North By Northwest Blu-ray left out the Mono track

I find it really interesting that while many are purists for mono in music, the same clamoring for the mono track in movies is not there.

I bought North By Northwest on Blu ray and they left off the original Mono track.
This was the only track that Hitchcock approved.

I do think they did a nice job, however it should still be on the blu ray.
BTW ironically, I saw North by Northwest at the Music Box in Chicago about 4 years ago and I was, at the time, annoyed it was in Mono.

I am a huge fan of Vertigo and was repulsed what they did with the sound track on that movie. So I only watch Vertigo in mono.
And I've come to appreciate mono, which again is what Hitch approved.


Any thoughts on this?

 

Personally I've never gotten all that interested in mono vs stereo in movies.

 

They should have the mono too....Good point.

 

Hitch was one of the directors who wanted to control every account of a movie.
The score to NBNW by B.Herrmann is an orchestral firework. It is obvious that Hitch wanted the music to add a massive power to the film.Then IMHO the intensive monaural sound was natural choice.

 

I think the problem a lot of people would have with mono would be fixed by tasteful multichannel processing... not to create fake stereo, but to just "fill the room" better with the mono track. I think people want to be immersed with a movie's sound, but don't necessarily need directional effects.

My receiver has a "mono" setting in its pile of theater sound settings, but it's disappointing. Ideally, I'd like to have most of the sound stay in the center channel, but have a bit of it added to the other four channels. I imagine some processors out there do a better job than mine.

 

I agree. The original mono should always be there, especially on the blu-rays where they have room for it.

"Vertigo" is another victim of this. They recorded new sound effects so they could give it a stereo surround track and, when compared to the mono, it sounds ridiculously bad. Check out the gunfire in the opening roomtop chase. In mono: BOOM BOOM. In stereo: ZING ZING.

 

On the other hand, I am cheesed off when a film is released .... even just on DVD... which originally had say, a 4 or 6 channel sound track and all you get, is 2 channel or worse 1.- mono. Remastering of sound elements up to 5/1 , I have no problems worth, if correctly done. If, as it should - respects and compliments the nature of the accompanying visual content. So much comment is made about visual remastering; not enough about caring for remastering a film's 'soundscape'. I find it rather strange , people wanting to revert to boxy mono sound for aural purist purposes with some films. Do they also want to go more theatrically authentic on disc, seeing these vintage films: as well, with typical change of reel 'film flap' scratch visuals etc?. Mono sound is a distortion of our perceptive senses. At least in such cases surely, some sense of improved separated sound or ' open space' is something be commended. We see a film with two eyes, yet some then want to listen 'with one ear' . Actors on screen do not stand and act in a rigid compressed straight line : yet that is what is represented soundwise, in a mono sound presentation.

 

I wasn't even aware of this. That's a bummer.

Criterion is really good about including the original mono, in fact that's often the *only* option.

The only time I've been really impressed by a complete make-over of the soundtrack is the BD release of Das Boot, which looks and sounds fantastic. It's really an incredible and excellent re-creation of the sound mix, and done with all the original people, and they really took advantage of modern surround capabilities that they didn't really have when the originally made the film. Highly recommended!

 

I was surprised when they put this out without the mono soundtrack since, in every other way, it's the definitive version of the album on home video. If I recall the earliest DVD had the mono soundtrack.

 

That's the way the industry wants you to believe but you know darn well that isn't always the case that mono is a thing of the past. Good mono and good stereo are both great.

 

Absolutely. It's a trivial thing to do in the mastering and authoring process.

For all of the acclaim people give to Bob Harris for his picture restorations, I thought this was one of the worst remixes I've ever heard. The new sound effects were atrociously over-the-top, really unsubtle and obvious. I couldn't stand it.

For movies like this, they should also provide an isolated music-only track, for soundtrack fans (especially of Bernard Herrmann) who want to enjoy just that.

 

I refuse to respect the alleged strict wishes or desires of megalomaniac high- minded film directors. Those - since dead - who stated whilst living - that nothing of their work in any facet whatsoever, can be ever touched. You would think that 100% of everything that went into their films and final completion : was by their own sole human resourses and physical effort!!! Can we believe and seriously really accept THAT supposed premise?

What selfish posthumous myoptic hypocrites, they always turn out to be! It raises questions that demand answers , if anyone were to deny that point. Such as...
Did the pompous postering Kubrick for instance, ever consider whether the dead Beethoven would have thought of Kubrick chopping bits of his 9th Symphony up to use in 'A Clockwork Orange ?
Ditto...Richard Strauss the dead composer : with Kubrick, butchering and cheapening Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra'? Hacking out and repeating (completely out of any proper known context) some 30 seconds or so of that musical work, for his 2001 Space Odyssey. Serving to make Kubrick 'a silly God' to some? To those still ignorant of its rightful source : they hear the mere sound snippet - strain of 'Zarathustra' and think it is " Oh! it is Kubrick's 2001 music" ???!! It is galling. Historically: Beethoven and Strauss will be remembered, long after Kubrick, has fell out of fashion as well as being completely forgotten! What a sensible and sobering thought.
In future, any moral argument that any aspect of Kubrick's own work is sacrosant: thus becomes fundamentally flawed.

Look now at Hitchcock's lack of artistic judgment when he disbanded his association with Bernard Herrmann. If compared side by side - that farmhouse scene in Torn Curtain "with and without Herrmann's musical contribution" , we then see in sharp relief where Hitchcock's artistry starts his big fat naked Emperor's final fall. I.E: (The D-grade) Topaz...anyone???!!
Without Herrmann -Hitchcock , during his hallowed Hollywood days -would have been another forgotten, but somewhat quirky form of also - ran. At the end...Hitchcock proved it , without a doubt. Doubly reinforced , inadvertantly, by Herrmann - just before he died - contributing the superbly crafted music for the film, Taxi Driver .

