God bless Criterion! They are saving films. At least you know if you're paying more for their titles, the profit if going back to efforts like this. Thank you Criterion!
I've always been fascinated with the process of film restoration. Now I wish they could find the early sound Warner Brothers sound-to-disk films that are apparently lost.
I was shocked to see how expensive some of these releases were at first...then I realised just how much effort goes into them to ensure we can not only watch them but also preserve them physically.
This is a noble enterprise. The love, devotion and patience of these artists and technicians is laudable and very impressive. Their work is a gift to future humanity. It would be a sin to lose forever these master works from the dawn of film making. We owe it to the past, to ourselves and to the future.
I think you mean noble. I doubt the Swedish Dynamite inventor and bomb maker had anything to do with the film or the restoration. Just ribbing you. It's a common misspelling error. I often interpose letters that the spell checker passes on because it is stupid too.
I'm so glad there are people like you that take the time to restore these old films we are losing enough of our history and enough of our identity we don't need to lose our films as well
Wonderful video, thanks. The most beautiful film I ever saw was an original nitrate print of Isle of Lost Souls, Karl Struss cinematographer (& he was there that night! I think he was 96, so he was frail). It had a sepia tone, incredible range from the fog at the beginning to open shadows. We had to have our projection booth in Ann Arbor, upgraded with fire suppression gear in order to show the highly flammable film stock. ( I never found out of the sepia tone was original or caused by time. It was so consistent and wonderful I'm pretty sure it was original. I've sepia toned most of my B&W silver prints, but never to the full orange. It's also both an archival technique and caused by time. Some of those old photographs that are sepia are just old not originally toned. Though in my experience the time caused sepia toning is slight.) I wonder if this print ever made it to BluRay? I grew up watching all the old movies on B&W TV, very very low res. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized most of the Wizard of Oz was in color. In college we showed a lot of old movies always trying to get 35mm prints, but too often having to settle for 16mm 'TV scans' - this is where a wide screen movie was copied into 1.33:1 format to fit the format of a TV screen. I think Giant is one of the most egregious examples. Brilliant color, wide screen, no possible way to fit it to the TV format so they did horrible things. But it's kind of like your dad telling your joke and ruining it. You still can share the original. So any restoration is welcome. Hitchcock's earliest British films were notable for using the German developed technique of lighting the backgrounds differently from the actors - this gave the actors and the scene a three dimensional quality. Once you know something like this is possible and you understand how it works, you begin looking for more techniques. Hitchcock really pushed movie making forward. I don't know if it's been said recently, but Hitchcock was the Kubrick of his day. I recently watched The Man Who Knew Too Much for about the 5th time. Everyone who loves movies should read the book _Hitchcock_ by Francois Truffaut. Back in the day, probably starting in the late 1960s Hollywood would try to make a thriller. It would be billed or promoted as 'like Hitchcock,' and they were almost always terrible (The French made some great thrillers but never felt the need to mention Hitchcock.) Brian DePalma was the first filmmaker I know of who wasn't French who made thrillers like Hitchcock.
Fifteen people on Earth gave this a thumbs down. What were they expecting? What was it that they didn’t like about this video? The mind boggles! As a person with some skill in digitally restoring single photographs, I find the whole process of restoring film utterly fascinating. I could happily watch stuff like this for hours, and would be happy as can be chipping away at thousands of frames of film. Great video.
Got to hand it to Criterion. I just spent the last week salvaging VHS tapes, which was pain in patience enough! What Criterion goes through to restore film amazes me!
I LOVE CRITERION. I love the care and detail they put into restoring and preserving films new and old. I dont mind paying for their titles because I know quality will always be top notch!
There are two versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much. This British version from 1934, and an American remake from 1956. Both version were directed by Hitchcock.
I know the effort needed to work with a single image like a photograph. To work with thousands of images is to truly inspiring. Thank you! Also thanks to the BFI!
No kidding, there never seems to be enough of them. Plus, when they ARE on a dvd/BD they always seem too short. Though the videos on restoration can never be too long.
Watching this in 2021. I'm wondering if the film will eventually be re-scanned now that 8k, pinless scanners are available. I'd love to see a campaign to start scanning in all surviving film in the highest resolution possible for the physical film. Digital restoration can always take place later.
Man, I would love to see you guys restore some original WWII footage. All the "High Definition" war footage I see is just upscaled, fake-colored, stretched/cropped garbage with a false foley soundtrack laid on top of it.
I frankly love this version of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" than the 50's version. As a mystery thriller, black and white works so much better. Color and Doris Day really took some of the horror out of the 50's version. The song did not need to be brought in because this suspense story is all about suspense, not entertainment. The early version really captures the suspense even though it is a bit primitive. I absolutely love the early Hitchcock masterpieces better than his later American suspense films. He was in the suspense mode, not the entertainment mode. "Psycho" is impactful because it is all about suspense, not entertainment. His later American films were about entertainment (Cary Grant, etc.).
I used to have a 1 dollar bargain bin DVD of this movie, and I remember it looking pretty awful and the sound was really muffled. I really enjoyed the restoration of Godzilla and The Great Dictator, so this might be something I buy.
I agree 100&. Btw, love the thumbnail. Now that's a film that needs to be brought to light and appreciated. Criterion BD release of TWOSAT? One can dream....
