Great War Movies

[Guest TankerHC]

It was originally filmed in Technicolor. Perhaps you are color blind? :)

 

 

- OS

 

I think there is an explanation for that. Something I didnt know until two days ago watching the Drive-In Movie section on Roku. Turns out that even though these movies were filmed in Technicolor, when they were released for TV, everyone had B&W TV's, so it was cheaper for the studios to make TV prints in B&W than send them out in Technicolor when all anyone would see was B&W anyway. So even today, unless its one of Turners colorized films, if you see an old movie on late night TV from a local channel, Technicolor or not, it will be the TV print in B&W, which is why a lot of people think a lot of these old movies were filmed in B&W.

[atlas3025]

I get you Tanker.  At least as far as the blood and gore go, I don't know that the SFX existed in 93 to do the battle Justice.  If you will recall, Saving Private Ryan was heralded as the first movie to really "show it like it was".  A lot of new FX were created by/for SPR that didn't exist before.  Plus the budget for SPR was montrous compared for Gettysburg.  I can't blame Shaara for trying to do it as much justice as he could.  I agree with you about Burn's, but there was a very good sense of persective and scope in Gettysburg, bad beards notwithstanding. 

 

I typically don't care all that much for Stephen Lang, but I agree he was the star of both. 

Edited August 13, 2013 by atlas3025

[vontar]

I think there is an explanation for that. Something I didnt know until two days ago watching the Drive-In Movie section on Roku. Turns out that even though these movies were filmed in Technicolor, when they were released for TV, everyone had B&W TV's, so it was cheaper for the studios to make TV prints in B&W than send them out in Technicolor when all anyone would see was B&W anyway. So even today, unless its one of Turners colorized films, if you see an old movie on late night TV from a local channel, Technicolor or not, it will be the TV print in B&W, which is why a lot of people think a lot of these old movies were filmed in B&W.

 

Holy, that answers an disagreement a coworker and I have for years about the Original War of the Worlds.  I remember watching it in Black and white and I searched and searched and never found a reference to it being in black and white only in color.

 

He said there was only one back then and I thought there was 2 as I remembered a black and white and a color one.

[Reservoir Dog]

I think there is an explanation for that. Something I didnt know until two days ago watching the Drive-In Movie section on Roku. Turns out that even though these movies were filmed in Technicolor, when they were released for TV, everyone had B&W TV's, so it was cheaper for the studios to make TV prints in B&W than send them out in Technicolor when all anyone would see was B&W anyway. So even today, unless its one of Turners colorized films, if you see an old movie on late night TV from a local channel, Technicolor or not, it will be the TV print in B&W, which is why a lot of people think a lot of these old movies were filmed in B&W.

 

Hmmmm.  I have seen this explanation before. LOL. :cool:

[Guest TankerHC]

Hmmmm.  I have seen this explanation before. LOL. :cool:

 

 

Yep sure did, had to go back and read through. Did you get it same place I saw it? roku? Its also on imdb.

 

Vontar, Reservoir Dog beat me to it by a week.

 

Dangit. lol

Edited August 14, 2013 by TankerHC

[TSprint1]

Got a somewhat interesting story.  I was stationed in Germany with an army LTC who I found out, while on a ski trip with him and his family, that he had flown a Huey during the battle of Ia Drang.  He had never talked about it before but happened to mention it while we were sitting in a Gasthaus tipping a couple one evening.  He was an interesting guy.  He was commissioned from the US Naval Academy, Annapolis however because he had injured one of his knees playing some intramural sports they wouldn't allow him to become a Naval Aviator.  He talked to the army and they accepted him into their helicopter pilot program.  Sounds strange but it is a fact.  He flew for many years then finished out his career as a MI officer.  He didn't talk much about the Ia Drang other than it was the most terrifying experience of his life.  There's never been any doubt in my mind that he was/is the real deal.  When the book "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young" came out I looked for his name and there it was on page 462.  The last time I talked to him he was retired and living in Durango, CO.  I'm proud to call him a friend.

