quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
Did he forget to take that left turn at Albuquerque?

A right turn backwards!

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do!

Party like it's 1999:
Clifton's Cafeteria 1999
Ray, Ray and Forry
(Credit: Gary Leonard/L.A. Public Library online photo archive)

ackermanandfriends_full.jpg (30 Kb, 11 downloads)

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
...even in some of the less-favored neighborhoods.

Or even less-favoured neighbourhoods!

quote:

Originally posted by biplane1:
He was going to wrap up the day and hunker down in a motel and take off early this morning.

Hunker is a good word.

I've been to Florida, then up to DC to let a flat, receive my stuff, and have dinner with an old friend.

Then it's back down to Florida for the weekend to stay with my family on a beach condo near Destin Florida. Wednesday, I'll drive back up and really settle in.

In the interim...

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:In the interim...

You sorry person, you.

A number of times now as I have watched "silent movies" thru the years, I wonder why not more is being done to add modern day sound and sound effects and voices to some of the ""silents"" out there. I am big on taking old cars and adding every modern piece of equipment to the innards and soul of a car. A 1935 Chrysler with a brand-new Hemi, new suspensions, exhausts, etc. and all the electronics. W0W!

Click on link to see some footage of a 1927 movie called "SUNRISE". Janet Gaynor and George O'Brien, to name a few. What would it be like to add the latest innovations to sound. I think it would be worth the try with someone with big dollars to see what the public reaction would be... Not all silents, but some of them... like this one for instance...
CLICK ON~
http://www.tcm.com:80/tcmdb/ti...d=130&category=movie

quote:

Originally posted by Nard Kordell:
I wonder why not more is being done to add modern day sound and sound effects and voices to some of the ""silents"" out there.

Because that would be akin to colourisation - a travesty!

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:
Because that would be akin to colourisation - a travesty!

Nonsense! Travesty schmavesty! I loved the colorized Laurel and Hardy films. Who knew Laurel had red hair? Wasn't that the case for NOT putting sound to movies originally? A travesty?

OOOH!
Pet peeve here!
IF the original intent was to have colour, but for whatever reason (usually money), then, and only then do I not object to colourising.
This was, in fact, the case with L&H's "March Of The Wooden Soldiers", which is better in colour what with all the toyland decor.
BUT some directors were absolute masters of black & white and preferred that medium.
Watch some Twilight Zone episodes and try to imagine some of those wonderful high-contrast close-ups in colour. The effect would be so diminished as to be negligible.

As for sound, Chaplin, for instance, made great use of the silent medium. He didn't really go full-talkie until the mid-'30s.
Watch (I think it's called) "A night out".
In one scene, he, a wealthy sot, comes home in the wee hours to find his wife has left him, leaving a note to the effect that he must make a choice: her or the booze. The camera shows the note, then shows him from behind reading it, and we see his shoulders shaking up and down.
We assume, of course, that he is sobbing, reacting to the note; but then he turns to face the camera and we find him shaking up a coctail!

THAT is only one example of the creative use of silence.

Read "The Silent Clowns" by Walter Kerr, if you can, and you'll get a real education.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Knox:
Nonsense! Travesty schmavesty! I loved the colorized Laurel and Hardy films. Who knew Laurel had red hair? Wasn't that the case for NOT putting sound to movies originally? A travesty?

Travesty!

As a filmmaker, let me elaborate on this subject: the cinematography for a black and white film is set up compleatly different from a colour film while it's being shot - the lighting is entirely different.

To take a film which was originally shot in black and white and go back and colourise it (disgusting) would change the appearance of the film in such a way that it would look cartoonish and dreadful. I have seen several examples of this and they all look embarrassingly bad.

There was a reason Ted Turner backed down on his idea to colorize Citizen Cane. Talk about the prefectly filmed B&W movie. No way would color have added to that film. He used Orson Wells' producer/director contract to back off but me thinks it was his fear of a lynching.

Once, and only once, I watched the colorized Casablanca. Sam was the same color as the piano.

quote:

Originally posted by jkt:
No way would color have added to that film.

Right. Among serious filmmaking circles, colourisation is laughed at in much the same way Pat Robertson is laughed at in serious theological circles.

Choice of sound makes all the difference. There have been restored Charlie Chaplin films with the original score, and others where just any unrelated music is thrown in. The unrestored ones are distracting.