 

This issue bugs me more than anything else, and was the reason I first started looking at Laserdiscs. Not only was DVD mono sound compressed to DD 2.0 @ 192 kbp/s, but it got to a point where everything was remixed into 5.1 and the mono wasn't even included anymore! Most Blu-ray releases will feature the mono track, but it will be at a very lossy DD track which will not really hold up to the big lossless 5.1 remix. Drives me nuts!

N by NW was released in mono in one release: the Criterion LD. The CAV box has analog audio, but the later CLV movie only disc I have features the original mono in full PCM. I compared this to the 5.1 stereo remix, and while Herrmann's majestic score at first seems to have more oomph, I like the mono better. It feels more balanced and natural sounding to my ears. (BTW, the color and framing are unique to this transfer, I quite like the colors and the image is framed at 1.75:1)

Vertigo has a terrible remix, but that was done at the insistence of Universal during the restoration process. Which begs the question: why spend all the time and money meticulously restoring the film, if you're going to muck up the soundtrack so completely? The mono was later released on the DVD issue in the Masterpiece Collection boxset, and it sounds great. The 2008 Legacy release claims it has the mono, but it seems to be a folddown of the 5.1 track.

But none of this compares to the worst of mono remix offenders: the 2004 Extended Edition of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Not only did I find issue with some of the scenes they put back in, but the way they massacred the gloriously constructed post-synched mono is unforgivable. The audio was an essential part of Leone's films and it is extremely noticeable when Blondie fires a 2004 gunshot as opposed to the famous sound effect used originally in all three Dollars films. And then the recordings done for the cut scenes that never had English dialogue recorded are not very good and they stick out like a sore thumb. Eastwood and Wallach are clearly older vocally and the voice for Van Cleef seems off. It would have been much better for the scenes to be left in Italian mono with subtitles.
What this remix did was not only tamper with the original track, but it violated the intent of Leone and Morricone, and violated the spirit of the film. It was painful to see this version theatrically. To top it all off, both the DVD and Blu-ray releases are underwhelming and have noise reduction applied.
Recently I found that MGM provided no budget for the mono track during the restoration, and this is why it was never included. Which again, in a restoration process makes absolutely no sense.

Many mono tracks are simply forgotten: Taxi Driver, Clockwork Orange, Jaws and countless others. Ironically the mono track for Star Wars is the best and most complete of all mixes.

 

Mono sound is only fine where no form of the base sound elements other than one single aural channel actually exist, to work with. It is what you put up with - if you really HAVE TO.

 

The North by Northwest Blu-ray does have an isolated music-only track, at least.

I have no problem with a 5.1 remix if the original stems are used - The Prisoner Blu-ray is a good example of this (although it can also be done badly). The Prisoner Blu-ray does have the original mono as well - so everyone can be happy.

So the question for me is - given that the Vertigo Blu-ray gets the thumbs down - does the North by Northwest surround remix use all the original elements of the mono mix (or at least reasonable facsimiles)? I bought this Blu-ray last week but I haven't sat down to watch it yet. Only one way to find out...

 

As far as I can tell yes. It is quite a good mix for the film, but the mono should also be an option.

 

Agreed. The extra Lee Van Cleef scene isn't bad (even if it is an impersonator reading the lines) and fills in a vital part of the story, but the scenes with Eli and Clint are very bothersome for me, especially the scene where Tucco reunites with his gang. Clint doesn't even sound like Clint; they would have been better off hiring an impersonator.

Sometimes less is more. I remember when these lost scenes were included in the old MGM DVD as bonuses in Italian and I thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if they could get Clint and Eli to dub them and put them back into the film?" And then they did it and it was a neat but it seems like this extended version should be presented as an alternative cut rather than becoming THE final version of the movie and the only one readily available to the public. At any rate, I kept my old DVD so I could always see the film the way I remember it.

 

Be thankful they didn't change the order of who shot first. Now THAT would be a never-ending controversy...

Harry

 

BTW I should add that the only way to watch Vertigo in mono on DVD is from the Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece box set

 

Agreed! It's a bit noisy here and there, but sounds fantastic compared to the other. Supposedly they had to salvage this from a print somewhere.

I've wondered about this before, and no one seems to really have an answer. There might have been a Perspecta track made but not released. The big thing that complicates the issue is that Hitch requested for the use of VV and MGM allowed/worked it out with Paramount. The most I've found from an official source is this blurb on the old MGM LD: "Although the film was not released in stereo, the Bernard Herrmann score was recorded in stereo. We have inserted the film's title theme into the master in true sterephonic sound, and on your digital tracks the film becomes mono for the balance of the feature. On the analog tracks the film is presented with synthesized stereo audio." This is the same thing MGM did with their LDs of Goldfinger-film in mono, titles in stereo.

I tried to find the old disc for exactly this reason. Bought a copy with the correct 161 min runtime on case and disc only to put the disc in and find that it was the extended version. Had to go through about 5 or 6 copies just to find the old disc with the 161 minute original. Odd thing was most of these used the old cover artwork as well!

 

While I agree that "Topaz" would have benefited from Herrmann's score that's not the only flaw beginning with the lack of chemistry between Andrews and Newman, etc.

However the last bit-- "quirky form of also-ran" is a truly bizarre statement.

"Taxi Driver" would have been a great movie with or without Herrmann's marvelous score.