WDHM 'The Jungle Book' extracts low fade reprints

[Mark Mander]

I have a couple of Herbie films on low fade, Snow white ,Whistle while you work ,Mary Poppins extracts, Jungle book extracts, Dumbo, may have a few others,all original Disney boxes,Mark.

[Bill Phelps]

I have a copy of MONSTER FROM UNDER THE SEA that has beautiful color...also in the original Disney box.

Lee....Yes, Steve did show your film...it was very nicely done and sad too. A couple years ago he also showed a film you made for him out and about where you live. It was very cool also!

[Mike Newell]

I was in London in 1994 and went to Perry’s for an afternoon. This was the time when LGP Larry Pierce was sharing premises with him After seeing Ian and perusing his films and spending all my big money with him he introduced me to Larry who took me on a tour which included the printing facilities. Arthur was at the back working on a Laurel and Hardy print which was in sepia. During the tour, I noticed a lot of Disney boxes which were empty which Larry had purchased from somewhere. There was a colour box for Mickey Trailer which I had a print of from PM Films but had picked up scratches from early projectors. I said shame you don’t have a new print where upon Larry went off somewhere and came back with a new print and popped it into the box for me. I have no idea who printed it but it was a new polyester print and on par with the original Disney print I had. From memory there was 400ft boxes there at the time Winnie the Pooh comes to mind. It’s doesn’t make sense for someone to buy empty boxes unless you had negatives and printing facilities. I remember asking Derann about The Old Mill and was able to get a polyester print which was superior to the original print which I swapped over to Disney box. At the time I was told by them they could get most of the Disney prints reprinted if collectors wanted them.

[Brian Fretwell]

When I bought a Technicolor Loop projector from Larry he showed me round the massive basement there (including his re-perforating machines) I also saw piles of Disney boxes and films I think he said he had bought the remainder of their stocks. I have no idea if that included negatives and sound masters.

[Adrian Winchester]

This is all very interesting, albeit still mysterious. Gian says "reprinted" but it seems questionable that any were actually reprinted for WDHM, although we know they permitted Derann to sell reprints of a small number such as 'The Old Mill'. I started collecting shortly before WDHM shut down, so I recall it then became possible to buy many new WDHM prints for substantially reduced prices, so that may have reduced the motivation to produce unauthorised prints, because the 'going rate' became lower. But perhaps that applied less to sought after titles that were becoming harder to get due to all the WDHM prints being sold. I'd guess that sellers would have been wary of saying they had low fade prints, for fear of making Disney aware of prints that were not produced for them. It's also surprising that Disney were not more thorough in relation to rounding up their negatives and sound masters!

[Osi Osgood]

The Old Mill is really odd print on low fade, as, about a minute into the print, it goes from very natural color to having a bluish cast to the color in general. This begins with the close-up of the two bluebirds after the male bird swoops down to land. It keeps this change in color for the rest of the cartoon. Now, the original WDHM version, has no color change at all, which means that the later low fade prints are taken from either a new messed up negative, or a repaired negative.

[Brian Fretwell]

It is possible that the reprint was done with different or damaged grading tapes.

[Adrian Winchester]

My Derann print of 'The Old Mill' fortunately doesn't have any such colour shift. So perhaps the negative was repaired, although I'd imagine it's difficult to make a splice in a negative invisible when printed.

[Osi Osgood]

Could you possibly have an original WDHM copy, just sold by Derann? Check the film stock. My print is an original WDHM print, on some form of Eastman, perhaps an early low fade, but not marked as such.

[Brian Fretwell]

My Derann print of 'The Old Mill' fortunately doesn't have any such colour shift. So perhaps the negative was repaired, although I'd imagine it's difficult to make a splice in a negative invisible when printed.

Adrian, I wasn't suggesting that the negative was damaged but the tape that runs with it in the printer to adjust exposure and colour balance filters in the machine. I believe Derann said they had trouble with the Sound of Music prints as there were well over 100 changes to those in the film. As you say splices in a 16mm negative used in the printer would be hard to hide but I read Goldfinger had some worn sections replaced. I'll have to rre-run my print to check if I can see the joins.

[Adrian Winchester]

Brian - I see what you mean. I think the importance of those tapes and exactly how they function is probably under-appreciated by collectors - certainly by me.
I didn't even know that grading tweaks were conveyed via a tape. I wonder if anyone has prints of anything that indicate the tape was not 'in-sync' with the negative?

Osi - I will check, but it might take a few days because when I recently looked for it, I found I'd mislaid it, and much of my film storage is chaotic! However, I'd be very surprised if it was a WDHM print, as I bought it soon after Derann announced that the reprints they negotiated with Disney were on sale, and it's the only Disney 200' I have on polyster stock, other than the Jungle Book releases that started this thread. So, I'm virtually certain it's LPP.

[Osi Osgood]

Just 4 the heck of it, I checked my Old Mill. It is not Kodak SP, it IS a form of Eastman, with two "squares" following the Eastman, and an "8" following the two squares. People who know the film stocks could add further verification, but it does have good color.

[Adrian Winchester]

That's fortunate, as my WDHM 'The Old Mill' - that I bought cheaply just for the box - has probably the worst fade of any WDHM release I own!

[Brian Fretwell]

I checked one of my Film Office Disney prints that was on Agfa and that wasn't polyester but acetate so low a fade prints may not indicate a polyester base.