Tweet
Why would I be in love with “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams”?
To understand this, you would have to understand the world of the 1970’s, which I am a product of.
One of the trends in the 60’s into the 70’s was a desire to “get back to nature” (and we taint talking about nudists camps). The 70’s was a golden time for get back to nature genre. There was the Adventures of the Wilderness Family, Adventures of Frontier Fremont, Starbird and Sweet Williams, to name a few.
The original feature, “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams” was filmed on a small budget in 1973, released in 74, and followed the adventures of a real life trapper by name of Grizzly Adams, though the circumstances of his life are broadened for “drama”. So small was the budget that it was filmed silent and then they brought in a prominent nature film narrarator to narrarate as Adams.
The lack of sound on set saved a large portion of money and padding out the story with stock footage of animals at play saved more money. It seems strange today that they wouldn’t have the star come in and do his own voice work, but that was what they decided. However, not having to do voice over work saved a good deal of money as well.
Dan Haggerty, in his first starring role, plays Adams, who, yes, you guessed it, saves/befriends a bear cub, and they travel together. Adams was accused of a crime he didn’t commit, murder, and basically goes on the run, a fugitive from justice, (another common theme in 70’s films, man against the system), and it entails all of his various adventures.
Dan Haggerty had been in various low budget films, from Biker to naturist before “Grizzly” with no “breakout” performance. He was in fact working on other Sunn Classic nature films as the animal caretaker and trainer, as well as small roles in some of those earlier nature films. When it cam to “Grizzly Adams”, Haggerty’s wife worked as secretary for the Studio head, who asked if she knew anybody who would be good for the role, She suggested her husband. While it would have seemed an obvious choice, as a person who is good with animals in general and has a rapport with them already, it didn’t dawn on them.
As history shows, it was the perfect choice.
The story is fairly unstructured. Adams settles, builds cabin, moves on builds another cabin, moves on, seasons pass and approximately ten years pass as he befriends an indian, Nakoma, played by one of the Tv show regulars, Don Shanks and lives a largely peaceful life. At the ten year point, Nakoma brings his daughter he had to leave behind to visit with him, now a young adult. She informs him that the person who committed the crime has been caught, and Adams is a free man. Adam explains to his daughter that he could never go back to the life he once knew. He is at peace with himself, and so, Adams goes one way, his daughter goes back to civilization, and Adams leaves his at least second cabin behind him, to go onto further adventures in the wild. THE END.
This was a period of time in film-making when “message” films were all the rage. Grizzly Adams and other nature films went the other direction, taking a slower pace, without any other message but admiring and respecting nature. It’s understandable that this film, as well as all back to nature films, would have low ratings to this very day.
At the time, this turned out to be the most successful independent film to that very date. Though never rated all that high in ratings books, there are a number of reasons for this being a minor classic. Dan Haggerty makes a great, peace loving mountain man. The film has great animal actors. The film also boasts at least two great songs, “Wear the Sun In your Heart” (talk about a hippie theme!), and the final song of the film, “Maybe”, which was also heard at the end of every TV episode of the very successful two year run of the classic TV show.
I have always been a person who prefers life in the mountains and being away from everything, and so, there was always a love for this story and actually leaving everything behind to explore the wilderness and so I naturally admired this Adams and his adventures.
Having become a super 8 film collector, I acquired a print of this film on optical sound super 8 and, while it had the accursed reddening, I felt honored to have one. Besides, these super 8 optical prints of the feature were very sharp, nearly as sharp as any 16MM. The image quality is much better than the video you see on Youtube, as you can see every flower in the landscape, where much of this is blurred or smeared in the video. This might be because these prints were taken from first generation negatives from that very year of 1974.
As anybody knows, I have been repeatedly searching for a decent color copy of this feature but, unless I can find one still cored and just stored in someone's basement, I doubt that I will find a decent color copy, though that search still goes onto this day and will even continue into the future. Hence my love for the film.
Then, a major break-through happened just a few years ago! One Alberto in Italy, devised a color treatment process called “O.R.S.”. This process is in three step. First, the print must be thoroughly cleaned by Alberto himself to get rid of as much residual dirt, as well as getting rid of any residual film cleaning treatments on the film for, these chemicals can keep the mag striping of the film from taking. In other words, the mag stripe would just flake off, so a special cleaning would be in order. Then the film is striped, if it happens to be an optical film, as this one was, is done.
Then the all important final process of restoring the color is next.
I will not pretend to fully comprehend how this is done, but Alberto is able to “lift” the red fading from the print, allowing the original colors, if they still exist under the reddening, to return. Depending on how faded the print was to begin with upon starting the treatment, will depend on how much color your print has after the process is done.
I knew, before I sent off this print to Alberto, that the film still had quite a lot of the color left to the print, under all that reddening, some scenes more, some scenes less. In the case of this print, I must say that I was astounded as to just how much of the color was returned to the print. There were some scenes that, even on LPP low fade prints were very iffy to begin with, (as I used to have a low fade print of this title on 16MM years ago), so those scenes were not as impressive.
