8mm Forum: Jungle Book (1942 with Sabu)

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Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 17, 2010, 03:06 AM:

Hi,

I do have a Super8-print of "Jungle Book" (the version from 1942 with Sabu as Mowgli). However the colours vary from scene to scene - pretty much like the video-version on www.archive.org. To summarize the problem: It looks like there's no "blue" in the whole film. Therefore I always believed that it was one of the last "two stripe"-Technicolor-movies (Technicolor Process No. 3)...
... however it looks like the Process No. 3 went out of use nearly a decade before "Jungle Book"?! Not to mention that the trailers & excerpts on YouTube show blue clothes and blue skies?

In other words: Is it my print that has faded? Or are these strange colours due to the used "original" or due to the lab? Or is the lack of "blue" really caused by the Process No. 3? (Maybe they've even used both Process No. 3 and Process No. 4 for the film)?

Confused,
Jörg
[Confused]

Posted by Barrie Didham (Member # 1741) on June 17, 2010, 05:49 AM:

I have a very clear Niles print on B/W of this.

But the DVD is like what you have said,makes me wonder if a dupe made the rounds?

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 17, 2010, 08:05 AM:

quote:
if a dupe made the rounds

Due to its age the film is now "public domain" in the USA. And it looks like all (or at least most) DVDs are based on the version that is legally available for free on archive.org...

... BTW: The German DVD is even worse: When the film got released in German cinemas (and hence dubbed in German), this German version fell under German copyright - and hence still isn't "public domain" in this version! As a result the distributor of the German DVD had to take version from archive.org and replace the complete soundtrack! Therefore the German DVD now has got all new voices, new noises ... and Miklós Rózsa's excellent soundtrack got replaced by a cheap synthesiser! [Eek!]

Jörg

Posted by Panayotis A. Carayannis (Member # 1220) on June 17, 2010, 02:19 PM:

Since it was a public domain film, copies were made from prints that had lost their colors or, more probably from eastman prints which had gone reddish.My 8mm copy is reddish. A DVD, newspaper givaway, is reddish. Copies of the film I saw in the cinemas in the 80es and 90es and on TV were reddish. So I guess,unless a proper copy or negative is found and restored,all we will be seeing will be reddish copies !

Posted by Barrie Didham (Member # 1741) on June 17, 2010, 07:28 PM:

Cant say i,ve seen a redish looking copy in the DVD format,but my cheap DVD showed lots of black and white under the colors,infact,in one of the early shots at the start,the hill above the river is just black and white,it almost looked tinted to me but hasn't been.
Im just lucky my full feature on super 8 is B/W,no color fading to put up with.

Posted by Jose Artiles (Member # 471) on June 17, 2010, 09:13 PM:

Hi Joerg!
I have a print with perfect colour in LPP stock,i buy it one year ago from phil sheard (classic home cinema) but what you say is true in one aspect the blues are present but are not as vivid as the rest of colours that looks wondefull,i suspect my print was made from a new negative from 1990 made for tv purposes because the contrast is a very little on the soft side

Posted by Joe McAllister (Member # 825) on August 14, 2010, 02:09 PM:

Jungle Book shows fairly frequently on British TV in an official print which has vibrant colours. It was of course British Technicolor and looks beautiful.

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