTIS (Italy, 1952, 105’, B/W)
restored by: Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale

LO SPETTRO (THE GHOST)
by RICCARDO FREDA (Italy, 1963, 95’, Colour)
restored by: Severin Films

MARK OF THE RENEGADE
by HUGO FREGONESE (USA, 1951, 81’, Colour)
restored by: Universal Pictures

KAGI (ODD OBSESSION)
by KON ICHIKAWA (Japan, 1959, 107’, Colour)
restored by: Kadokawa Corporation

PRZYPADEK (BLIND CHANCE)
by KRZYSZTOF KIEŚLOWSKI (Poland, 1981, 123’, Colour)
restored by: DI Factory

KAIDAN (KWAIDAN)
by MASAKI KOBAYASHI (Japan, 1965, 183’, Colour)
restored by: Toho

LOLITA
by STANLEY KUBRICK (USA, 1962, 153’, B/N)
restored by: The Criterion Collection, Warner Bros.

HOUSE OF STRANGERS
by JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ (USA, 1949, 101’, B/W)
restored by: Walt Disney Studios, The Film Foundation

THE DELICATE DELINQUENT
by DON MCGUIRE (USA, 1957, 101’, B/W)
restored by: Paramount

IL MAGNIFICO CORNUTO (THE MAGNIFICENT CUCKOLD)
by ANTONIO PIETRANGELI (Italy, France, 1964, 124’, B/W)
restored by: Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Compass Film

DO BIGHA ZAMIN (TWO ACRES OF LAND)
by BIMAL ROY (India, 1953, 120’, B/W)
restored by: Film Heritage Foundation – India, The Criterion Collection

TI HO SPOSATO PER ALLEGRIA (I MARRIED YOU FOR FUN)
by LUCIANO SALCE (Italy, 1967, 102’, Colour)
restored by: Cinecittà S.p.A.

AIQING WANSUI (VIVE L’AMOUR)
by TSAI MING-LIANG (Taipei, 1994, 119’, Colour)
restored by: Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute



Completing the Venice Classics section will be a selection of documentaries about cinema and its practitioners, with a line-up to be announced at the press conference on July 22nd.

[dwk]

It didnt seem like those Bimal Roy titles Criterion licensed were ever going to happen.