However, some scenes in the film literally looked like brand new imagery. I even compared these scenes to a DVD copy that is usually seen on Youtube, and the color is dead on! The only thing that can’t be perfectly corrected, is that the blacks are not perfect, they have either a very residual “warmth” to them, or are just a tad bit grey, but I was surprised as to just how good the color was returned to. There are some shots in the film that I didn’t even know the range of colors before. The full range of blues, greens and yellows are all there. The only slight difference between this and a brand new print would be that the colors are the slightest bit muted. Color is at least an 8 or 9 out of ten. It’s THAT good!
It’s amazing as to how much color is still under those reds! I had always theorized that if there was a process that would just lift out the reds, and leave the existing colors, that you would have a great looking print once again. I am still divided as to whether this “red layer” is an issue of a “fixitive” on the finished print that just ages before the color layers do, (as ALL colors are represented, meaning that the three separate “dyes”, so to speak, are still there), or something else. I can say this …
If this was a matter of one layer breaking down, for instance, the “Cyan” layer; when you’d strip this red Cyan layer away, you would only have color that represents an early 1930’s “Cinecolor” print. That is, color, but not realistic. This color, under the red, however, is fully represented, all three color spectrums, and this print was most certainly very red, therefore, it’s not a matter of one dye layer or multiple layers breaking down. It’s something else, corrected by Alberto.
I must applaud Alberto on his incredibly fast return shipping to myself. I paid on Monday, it was delivered on Thursday of the same week! From Italy to Mountain Home, Idaho, in three days. Heck, you could barely even fly one way over there to Italy these days, in three days!
Grazie, Alberto!
I want to debunk a falsehood that even I used to think in this review as well. Some have said, (and I have thought), that just using a cyan filter, you can achieve the same results. This is absolutely untrue. A. Using a filter will drop you’re light output dramatically. B. You do not get the same beautiful results as this process achieves. You get back some of the color using a filter, but the red is still present. With this process, I’d say 90 or more percent of the red is completely done away with.
You have to see it to believe it.
Yes, the process is expensive. Including the cost of my shipping, the process and the return, came to 320.00 dollars, but that was for a feature film, and if you have a print that has succumbed to the red fade and you probably have no possibility of finding another copy and you can see that it still has some OK color under the red, I can swear to you, this process is truly well worth it. You will truly be awed at the results.
Please note: In the case of optical sound super 8 prints being shipped to Alberto, you may need larger reels, depending on how much film you had on the reels previously, as the mag stripe will add to the “thickness” of the film and therefore, slightly less that you can fit per reel.
… and, as I have always signed off with …
Long Live Super 8!!
To understand this, you would have to understand the world of the 1970’s, which I am a product of.
One of the trends in the 60’s into the 70’s was a desire to “get back to nature” (and we taint talking about nudists camps). The 70’s was a golden time for get back to nature genre. There was the Adventures of the Wilderness Family, Adventures of Frontier Fremont, Starbird and Sweet Williams, to name a few.
The original feature, “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams” was filmed on a small budget in 1973, released in 74, and followed the adventures of a real life trapper by name of Grizzly Adams, though the circumstances of his life are broadened for “drama”. So small was the budget that it was filmed silent and then they brought in a prominent nature film narrarator to narrarate as Adams.
The lack of sound on set saved a large portion of money and padding out the story with stock footage of animals at play saved more money. It seems strange today that they wouldn’t have the star come in and do his own voice work, but that was what they decided. However, not having to do voice over work saved a good deal of money as well.
Dan Haggerty, in his first starring role, plays Adams, who, yes, you guessed it, saves/befriends a bear cub, and they travel together. Adams was accused of a crime he didn’t commit, murder, and basically goes on the run, a fugitive from justice, (another common theme in 70’s films, man against the system), and it entails all of his various adventures.
Dan Haggerty had been in various low budget films, from Biker to naturist before “Grizzly” with no “breakout” performance. He was in fact working on other Sunn Classic nature films as the animal caretaker and trainer, as well as small roles in some of those earlier nature films. When it cam to “Grizzly Adams”, Haggerty’s wife worked as secretary for the Studio head, who asked if she knew anybody who would be good for the role, She suggested her husband. While it would have seemed an obvious choice, as a person who is good with animals in general and has a rapport with them already, it didn’t dawn on them.
As history shows, it was the perfect choice.
The story is fairly unstructured. Adams settles, builds cabin, moves on builds another cabin, moves on, seasons pass and approximately ten years pass as he befriends an indian, Nakoma, played by one of the Tv show regulars, Don Shanks and lives a largely peaceful life. At the ten year point, Nakoma brings his daughter he had to leave behind to visit with him, now a young adult. She informs him that the person who committed the crime has been caught, and Adams is a free man. Adam explains to his daughter that he could never go back to the life he once knew. He is at peace with himself, and so, Adams goes one way, his daughter goes back to civilization, and Adams leaves his at least second cabin behind him, to go onto further adventures in the wild. THE END.
This was a period of time in film-making when “message” films were all the rage. Grizzly Adams and other nature films went the other direction, taking a slower pace, without any other message but admiring and respecting nature. It’s understandable that this film, as well as all back to nature films, would have low ratings to this very day.
