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Does it actually say "Orchestratrations by Leo Shuken" just before Bernstein's credit card?? Didn't the studio check the spelling in the credits before prints were made?
Anyway, the orchestrations are gorgeous.
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Yes, George, I missed that--"Orchestratrations by Leo Shuken." I hope at least Bernstein raked them over the coals for that. In any case, the score is there to appreciate in all it's full-blooded glory. (Now doesn't the Bernstein society version of the Main Title sound lacking without that chorus?)
And, yes Lokutus, THE MIRACLE, along with RAMPAGE, remains a Bernstein grail yet to be grasped and appreciated in full on an official release--even though it will probably be done from mono mixdowns.
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I'm going to assume that since Bernstein's credit is "music by" the Heindorf credit means he did the conducting.
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Am I right that Bernstein substituted an organ in the recording, albeit dubbed rather low in the mix?
I listened to the FSM FMC box version of the score the other day after hearing the Prelude online, and noticed the organ too, though my impression was that it was quite prominent.
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I agree it's a beautiful score and one of my all time favourites and I've been waiting...and waiting...and waiting for it to be released on a wide screen DVD or at least the score on a CD. Sometimes, I think I'll be in my grave before it gets released. Warner Archive said more or less the same thing to me, that the main problem with "The Miracle" was the Technirama negative that needs a lot of restoration work doing on it. But Warner Archive have also released another Technirama film, "John Paul Jones"...which was made at around the same time as "The Miracle"...on a 16 x 9 and 2.35:1 DVD and they don't seem to have had any trouble with that. Both films would have been filmed on Eastman stock and have been printed by Technicolor, whose prints don't fade. Maybe a 35mm anamorphic CinemaScope / Technicolor type print was used to transfer "John Paul Jones" to DVD and if so, maybe they could do the same with "The Miracle", without doing all that restoration work on the negative.
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I suggested that to them some time ago on their Facebook page, but nothing seens to have come of it. I videoed the film in pan and scan when Channel 5 in the UK ran it in the early hours of the morning about 13 years ago and have since transferred it to DVD-R. It's the worst example of a pan and scan transfer that I've ever seen. Instead of trying to follow the actors and action, they just locked the image into the middle of the 'Scope frame and left it there, which resulted in numerous scenes of characters talking out of frame as they were either on the left or right of the original image. You can hear them speaking, but can't see them. However, the sound is loud and clear and the music sounds marvelous. If only I could say the same for the image. They must have used a dual telecine machine set up to transfer the film to pan and scan video as long ago as the mid-1960s and one of the machines is badly set up, so that every other reel is blurred on the right hand side of the image. Reel one blurred; reel two clear; reel three blurred; reel four clear and so on. I went to see the film at my local ABC as a 14 year old in February, 1961, and it looked marvelous. So it's getting on for 53 years since I last saw it properly. The poor condition (jumps about a lot) 50 second wide screen teaser trailer on YouTube gives you some idea of how the film looked originally.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-QJOuJ8yPM
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Sorry, no, I haven't seen the TCM version, nor the Warner Home Video pan and scan VHS release of quite some years ago now. But some widescreen films look dreadful in the now completely obsolete pan and scan format and "The Miracle" is definitely one of them.
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Posted: |
Jul 2, 2013 - 12:18 AM
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By: |
philiperic
(Member)
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Sorry, no, I haven't seen the TCM version, nor the Warner Home Video pan and scan VHS release of quite some years ago now. But some widescreen films look dreadful in the now completely obsolete pan and scan format and "The Miracle" is definitely one of them.
Except what happens if we never get restored versions of these widescreen films ?
There are many more besides THE MIRACLE which still exist ONLY in pan/scan prints -- PRINCE OF PLAYERS, UNTAMED (Tyrone Power), SON OF SINBAD, THE BEST IN THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE, THE BIG FISHERMAN, WESTWARD HO THE WAGONS, JOHNNY GUITAR, RED GARTERS + THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS are examples - all await restoration and who knows when or if the studios will get to them. Fox Studios has released a bunch of widescreen films in pan and scan only prints in just the last 2 years - so some people must still like it that way?
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Fox Cinema Archives in the States have deservedly come in for a lot of flak recently for releasing ancient pan and scan transfers of their CinemaScope films when they've already released the same films on wide screen DVDs in Europe, particularly Spain and they are still being shown on television in the UK in wide screen format. Thankfully, Warner Archive don't have such an odd policy and, if they ever do release "The Miracle" on DVD, you can bet that it'll be a 2.35:1 and 16 x 9 anamorphic transfer.
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