70 Mm Festival: "Around The World In 80 Days" 30 frame version comments and questions

They mades seps of 80 Days. 1971 or so. Too late I think.

 

Yup. There is NO 70mm surviving print of the 1956 version. There are many surviving 35 IB Tech prints of the 1956 version though; one of those was used to fill in the missing scenes on the current DVD.

 

apileocole asked and Steve answered:

- Since there are no 70mm prints from '56, and the seps weren't made 'till after the cuts, would it be correct to assume that any scenes in the 70mm 30fps 1956 version which were cut from the reissues appear to be entirely lost, in any condition, not even a reduction?
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Yes, which makes restoring the actual roadshow 30 frame 1956 version impossible.
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- In addition to the surviving IB prints (hallelujah for dye-transfer), what is the status of the 35mm version? Do the original seps and/or negatives and sound mix survive?
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For the sound there is a sound 6 track print master for the 30 frame version that still survives but it is the 1968 so-called "long version". (An even shorter cut was made in the early 1980's when Liz Taylor sold the film to WB.) So the sound is the '68 cut. The 35 sound mags also survive in the '68 version.

Regarding camera negs: When Jeff Joseph of SabuCat and I were working on the music restoration of this monster back in 1989-91, we saw the 30 frame 70, the 30 frame 35, the 24 frame 35 camera negs at WB along with the matching sound. All 1968 versions. What UA did in the 1960's when they trimmed a movie was they just junked the "outs".

The 35 version in 1956 was printed in two different versions: The EXACT reduction of the 70mm which meant that it wasn't flat screen and wasn't anamorphic so the theatres had to use some kind of "Superscope" lens over the projectors to get the correct aspect ratio. Same lens that the Superscope version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS would have used. Those prints in IB Tech had the exact same look as the 70. Only the 24 frame version was printed like this. There also was a CINEMASCOPE version made but the top and bottom of the image was slightly cut to get the wider picture. Both of these had mag four track sound and also optical versions made. Some of these 35mm four channel versions had a few reels incoded in PERSPECTA sound so that the surround channel would bounce all over the theatre.
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- Is it possible to do for film what was done for DVD? That is were it possible to generate a "new" 70mm from the seps of the reissue-cut negative in high quality, can the 35mm version be printed to 70mm and inserted in missing scenes with acceptable quality? I gather we'd run into frame rate trouble, but I don't happen to know if 24fps can be printed to 30fps (or visa versa if need be) without gettin' goofy, or if the drop in clarity from 70mm sources and 35mm sources would be too jarring. Then the soundtrack would have to be remixed for the sections only surviving on 35mm... but can it be done apart from video?
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Cannot really do a 30/24 printing, no. Best you could do would be a new 70mm 30 frame 1968 version or a 24 1968 version.
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- Of course what I'm also driving at is restoring it by way of scanning the different sources to high-res, "fix up" by whatever means, and rescan to film similar to the process the Disney folk used in a few of theirs. Is that theoretically possible if the funding existed?
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Could, but it would cost a great deal of money and remember, the many missing scenes and the complete Edward R. Murrow introduction would have to be reprinted from an existing 35mm print of the 1956 version and those (with the proper mag sound) are dying rapidly.

Heck, for a while I myself owned the best surviving IB Tech 35mm 1956 24 frame version of AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. However, the four little mag strips and the actual film that they were printed on SHRINK AT A DIFFERENT RATE thereby warping the movie and making it impossible to project. Soon, there will be no stereo record of the 1956 version either. Arggh, it's sad.
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- Lastly for my own geeky goodness, if the intro, intermission & exit music is preserved in the 70mm version, what if anything was shown on screen during the music?
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The various times Jeff has shown AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, we always make sure that it's the 1956 version and we always play the Entr'acte music and the "roadshow exit" music. People actually sit in their seats for the exit music. It's wonderful. You've heard the Entr'acte music, it's the first thing on the old Decca Soundtrack. The exit music really has never appeared on record or CD; I love it.
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You're right about the novelty of travel to many in 1956. Yet when I watch this film, I feel a fresh enthusiasm that I think is a glimpse of the interest it must have had for those folks at the time. I first saw the celebrated father of Edward Hardwicke, who I knew as Dr. Watson in those Jeremy Brett Sherlock TV shows, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, in this film. What turn he does as a character actor here.

Oh yes. And Shirley Maclaine never looked quite that good anywhere else lol

Regardless, it's been great chatting on this wonderful film. I share the interests and thank you
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I love talking about this movie. At Todd-AO in 1990 Jeff and I assembled about one hour's worth of VICTOR YOUNG'S surviving music score in glorious mag sound, undipped from the actual 6 channel music scoring sessions. All of those were junked a long time ago but we found that some of the music was preserved at Todd-AO by the original inventor of Todd-AO sound and the recording engineer of the music, the late Fred Hynes. He marked the mag spools as "Todd-AO Music Library" on each one therefore they were saved and not ashcanned. DCC was going to release combined with the DECCA LP music cues on a Gold CD but between Liz Taylor, WB the musicians union and Universal it was impossible to figure out who actually owned the music that DID NOT appear on the original 1957 Decca Soundtrack LP. So, it sits in the can.
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Any more questions, please ask!

 

No.

Cost no object? Still no; no usable prints of the longest version of the 70mm 30 frame performance. A lost film in the original 30 frame roadshow form.

 

Yes, of course.

 

That filmed prologue still exists and I wish it could have been included in the DVD. Too many legal problems though...

In fact, the Todd-AO record books show that this prologue got pretty far in the final cut of the film. How do we know this? Well, Victor Young and his arrangers scored and recorded the music for the unused prologue in July of 1956.