The Extras - 3-D Film Archive and Restoring Abbott and Costello's "Jack and the Beanstalk"

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

Bob Furmanek and Jack Theakston of the 3-D Film Archive join the podcast to discuss their work on preserving classic 3D films.  In addition, we review their current 2D release of Abbott and Costello's first color film, the 1952 classic "Jack and the Beanstalk."  They review their 2 years of painstaking work on the restoration of this Cinecolor classic to create a version as close to the original as possible.  They also detail the two and a half hours of extras that make this a must-own for all Abbott and Costello collectors.Links: 3D Film ArchiveFacebookOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers.  Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals.  www.otakumedia.tvThe Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and they're released on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Lard, your host. Today, I have two special guests from the 3D Film Archive to talk about the great preservation

work they do and their upcoming release of a 2D project, the 70th anniversary limited edition of the 1952 Abbott and Costello film, Jack and the Beanstalk. Bob Furmanek is an award-winning producer, author, and motion picture archivist. He founded the 3D Film Archive in 1990, and over the past decade, the archive has restored over 30 vintage titles for release on Blu-ray. And working with Bob at the 3D Archive for the past 10 years as a producer on most of these releases is Jack Deakston. Bob and Jack, welcome to The Extras. Well, thank you, Tim.

It's a pleasure to be here with you. Yes, thank you very much. Well, Bob, before we dive into the discussion on Jack and the Beanstalk, maybe you can give us a brief background on what the 3D Film Archive does. Sure. archive does. Sure. It goes way back to the early 80s when, as a young film fan, I was anxious to see a lot of the vintage 3D movies, and there was really no way to see them at the time. And I met Jerry Lewis and was hired to be his personal archivist and moved to Los Angeles for that gig. And Jerry's name helped open a lot of doors for me at film vaults and libraries and studios.

And when I was in there digging for missing Lewis material, I was keeping another eye out for lost or missing 3D elements and found a lot of stuff. And it was around 1990 when I recombined the first feature print of a left and right side. And I decided, OK, if the rights holders don't have interest in this, and they did not at the time, then I was going to take it upon myself to try to find and save as many vintage 3D elements as I could. What made it very challenging for the pre-1965, say, 3D films, you had to have a left and right side. say 3D films, you had to have a left and right side. And I found many cases where either one or the other was junked because a rights holder thought it was a duplicate element. They had two negatives in the vault and it's like, well, we don't need two negatives. So one got destroyed. You know, it was that type of apathy that made me realize, okay, somebody's got to take on this crusade. So that's what I did.

And I worked for a good 10 or 15 years to build the archive. And then it culminated in a 50th anniversary event in Hollywood called the World 3D Film Expo that was produced by Sabu Cat Productions, where most of these prints were screened. And it was really a once in a lifetime event where people came from around the world to see something like three dozen vintage 3D features. And a lot of the people that worked on them, both in front of and behind the cameras, came to the shows. And it was really, really exciting. What year was that, by the way? 2003. Okay. For the 50th anniversary of the big 3D boom of 1953. And then about 10 years ago, when 3D Blu-ray became possible, and we had the opportunity to present these films in a quality

that was at least comparable or in some ways better than what was originally seen, we began an effort to get as many of the vintage films restored and onto Blu-ray as possible. And since our first release in the fall of 2014, we've had over 30 releases on Blu-ray. So it's been a very fortunate set of circumstances that has allowed us the opportunity to rescue and bring a lot of these films out of the vaults and into homes so people could see and enjoy them again. And Jack, that's kind of when you guys started working together, right? You were brought into the fold to start working on these releases? started working together, right? You were brought into the fold to start working on these releases?

Well, not exactly. Bob and I had been working together already starting around 2004. And at that point, Bob had kind of put some of the 3D stuff on hold. We're working on some other projects. And then the first 3D Expo was in 2003. And then there was a second one in 2006. And that's when our 3D work started picking up again. And we started focusing on 3D projects in particular. And between about 2006 and 2012, we really racked up quite a lot of interesting stuff. We were on the hunt for really the rarer titles and shorts and things like that. And we were working with Sabu Cab Productions and Dan Sims, the late Dan Sims. And we kind of built up a nice little

cache of new material. And then 2012 i think it was bob maybe afterwards we did another expo in 2013 and then around that time maybe a little bit after we first started putting out our releases and i uh first two were dragonfly squadron and 3D Rarities. So what did you find appetite for the 3D grew? Was it during that time when the Hollywood Studios started releasing more 3D? In theaters, for sure. Home video, 3D, Blu-ray had more or less been standardized and they had been for sale for a while. I wish we had actually gotten in a little bit earlier on the train because as we were starting to really go

into full swing, that's when the manufacturers started phasing out displays. But there were enough people who really wanted to see this stuff and liked these films and believed in our product that they kept their displays and they kept buying discs. So since then, we've racked up, you know, like you said earlier, we've done over 30 projects and they've all been pretty successful. So we just keep going. If I can just add to that, we were in a classic chicken or egg scenario because we actually began trying to solicit interest in vintage 3D on Blu-ray in 2011. And it took about three years for anything to happen for us. The initial reaction from most distributors is nobody wants old movies on 3D Blu-ray. And in fact, when Gretchen Wayne and the John Wayne estate released Tondo on Blu-ray with Paramount,

