Telecast Home Videos

The following was a tv spot preceding an annual airing of The Ten Commandments on ABC in 1984:

Every Easter, this film is run on ABC. And every Easter, I ask the same two questions. What on Earth does this film have to do with Easter, and what cuts will the film be slaved to? Unfortunately, I have not found an answer to the first question and never will. The second question, however, always comes up with a wonderful result: minimal. My copy of The Ten Commandments was taped the same day that the telecast in the included clip ran, except they taped it off of WISN, the ABC affiliate in Milwaukee. I have probably watched that tape a total of 5 times, but have seen the film numerous times. Only once have I seen it on DVD. Being an epic 3.5 hour film, it would be hard to give you a shot by shot comparison, but I will say that the film is pretty much shown uncut. The original version has overture, entr'acte, and exit music, which are chopped from telecasts, as well as a prologue where the director, Cecil B. Demille, blesses us with his presence to talk about the research that went into the making of the film. This has been replaced with a text prologue that has absolutely nothing to do with the original. It now tells us the first half is about Moses' rearing, and the second is about him meeting God and Exodusing the Jewish race out of Egypt. A few years ago, as I was doing inventory of my family's massive collection of VHS tapes, I noticed that there was a splice here or there cutting shots of slaves getting stabbed (surprisingly, the 1984 telecast shows the actual film splice as opposed to doing a video edit). There may be a few time compression techniques used to fit in more commercials, but I didn't spot them.

I bring this up to tie it in with my last post about home video. Owning a film such as The Ten Commandments on an official VHS would have cost a large penny back in the day. With technology the way it was, there would have been little noticeable difference between a taped telecast of the film and an official mono VHS on a TV that fit the average size and video standard back in the 1980s. So, why would someone fork over the money to buy the video when they could simply record it for free? Most Paramount VHS titles were Macrovision free too, so a person could have rented and copied the film if he wanted as well. Unfortunate for the studios at the time, this was the attitude that many home video consumers held back in the day. The Sound of Music and The Wizard of Oz, both of which usually have been Macrovision encoded, had annual telecasts, and as far as I can remember, while these films have had numerous home video releases over the last 34 years (both had 1980 home video releases as well), I can't remember a single time when I watched them at a friend or relative's place on official home video! Taping films off of TV was the way to go. In 1989, CBS began running The Wizard of Oz uncut on TV annually the day before Thanksgiving, and it gave VCR consumers an opportunity to get the restored copy for free, but with commercials.

I want to swing the conversation to The Sound of Music for a minute, because compared to the other two films I mention, this was probably the most brutally edited film for television I have ever seen. I haven't caught it on TV in many years, but through the 90s, the film was chopped to no end. Songs were chopped, conversations were halved, and I'd guess that a good half hour or more of the film was simply tossed to make room for commercials. Renting the film was a brand new experience because I felt like I was watching a director's cut compared to the 1984 Christmas telecast we had on home video. I have only seen the official film about 10 times, once on a beautiful 70mm print, but have seen the TV edit over 100 as it was a favorite growing up. So, when I watch the official film in its uncut length, I am still unfamiliar with it. I know that I am not the only one. If people of my generation grew up with a home video of this film and did not have parents who splurged on video collections, chances are they grew up watching the TV edit. That being said, and knowing that the edits made to the film on TV today are far different than the version we grew up with, should the edited version be salvaged, not for access sake, but more from an archival point of view? Thankfully, we have the next best thing. Fan sites and people on Wikipedia have documented the edits so that people will know just how different the film experience was.

Signed,

The Celluloid Avenger

Home Video Snobbery

In 1977, 20th Century Fox leased a series of titles to be released on VHS (a new format) through a company called the Magnetic Video Corporation. One of the titles released was the Marilyn Monroe gem Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The following is a 30 second clip from the opening of that release, courtesy of Youtube:

Take a look at what happens 20 seconds in. There is an evil splice on the print followed by a flutter in the transfer machine, all within the first few seconds of the opening logo. I point this out for a couple reasons. First of all, a bluray today costs roughly $20-30 and with that, consumers expect a pristine transfer and a large amount of special features. For the first decade of VHS, tapes cost a bit more. I haven't found a source on how much this one specifically cost, but I do know that Dumbo cost roughly $79 in 1980 and Gone With the Wind cost $89.95 in 1985, according to a Today Show clip promoting the video release. By the time these two releases came out, home video transfer had improved a bit, but there was still a long way to go.

This leads me to my second point to this article. Last night, I was watching a DVD of Libeled Lady (1936), as released by Turner in 2005. By all means, this was a decent release-- crisp mono sound, great contrast, sharp focus, and yet, I found myself being a horrible cynic while watching the whole film. At the end of a reel, there were a series of scratches and cue marks from the source print, but I found an internal voice nagging that they were present, even though beyond this, a thick emulsion line on the right, and a few base scratches, the source print was in impeccable condition. Truth be told, we are lucky that a DVD release of such a film is still on the market.

When did we, as a film history field, become so cynical? I can't play martyr because I am just as guilty of it as everyone else. I read the reviews on www.dvdbeaver.com and www.bluray.com and pay attention to what they say before picking up a disc. I nag about how little grain is in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre HD transfer, or how blue Desk Set and The King & I look, but there was a time when I wasn't like this, when I was happy to see a film on home video at all!

For those people of a younger generation, there were a lot of films released on VHS that have not made it to DVD, and the quality wasn't always as good as it is now. Online streaming wasn't an option, and we had only a few means: local video stores, and public libraries. While rereleases may have occurred on VHS tapes, if you were renting them from local vendors, you took what they had. If it was a 10 year old tape or a 20 year old one, you, as my friend would say to his kids 'get what you get and you don't get upset.' I remember renting the Streisand version of A Star Is Born on VHS and, beyond being a worn tape from 1980 chock full of dropout lines, there were splicy sections. This wasn't released by a public domain company like Good Times Home Video, either. This came from Warner Bros. Home Video! This isn't an issue that disappeared with time, when it came to VHS necessarily. When Republic Home Video released Father Goose (1964) on VHS in 1994, the cover noted that it was from the original 35mm negative. I slapped it on a few years ago. The scratches take over the film like confetti, and I remember paying a lot for this item. Keep in mind, this was only 3 years before the DVD started hitting stores.

So, really, when I see people complaining about color temperature, grain, and a little sound distortion, all of which I am also guilty of, I have to remind them, and myself, to give the home video distributors a break. When we rented films on VHS back in the day, we knew we weren't watching the film. We were watching a reference of the film. We used our imaginations to fill in the anomalies so we could picture what the film was supposed to look like. Any step in the right direction should be applauded, but personally, I would rather see more rare films come out than see yet another restoration of Gone with the Wind or The Wizard of Oz, trying to emulate that 'perfect image'.

Signed,

The Celluloid Avenger