I own a number of Criterion restored/ remastered feature films. To be sure, I'm with all lovers of classic or historical film in being grateful for Criterion preserving select film and making it commercially available. However, we should not think Criterion are the only company undertaking this work; and neither are the laws that govern sales of Criterion products free from useless politics. In a "post film world" digital film restoration is an inevitable enterprise that has been elevated to an art form. Most countries have national archives that are underfunded and understaffed; archives that given half reasonable budgets would waste no time in digitally restoring and preserving their cultural heritage. Martin Scorsese has generously begun restoring the feature films of legendary British filmmakers, Powell and Pressburger. And where Scorsese's motivation to do this is no doubt about expressing gratitude to his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who was formally married to Michael Powell); it is also about Scorsese the film-goer holding the flag for other great filmmaker's work. In my view a huge disincentive to purchasing Criterion's products - should you reside in a country outside of the United States - is the stupid American law that prohibits Criterion from selling online to consumers other than American. This law is parochial and xenophobic. Criterion doesn't "own" world cinema: it re-presents it. Furthermore, it is about time the nonsensical zoning system for DVDs and Blue Ray disks was done away with: it protects the cultural and mercantile interests of no one.
+nikosvault I guess he meant that worldwide art distribution is more important than local laws. However, Criterion most likely has very strong legal reasons to make their Blu-ray discs region A. Instead of buying region free PS3, I got an optical PC Blu-ray drive and it reads discs of any region, feels like the best decision.
I prefer the 1934 version to the 1956 version as I simply don't see why he felt the need to remake the film. We all know about the tension, suspicion of Hitlers military buildup and fundamental distrust of what was going on in Europe at the time, leading up to the second world war. English filmmakers responded to the German threat by making films that alerted British citizens to the impending danger. A lot of the 1930's films like 'secret Agent' and especially 'Sabotage' from 1936 with Sylvia Sidney and Oscar Homolka focused on this upcoming danger. What place this had in 1956, especially when Hitchcock had moved to America 🇺🇸 and had been making films there since 1940 really challenges my understanding of the need to remake a film rather than just make one more relevant to the world and audiences of the time. So to summarise the 1934 version really makes sense to me both as a film and why it was made. The 1956 film feels like a waste of time and a missed opportunity to produce a film we all could have related to and enjoyed during in a from that time. Can you imagine a world where we never got to see 'Dial M for Murder' in 1954 because he had used that time to remake 'Sabotage' again.
You don't use water in wet gate printing or telecine process. Usually, its a liquid called Perc (Perchloroethylene) although I expect they have something less toxic these days.
Fantastic work! Now how to store the huge digital files? On hard drives where data can become corrupt or unreadable? I guess archival quality 35mm prints (in this case full frame, 4 perf "Super 35mm"), using all available image space, still are the very best option for long term storage. Now about the sound? Noise, crackle and hum reduction algorithms - and any form of "enhancement" (=adding stuff like harmonic distortion and sub harmonics: the equivalent of PhotoShop image sharpening) that just isn't there in the original, but it sounds great) are becoming better and better as we speak - so any "restored" sound track would be obsolete in about 10 years from now because future software will work way better. I guess (just an idea) making a clean, separate (!) analog back up of the optical sound track with frame (sync) reference would be great, so it can be restored just like an image before being transferred into any digital audio workstation. I'm sure people already thought about that and are hopefully doing just that. Thanks for the upload - I love this stuff! Hats off to the dedicated expert craftsmen and film lovers!
Digital data is easier to archive. M-Disc lasts up to 1000 years, for example. You can also create a RAID massive and data would be stored in multiple copies on several hard drives. It's surely more reliable and cheap than just storing analog film!
+Dave Flynn O.K. thanks for the information. There is a lot of debate going on regarding how well hard drives and other digital storage media will hold up over time and if these will remain readable by future software. If all that is covered: I'm all for storing the digital uncompressed data. After all: a 35mm film storage print is once again one generation away from the restored film in digital data form. I'd say: please just don't destroy the camera negs (or fine grain intermediates) used for the restoring work. I'm sure digital technology will greatly evolve over the next decades. There's is still some loss during scanning (even on the best ones at highest resolution). Anyway: many a great recent restoring looks fantastic by any standards. Again: hats off to the dedicated people who bring out the best possible image and sound, preserving it, always carefully considering what was originally intended, so we and future generations can study and admire the camera work, lens choice, composition and lighting - among many other things. Thanks again.
Well, I don't know if this helps, but inside Criterion releases, there's either a letter (in the laserdiscs) or a page in the book (in the DVDs and Blu-Rays) that explains the restoration. While I don't own The Man Who Knew Too Much, I do own the 2004 DVD of Videodrome (the Blu-Ray was released in 2011), and I'm sure that to a certain degree, they treated the two films the same. "ABOUT THE TRANSFER: Videodrome is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Black bars at the top and bottom of the screen are normal for this format. This new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit Datacine from the 35mm interpositive. Thousands of instances of dirt debris, and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System. The soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from the 35mm magnetic tracks, and audio restoration tools were used to remove clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on 5.1 channel sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound." So, although it's not identical to the story of The Man Who Knew Too Much, I'm sure the audio/video restoration tools were similar. Hope that helps!
I used to work at criterion 10 years ago restoring 16mm films a lot of times you have to make a judgment call on what to save and what is unrecoverable I worked on cartoons mainly because I knew most of thi
Hitchcock himself acknowledged how much better his 1956 version of this film was, compared to the original. You can see how much better right here, in this famous scene. Doris Day's scream in the '50s is far more impressive because of the lead-up which creates considerably more tension.
The Restoration of Dr Who There is a team of freelance specialists known as the Doctor Who Restoration Team who have restored the original series. In terms of film as in film stock, there's very little Doctor Who material.