and I think that was 2012, they offered the new digital 3D restoration and Paramount passed on it. And that was a tragedy because it still to this day has not gotten a 3D Blu-ray release. But I had nothing but rejections. And the amazing thing about that is the 3D Rarities release that we did with Flickr Alley has been our biggest seller to date. And nobody wanted it. I couldn't give it away. I mean, it was, it was crazy. And I got, you know, one pretty high profile company said that the material was not interesting. You know, it was finally 2014, uh, and Frank Tarzi, who was with all the films at the time decided to take a chance with us. And that, that was Dragonfly Squadron. And Frank went to Kino shortly after

that. And Kino has been our main distributor for Vintage 3D. And I have to say, if it hadn't been for Frank, and especially Frank being proactive with securing licenses for us from many of the vintage titles, a lot of them would not have gotten out again. I was curious, what does it take for a person to have a setup to watch these at home? You need to have a 3D capable display or projector. And as Jack mentioned, the display manufacturers dropped support of it, I think around 2015 or 16, which is really sad because every year they got better. And the last year or two, the models were so much improved over the initial rollout sets. But, you know, they just weren't seeing the numbers.

And, you know, Dan Sims used to have a saying, the late Dan Sims, where he said 3D movies were like the circus. They're a lot of fun, but would you want to go every week? And I think the display manufacturers were pushing the idea that, you know, people were going to have 3D displays and want to watch sports and, you know, soap operas and everything else. And it just didn't really take off as they had hoped it would. So the display support was dropped. But fortunately, you can still get projectors with 3D capability, including some really decent models that are under $1,000 that give you a very good quality 3D image.

models that are under a thousand dollars that give you a very good quality 3d image. And most recently, a lot of people are viewing the vintage films with the VR headsets, which is a whole different type of immersive experience. So, you know, it's, it's out there. And if you're interested enough to pursue it, the capability is there for people to view these films. And for people who didn't get on the train early enough, I've had a lot of people ask me, you know, I don't want to invest in a projector. I'd rather have just a TV set or something I can watch these on. I always tell them, and I'll tell the audience too, if you're interested, check Craigslist and used outlets because now that 4k is the hot new thing a lot of people are just blowing out their 3d sets and i mean for example last week i almost thought about buying this just to resell it to somebody who wants it but there was a 44 inch passive display on craigslist

i wanted like 100 bucks for it well but for those who don't want to invest anything in it, starting this year, 3D Film Archives policy on titles that we can do this on. So in other words, titles that aren't blocked contractually for whatever reasons. We're also including red and blue anaglyph versions of the titles on the disc as well. So that if nobody, if you don't have a 3D set, but you want an approximation of how it looks, that's the best way to go. And we've been using a patented process to really make sure that the anaglyph cancels out properly. So it's the best anaglyph that there is on home video at this point. Yeah. And I will add to that and say that Greg Kintz is our technical director and he's the genius that has made all of these releases look as good as they do because there are a lot of variables when you start going back to 70 year old film elements, these separate left, right

elements, and they take a lot of finesse and a lot of work to optimize them. The information's there. It's just getting it to look its best. And Greg Kintz is brilliant at that. And he developed this multi-band adaptive anaglyphic system that is far superior to any anaglyphic versions that have been seen in the past. So it is like Jack says, you don't have to have special equipment now on many of our upcoming releases. You'll be able to see them in a form of 3D as well. Well, I recall when the first Avatar came out, and obviously we're going to be entering a season soon where the next one comes out,

that I had to see it in IMAX in 3D. I like, I just, I had to, you know, those were the things I was like, this is a movie that calls for it. And I think that was probably around that time where that was, there was a lot of popularity and interest and the manufacturers were probably supporting it. Will the upcoming Avatar releases, do you think, help provide a bump? Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of the extras podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner archive and Warner brothers catalog, physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes.

Depends on how the film does. I mean, it's been over 10 years since the first film came out, but, you know, I also can't knock it. It's the highest grossing picture of all time. So Cameron is a savvy guy and he is pretty positive that his film is going to be shown in theaters in 3D. He's been pretty adamant about that. And he's got enough clout and this film has enough clout that if it does very well i could see it starting sort of a second revival of you know 3d home video or home cinema um it uh it could be very interesting yeah i mean he's got what three of them planned back to back or or whatever uh at this rate it'll be 2050 by the time we see the third one i guess

At this rate, it'll be 2050 by the time we see the third one, I guess. Well, people who have followed me on my Facebook page or on Facebook have seen that I recently was in Disney World. And I went to the Animal Kingdom where all the Avatar stuff is available, the rides and everything. And the lines and the excitement when you're there is pretty amazing. And it kind of reminded me, you know, it's been years since I saw the movie. It reminded me of just how great that kind of world is that he created. And it is, you know, in the 3D and everything is just perfect for that. So it'll be interesting to see. I hope so.