[Good_Steward]

I can't believe that no one has mentioned an all time Stanley Kubrick classic, as in the words of Private Pyle, "Full... Metal... Jacket..."

 

 

Yup. Fantastic movie. 

 

I also haven't seen "Platoon" or "Apocalypse Now" yet. Awesome movies. 

 

Not sure how this qualifies, but the Vietnam portion of "Forrest Gump" was the best part of a movie full of great parts.

Edited August 14, 2013 by Good_Steward

[Oh Shoot]

I think there is an explanation for that. Something I didnt know until two days ago watching the Drive-In Movie section on Roku. Turns out that even though these movies were filmed in Technicolor, when they were released for TV, everyone had B&W TV's, so it was cheaper for the studios to make TV prints in B&W than send them out in Technicolor when all anyone would see was B&W anyway. So even today, unless its one of Turners colorized films, if you see an old movie on late night TV from a local channel, Technicolor or not, it will be the TV print in B&W, which is why a lot of people think a lot of these old movies were filmed in B&W.

 

Very good, and I did know this to be so (I worked with movie film for many years, besides being a movie buff) but would be surprised if even the smallest stations have run a broadcast film chain for films since the mid 80's at the latest, once converted video versions became the standard for distribution by the 70's. Those of course are all in color if the original was (now mostly digital of course).

 

Most studio techs wouldn't even recognize a film chain, even if they still had one around, with somehow the spare parts and some old coot to maintain it.

 

- OS

Edited August 14, 2013 by Oh Shoot

[Good_Steward]

I would say that "Casualties of War" and the "M.A.S.H." movie were pretty darn good, as well. 

Edited August 14, 2013 by Good_Steward

[Guest TankerHC]

I get you Tanker.  At least as far as the blood and gore go, I don't know that the SFX existed in 93 to do the battle Justice.  If you will recall, Saving Private Ryan was heralded as the first movie to really "show it like it was".  A lot of new FX were created by/for SPR that didn't exist before.  Plus the budget for SPR was montrous compared for Gettysburg.  I can't blame Shaara for trying to do it as much justice as he could.  I agree with you about Burn's, but there was a very good sense of persective and scope in Gettysburg, bad beards notwithstanding. 

 

I typically don't care all that much for Stephen Lang, but I agree he was the star of both. 

 

 

I might agree on the FX if it were not for the fact all you have to do is go back and look at the 1981 movie "The Thing" with Kurt Russel or even the original Aliens to know it was there. I think Turner spent about 60 million on that movie, not counting promoting and distributing. He did such a good job I didnt even know it was coming out. And I can tell you I would have been one of those standing in line the day before to see that movie. I read the books (And of course they are historical fiction) long ago.

 

There is another movie that came out in June directed by Maxwell. Copperhead. Heard an interview with Maxwell that the same mistakes would not be made on Historical Accuracy that were made in his other movies. The movie cost 12 million to make. Its of course political. Current box office gross is $171,000. Another bomb by Maxwell. I might have gone and seen it, if it were to have played anywhere. Opening weekend was $55,000 and the following weekend it grossed $14,000. Stupid Blair Witch cost 20 bucks to make and has grossed a couple of hundred million. Patriot radio said "The Civil War movie every Conservative needs to see". They saw it in about the numbers they voted last election.

 

There was another one, listened to an interview with the director, its called Thirst: A Civil War Story. Released in May. Another flop. Gross is so low it cant even be counted. (Either that or they delayed release because I have not seen it anywhere)

[Guest TankerHC]

Very good, and I did know this to be so, but would be surprised if even the smallest stations have run a broadcast film chain for films since the mid 80's at the latest, once converted video versions became the standard for distribution by the 70's. Those of course are all in color if the original was (now mostly digital of course).

 

Most studio techs wouldn't even recognize a film chain, even if they still had one around, with somehow the spare parts and some old coot to maintain it.

