Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)

Discuss internationally-released DVDs and Blu-rays or other international DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
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Gordon
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:03 am

#26 Post by Gordon » Tue Apr 11, 2006 5:51 pm

A remastered edition of Pursued will be most appreciated. The previous transfer was awful. James Wong Howe deserves better, so hopefully Paramount will deliver a high-quality image.

Great to fianlly see a region 1 DVD of Johnny Guitar. The UK edition from Universal had the Scorsese intro, but the transfer was inferior to the German edition from Kinowelt, judging by Beaver's comparison. I'll definitely be checking the Beaver again before buying the Paramount.

Thanks, Alain.

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Gigi M.
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:09 pm
Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Rep

#27 Post by Gigi M. » Thu Sep 27, 2007 1:41 pm

Paramount is releasing a new edition in Spain on Nov. 14. It's listed 1.78 and if I'm not mistaken I remember seeing it close to 1.66. Who own this on R1?

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Gigi M.
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:09 pm
Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Rep

#28 Post by Gigi M. » Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:34 pm

davidhare wrote:I own a German R2 which is entirely serviceable. But the ratio is 1.33, and I have to say I've never seen JG in other other format. 1.78 would crop heads and is wildly out of line. So is 1.66 to my mind.
Thanks David. I now remember that Paramount announced a release over a year ago along other Republic titles. I believe we can expect a release soon in the R1 camp.

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Scharphedin2
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 7:37 am
Location: Denmark/Sweden

#29 Post by Scharphedin2 » Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:48 pm

I don't know about the Spanish release, but I second David's recommendation of the German Paramount release. I own it too, and it is fine.

If you do end up losing patience with R1, then whatever you do, don't buy the UK release. I purchased that edition too a long time ago, when there were no other options (that I knew of), and it really has rather poor colors.

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Petty Bourgeoisie
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 12:17 am

#30 Post by Petty Bourgeoisie » Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:31 am

Gigi M. wrote:Paramount is releasing a new edition in Spain on Nov. 14. It's listed 1.78 and if I'm not mistaken I remember seeing it close to 1.66. Who own this on R1?
I opened the link and it says 1:33 aspect ratio. Maybe they corrected it. I've about given up on a R1 release. If I remember correctly dvdbeaver wasn't really wild about either the UK or German transfers. The German won by default. Apparently as a TruColor film, the colors should jump off the screen. But in both editions the colors look flat as a pancake. The UK edition tried to compensate by artificial means but they just made it look like everybody in the film had a sunburn. :) I guess many of the old Republic pictures are in rough shape.

Edit: Did some quick research on Johnny Guitar's TruColor and it was a two-strip process, not three-strip like Technicolor. Republic would only spring for Technicolor for big budget projects like The Quiet Man. Wikipedia says that TruColor is known for fading over time :cry: and that the last TruColor movie was the Richard Wagner biopic Magic Fire from 1956. But IMDB says it was the lumberjack yarn Spoilers of the Forest in 1957. I hope there is some kind of economically viable restorative process for the Republic films using TruColor. Perusing the list of TruColor films, very few have been released on dvd which doesn't bode well.

Frank M
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 4:24 am
Location: Germany

#31 Post by Frank M » Sun Sep 30, 2007 5:18 am

Scharphedin2 wrote:... but I second David's recommendation of the German Paramount release. I own it too, and it is fine.
The German release is from Kinowelt, not Paramount.

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Petty Bourgeoisie
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 12:17 am

#32 Post by Petty Bourgeoisie » Thu Oct 04, 2007 1:42 am

davidhare wrote:During the fifties Republic did use an upgraded 3 strip Trucolor process for several movies including Johnny Guitar. So it is definitely three strip, not two strip.
Thanks for the correction. Good to know. I'm gonna plan on getting this Spanish edition, hoping that in the meantime a R1 announcement might occur. If it doesn't, I'll just go forward with the Spanish Paramount. My assumption being that since it's a Paramount it will be as good as the Kinowelt and (I'm gambling here) maybe a little better.

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Petty Bourgeoisie
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 12:17 am

#33 Post by Petty Bourgeoisie » Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:24 pm

Well, I got my copy of the new Spanish Paramount. The cover looks exactly like the link in the first post. Here are my non-techie observations.

Cons:
This is obviously not a HD transfer and restoration. Still some haziness and softness in the image (similar to the Kinowelt in this regard). No extras at all.

Pros:
COLOR! Clearly (to my eyes at least) they have used a different print than the UK Universal and German Kinowelt, and this makes all the difference. It actually looks like a 1950's three strip extravaganza. Much more pop and saturation than on the previous two DVDs. Vienna's gallon of blood red lipstick almost looks 3D! The color fading in the Universal and Kinowelt becomes all too obvious in comparison with this transfer. No noticable damage to print.

Bottom Line:
Are we talking about transfer improvements which raise it to the level of BFI's recent Bigger Than Life? Unfortunately not. However, this transfer brings Johnny Guitar out of the "servicable" realm (as mentioned earlier in the thread) and takes it to the level of "pretty darn good". I would imagine a R1 by Paramount will be forthcoming, but you never know. What a great movie. Hard-Boiled, Freudian and filled with snappy dialogue. My favorite exchange:

The Dancing Kid to Vienna: "Yep, I've always wanted to shoot me a guitar man." Vienna's response (filled with contempt): "Well now there's a lofty ambition!" I also love her "angry faces and evil minds" speech to the townfolk after gently playing the piano.

oh yeah
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:45 pm

Re: Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)

#34 Post by oh yeah » Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:10 am

Finally watched this, also my first Ray film. What an introduction, and what a film. I feel comfortable saying this is one of the greatest things I've ever seen. Crawford here gave one of the most magnetic performances in the cinema -- her eyes alone are like steely blue lasers that may as well fire real bullets at each person she strikes their gaze at. The use of Trucolor, in this relatively low-budget flick, is simply astonishing -- even more eye-popping than many lavish Technicolor films, yet with an alien beauty to it that's unlike anything I've seen before. I like the way Scorsese put it in his introduction: this really is more of an "operatic" film running on pure cinema, just colors and shapes and sound and movement, than it is the plot-driven Western most audiences expect. It's most apt to say that film just takes the Western genre, the iconography of it and the narrative tropes, and uses it to create a sinister, dreamlike, romantic, ominous tone-poem that abstracts such conventions to the point that they don't matter anymore -- they've been overtaken by the hypnotic clicking sound of the roulette wheel, or a shimmering yellow shirt, or a black mass of enemy gunslingers flanked in perfect formation. More than anything else, color drives the film, yet it's also an incredibly verbal film with the kind of cynical-smart witticisms that recall noirs like Out of the Past. But it's hard for me to put into words the enchanting, intoxicating effect Johnny Guitar had on me, except to say that -- to paraphrase a line from The Wolf of Wall Street -- watching it was like mainlining pure cinema. One thing I know is that I can completely see why this film drives so many cinephiles so bonkers. It's certainly going to be on my brain for a long, long time. I can't wait to continue my Ray quest and see everything this man ever made.

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