At the time, this turned out to be the most successful independent film to that very date. Though never rated all that high in ratings books, there are a number of reasons for this being a minor classic. Dan Haggerty makes a great, peace loving mountain man. The film has great animal actors. The film also boasts at least two great songs, “Wear the Sun In your Heart” (talk about a hippie theme!), and the final song of the film, “Maybe”, which was also heard at the end of every TV episode of the very successful two year run of the classic TV show.
I have always been a person who prefers life in the mountains and being away from everything, and so, there was always a love for this story and actually leaving everything behind to explore the wilderness and so I naturally admired this Adams and his adventures.
Having become a super 8 film collector, I acquired a print of this film on optical sound super 8 and, while it had the accursed reddening, I felt honored to have one. Besides, these super 8 optical prints of the feature were very sharp, nearly as sharp as any 16MM. The image quality is much better than the video you see on Youtube, as you can see every flower in the landscape, where much of this is blurred or smeared in the video. This might be because these prints were taken from first generation negatives from that very year of 1974.
As anybody knows, I have been repeatedly searching for a decent color copy of this feature but, unless I can find one still cored and just stored in someone's basement, I doubt that I will find a decent color copy, though that search still goes onto this day and will even continue into the future. Hence my love for the film.
Then, a major break-through happened just a few years ago! One Alberto in Italy, devised a color treatment process called “O.R.S.”. This process is in three step. First, the print must be thoroughly cleaned by Alberto himself to get rid of as much residual dirt, as well as getting rid of any residual film cleaning treatments on the film for, these chemicals can keep the mag striping of the film from taking. In other words, the mag stripe would just flake off, so a special cleaning would be in order. Then the film is striped, if it happens to be an optical film, as this one was, is done.
Then the all important final process of restoring the color is next.
I will not pretend to fully comprehend how this is done, but Alberto is able to “lift” the red fading from the print, allowing the original colors, if they still exist under the reddening, to return. Depending on how faded the print was to begin with upon starting the treatment, will depend on how much color your print has after the process is done.
I knew, before I sent off this print to Alberto, that the film still had quite a lot of the color left to the print, under all that reddening, some scenes more, some scenes less. In the case of this print, I must say that I was astounded as to just how much of the color was returned to the print. There were some scenes that, even on LPP low fade prints were very iffy to begin with, (as I used to have a low fade print of this title on 16MM years ago), so those scenes were not as impressive.
However, some scenes in the film literally looked like brand new imagery. I even compared these scenes to a DVD copy that is usually seen on Youtube, and the color is dead on! The only thing that can’t be perfectly corrected, is that the blacks are not perfect, they have either a very residual “warmth” to them, or are just a tad bit grey, but I was surprised as to just how good the color was returned to. There are some shots in the film that I didn’t even know the range of colors before. The full range of blues, greens and yellows are all there. The only slight difference between this and a brand new print would be that the colors are the slightest bit muted. Color is at least an 8 or 9 out of ten. It’s THAT good!
It’s amazing as to how much color is still under those reds! I had always theorized that if there was a process that would just lift out the reds, and leave the existing colors, that you would have a great looking print once again. I am still divided as to whether this “red layer” is an issue of a “fixitive” on the finished print that just ages before the color layers do, (as ALL colors are represented, meaning that the three separate “dyes”, so to speak, are still there), or something else. I can say this …
If this was a matter of one layer breaking down, for instance, the “Cyan” layer; when you’d strip this red Cyan layer away, you would only have color that represents an early 1930’s “Cinecolor” print. That is, color, but not realistic. This color, under the red, however, is fully represented, all three color spectrums, and this print was most certainly very red, therefore, it’s not a matter of one dye layer or multiple layers breaking down. It’s something else, corrected by Alberto.
I must applaud Alberto on his incredibly fast return shipping to myself. I paid on Monday, it was delivered on Thursday of the same week! From Italy to Mountain Home, Idaho, in three days. Heck, you could barely even fly one way over there to Italy these days, in three days!
Grazie, Alberto!
I want to debunk a falsehood that even I used to think in this review as well. Some have said, (and I have thought), that just using a cyan filter, you can achieve the same results. This is absolutely untrue. A. Using a filter will drop you’re light output dramatically. B. You do not get the same beautiful results as this process achieves. You get back some of the color using a filter, but the red is still present. With this process, I’d say 90 or more percent of the red is completely done away with.
You have to see it to believe it.
Yes, the process is expensive. Including the cost of my shipping, the process and the return, came to 320.00 dollars, but that was for a feature film, and if you have a print that has succumbed to the red fade and you probably have no possibility of finding another copy and you can see that it still has some OK color under the red, I can swear to you, this process is truly well worth it. You will truly be awed at the results.
Please note: In the case of optical sound super 8 prints being shipped to Alberto, you may need larger reels, depending on how much film you had on the reels previously, as the mag stripe will add to the “thickness” of the film and therefore, slightly less that you can fit per reel.
… and, as I have always signed off with …
Long Live Super 8!!
Comment