 

- OS

 

Again, cant take credit for the post. Reservoir Dog beat me to it by a long ways.

[Guest TankerHC]

How about a movie I WANT TO BE MADE?

 

Casca: The Eternal Mercenary

 

I read the series back in the 80's. Barry Sadler (Green Beret, Ballad of the Green Beret's) wrote the series. Even if you arent into those kinds of books, they are really good and fast reading, but it would cost a lot of money to go through the whole series in a movie.

 

First book starts out as I recall, a Green Beret Master Sergeant in Vietnam is killed in action and his body is taken back to Saigon. The Doctor is doing a preliminary X-Ray during autopsy and sees something in his leg and pulls it out. Walks out of the room to make sure he is seeing what he thinks he is seeing. While he is standing in the other room the dead Master Sergeant wakes up and walks into the other room.

 

What the Doctor found was a 2000 year old Spearhead in his leg. Later in the book you find out that the Master Sergeant is Casca, a Roman Legionnaire who was left to guard Christ while he was dying on the Cross. While he was guarding Christ, Christ sentences him to walk the Earth as a Warrior until the Second Coming. You can take it from there, but he has to fight in about every war, which leads up to the first book. In one book he gets captured and put on a slave ship. The slave ship sinks, he's chained to the ship, but since he cant die, he's stuck while the ship is going down. I cant recall for sure but I think he had to wait until the ship rotted away so he could get out or something like that.

 

I also heard another writer was going to pick up the series. This isnt Highlander, completely different stories, basically same premise.

Edited August 14, 2013 by TankerHC

[Reservoir Dog]

Did you get it same place I saw it? roku? Its also on imdb.

 

I have known about "TV prints" for some time.  I will have to check out what IMDb says about it.  Although, I never understood why someone would go to all the trouble to colorize a B&W TV print, when the original (in the original color format) is out there.  Makes no sense to me, but then again, neither does colorization.  I think it destroys a perfectly good movie.

[Oh Shoot]

...Although, I never understood why someone would go to all the trouble to colorize a B&W TV print, when the original (in the original color format) is out there. 

 

Who  claims anyone ever did? That would be absurd, expense for no reason.

 

- OS

Edited August 14, 2013 by Oh Shoot

[Reservoir Dog]

Who  claims anyone ever did? That would be absurd, expense for no reason.

 

- OS

 

Calm down there old fella.  Nobody said they ever did.  I was merely throwing out the idea because Vontar said something about a colorized version of the movie.  Since colorizations are so blatantly obvious, I thew out the idea of a colorized TV print.  You are correct, it is absurd, hence my statement you quoted.  :-\

[vontar]

As I said, I just remembered seeing itas black and white.  When you google it images of color and black and white frames are available. 

 

I agree with the way tanker explained it as that seems to fit.  So yea, i believe now it started as colar and I just happened to get to see it in black and white for what ever reason.

[Guest TankerHC]

They colorized the original version of the Wizard of Oz. Wizard of Oz starts out in B&W, I believe when she gets to Munchkin Land thats where it changed to Technicolor. They did that to show the new Technicolor technology. Someone (Turner?) colorized the complete original.

 

I have heard so much about how Citizen Kane was the greatest movie ever made. LOC has it listed as the best movie in the last 100 years and on most charts its number one of all time. So I finally watched it last week, after thinking for the last 20 I should watch it. Turner wanted to show a colorized version years ago and I remember Hollyweird about lost their collective fricken minds. But after watching it, one thing occured to me. It isnt IMHO the best movie I have ever seen by a long shot, but it is a good movie and although over 50 years old worth watching. Just the opening scene of the big house on the hill should show that it shouldnt be colorized. When I went to see Pulp Fiction, when I left the theater I remember thinking that Tarantino was the most genuis movie maker alive, that idea of converging stories was amazing. Then I watched Citizen Kane last week and at the end I thought "AHA! Thats where Tarantino got the idea, he's no genuis, Orson Welles is the Genius".

 

Sorry for the hijack. BOT

[Oh Shoot]

Calm down there old fella.  Nobody said they ever did.  I was merely throwing out the idea because Vontar said something about a colorized version of the movie.  Since colorizations are so blatantly obvious, I thew out the idea of a colorized TV print.  You are correct, it is absurd, hence my statement you quoted.  :-\

 

Geezer is calm, thanks.

 

An off topic film anecdote: back in the Iron Age of film, ran 16mm color and b/w movie lab at UT, actually kept it going until about 1992 or so, because of football coaching films (off topic on off topic).

 

But anyway, a prof kept bringing us positive 16mm prints with optical sound of various classic flicks, we'd dupe them and bill him directly, rather than department. Turned out he was selling them through the pre-web internet to film buffs at other schools around the country. He got caught, prosecuted for copyright and whatnot, and fired. Had tenure too, but didn't protect him from that.

 

One more: when James Earl Ray broke out of Brushy, whatever union that controlled videographers went on strike, and all the networks sent their shooters here with 16mm movie cameras. We kept the movie lab open 24 hours for the 3 days or so it took to catch him and for of them to get all their wrap up interviews and whatnot. Guys would come in all hours of the day and night on choppers that landed over on Hudson field (football practice field).

 

- OS

[kieefer]

Saw a preview of Emperor with Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas MacArthur, this may be good.

 

Anyone seen it?

 

+1 on War of the Worlds, I remember seeing it in B&W.

 

Don't forget to drop the needle on Dark Side of the Moon when the Lion roars at the beginning of The Wizard of OZ  :tough:

[TMF]

Saw a preview of Emperor with Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas MacArthur, this may be good.

 

I was about to get it but then I saw the description of it being a love story of some kind.  No thanks.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

The B&W TV prints may solve a problem I was having with the faulty memory. I recalled the movie Midway as black'n'white. Never saw it except several times on TV. Think I've even seen it sometime in the last decade or two on TV. Because I recalled it as B&W, had  assumed it was made in the late 1940's or the 1950's (eras when they did still crank out some fairly well-made B&W movies on occasion). So when I looked it up and found Midway was made in 1976, I thought maybe there was an earlier version of the movie that I recalled, but can't find reference to any earlier version.

 

Or maybe 1978 or so (when the film would have made it to TV) would be too late a time for B&W TV prints, and my memory is just completely flawed on that topic.

[Guest TankerHC]

The B&W TV prints may solve a problem I was having with the faulty memory. I recalled the movie Midway as black'n'white. Never saw it except several times on TV. Think I've even seen it sometime in the last decade or two on TV. Because I recalled it as B&W, had  assumed it was made in the late 1940's or the 1950's (eras when they did still crank out some fairly well-made B&W movies on occasion). So when I looked it up and found Midway was made in 1976, I thought maybe there was an earlier version of the movie that I recalled, but can't find reference to any earlier version.

 

Or maybe 1978 or so (when the film would have made it to TV) would be too late a time for B&W TV prints, and my memory is just completely flawed on that topic.

 

Im on a UK Video editing Forum, (Trying to learn to do everything this Vegas Pro software I bought can do)  so I asked the question about this because there are a lot of pros on there. It wasnt just black and white TV prints. And Color movies didnt start in the late 50's early 60's, there are Color Movies from the 1890's. (Edison made Color movies). Back in the 50's, there were Color TV's, not many but they were in peoples homes in the US and England. Color film stock was super expensive in the 50's, even all the way up to 1970. So studios would film in Color, then release the movies on black and white film stock, then when the movie made enough money in limited release, they would do a wide release on color film stock. So you could be in one city and see a movie in black and white, drive to another city and see the same movie, playing at the same time, in color. And colorizing movies that were meant to be shown in black and white didnt start with Ted Turner, studios have been doing it since the 40's. Some movies were meant to be filmed in color but budgets prevented them from being filmed in color and released in color (Psycho, The Birds) and even more modern movies were actually meant to be filmed and released in color but no budget (Raging Bull and Young Frankenstein were originally meant to be shot and released in color), but after limited release, they did so well in B&W, they just left it like that.

 

Low budget studios did it all the way through the 80's. Shot in color, limited release in B&W then re-released on color film stock.

 

So yep, not only for TV, but even at the movies. Almost no movies are shot on film or edited manually today. According to the guys on the Video editing forums, it takes no talent to digitally film and edit a movie. ANd movies shot on film then digitized are ruined movies. Apparently that's Spielbergs policy, as long as they are making film emulsion, that's how we will make our films, on film emulsion, because thats how films are made". A quote they posted from Speilbergs primary cinematographer Janusz Kaminski "Digital film making removes the grain emulsion from a film, and makes it so clear, that it is clear to the point of distraction". Perfect examples of two movies ruined by digitizing are Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. I was told, if you have only seen them on TV or on DVD or Blu-Ray, you havent seen the movie. If you really want to see the movie, you need to go to a theater and see the movie, if you can find a non digital movie theater these days. Audiences notice, people who had seen Saving Private Ryan at the movies, raised holy hell with the studios, TV stations and wrote letters to Steven Spielberg when it was completely digitized and put on TV, because it was a completely different movie. They did change it back for some markets, but if you see it today on TV basically your seeing the WWII (Visuals) version of Avatar.

 

If you have only seen SPR on TV then you missed the grit, you missed the primary purpose of the initial battle scene, the particles of dirt flying from the artillery impacts on the land, the water flying up, you saw the water flying up and the dirt flying up, but not the grit of the soldiers faces up close being splattered with blood, dirt and water. If you didnt get to see Saving Private Ryan at the movies, and want to see how it is really supposed to look. Spielberg released a limited edition on VHS, you can watch that and compare it to Blu-Ray and see two entirely different movies.

 

I didnt know all of that, or that Tarantino learned from Speilberg and only wants to shoot on film but they sometimes force him to shoot digital because of budgets and he hates it. But I do know, after having seen SPR at the movies 10 times, and then watching it on DVD a ton of times then Blu-Ray that I have always thought (While watching it on DVD and Blu-Ray), that this just isnt as good of a movie as I remember.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks TankerHC that is very interesting, especially that color masters were so common, even for B&W movie releases. A lot of "art" films were in B&W and I knew that B&W was cheaper than color, but just figured that the masters were B&W. Didn't think about the expense of color prints. Well, in addition some folks artistically prefer B&W, or at least that was the case some times in the past. Dunno about nowadays.

[Guest TankerHC]

Thanks TankerHC that is very interesting, especially that color masters were so common, even for B&W movie releases. A lot of "art" films were in B&W and I knew that B&W was cheaper than color, but just figured that the masters were B&W. Didn't think about the expense of color prints. Well, in addition some folks artistically prefer B&W, or at least that was the case some times in the past. Dunno about nowadays.

 

 

They mentioned that too. one movie in particular. Sin City was filmed in B&W for artistic purposes (Used as an example)

[Guest Lester Weevils]

They mentioned that too. one movie in particular. Sin City was filmed in B&W for artistic purposes (Used as an example)

 

Well, perhaps one advantage of the digital film is that the colors won't fade. They keep having to "re-master" the old color films because the color has drifted.

 

A cousin is an accomplished photographer, awards, books, etc. He does all his "serious" art pics and high-dollar rich-folks portraits in large format b&w with fancy custom cameras. He says that b&w is the only "archival quality" photograph that if properly cared for, can last a century or more without degradation.

 

Assuming that we don't have a tech crash and we retain the capablity of viewing/duping digital images into the future, maybe it doesn't much matter any more. The bits in the images ought to be real durable if people keep duping the bits before the media fails.