I agree. And I think one of the things that always helps 3D is you've got a new generation every decade that haven't really experienced it. And hopefully this will lead to a revival. The good thing is, as far as vintage films, is a lot of the heavy lifting has been done already. We have had, as Jack mentioned, a pretty good success rate. There were a few titles because the license had lapsed that had gone out of print. But Kino just recently announced that three of them will be reissued

in a box set called Paravision Dreams. And I always correct people. They think, oh, you mean Panavision? I said, no, Paravision with an R, which was the name of the camera rig that Paramount was using. And those three are coming out in a box set later this year. So the work is done on a great deal of the vintage titles, and we hope that they'll stay in print and that more people will discover them. Yeah, and that release in particular, I have to say, I kind of put my foot in my mouth a couple months ago because I wrote a post, more or less

an open letter to everyone saying, listen, some of our stuff's going out of print and it's selling for a hundred plus bucks on eBay. So grab this stuff while it's new, because once it goes out of print, there's no guarantee that we're going to get a second pressing done on it. And sure enough, right after I post that, Kino did renew those three titles. But there are still several of our titles out of print. And, you know, I have to drive the point home to a lot of fans that you can't always wait for those flash sales. You know, when they do come around, it's icing on the cake, of course. But I mean, the way that we do this stuff is entirely generated by our own revenue. So the more sales our product gets, the more likely it is in the future that we'll do future projects. So that one's coming out. What are some of the other maybe releases within the last year

or two that you'd like to highlight? Well, I think for 3D, two 70s kung fu films that we've done through Kino, Dynasty and Revenge of the Shogun Women have proven to be very popular. And for people that want, you know, over the top off screen kind of effects, you can't get much better than those two. They really throw everything but the kitchen sink at the camera. And it's, you know, for someone that hasn't seen Avengers 3D film, it's pretty exciting and a lot of fun. And those are two where we were able to include an anaglyphic version as well. So you won't need any kind of special equipment or displays to watch those in 3D. And our next release with Kino is a pretty cool title called The Diamond Wizard.

Most people have never heard of, but it was a 1953 feature filmed in Great Britain starring Dennis O'Keefe and Margaret Sheridan. And it was the only vintage 3D film photographed in England during that period. And like some of the really good titles, it came out a little bit late in the cycle, 1954, and was released flat only. So the 3D Blu-ray release will be its first official release in the version that the filmmakers intended. So that's a lot of fun. And it's beautifully photographed. It was done with a camera rig called the Space Master that Charles Smith had a big hand in designing. And technically, it's an incredibly well done and competent film. And I think that's one of the things that we've all found very rewarding about the opportunity to get these on 3D Blu-ray now is for the first time really ever, people are discovering that these films photographed seven decades ago were done with a level of expertise that was far advanced than people realized. These were cinematographers, many of them that went back to the silent era.

They knew what to do. They knew composition. They understood stereo staging. And, you know, they're very advanced technically. And now you have an opportunity to experience that for yourself at home. Well, I know you do, you know, the 3D archive is in the name, but I know you also do the 2D releases. So when did you start doing the 2D releases and or is that something you've always been doing? Well, when you think about it, the 3D restorations that we do are essentially the same film twice. You know, it's two separate eyes. So you're essentially doing the same thing to two separate flat images. And so you're working on a film project twice over. And that can come with its own pitfalls.

Something that's right on one eye isn't right on the other eye. And so you have to even it out and balance it out. So there's a lot more scrutiny to 3D film restoration. So by comparison, a flat film is a breeze for us. So we started branching out a little bit. You know, there were other projects Bob and I wanted to work on, and we always have been doing work on other films as well. But 3D film archive is what we were best known for. And the 3D films that we wereive is what we were best known for. And the 3D films that we were

releasing were what we were best known for. Bob and I are both Abbott and Costello fans. And Bob wrote with Ron Palumbo a great book about Abbott and Costello in the early 90s called Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, which is, I think, like the definitive word on their feature films. I think, like the definitive word on their feature films. And so there were a few things that we wanted to get off the bucket list, so to speak. And one of those was their TV show from the 50s. And so we started working on that in conjunction with the Costello estate last year. And we released the first season of the Abbott and Costello show through classic flicks back in December. And, uh, we did a very successful Kickstarter campaign for it. We raised, I think a little over $50,000 for that project. And with the Kickstarter campaigns, uh, that was

something that we only really recently started delving into. I think in the last few years, we've been pretty successful at it. They're think in the last few years, we've been pretty successful at it. They're more or less pre-orders, you know? Sure. So if you're interested in it, uh, you know, you, you can pay whatever it is. I think it was like $40 pledge or whatever, and you'll get the pre-order and you'll get it early. Uh, and if you want to pledge more, that's icing on the cake for us. We'll put it towards bonus features and stuff that we wouldn't have previously or couldn't have previously. And judging from the response that we've got on these Kickstarter campaigns, there are a lot of people that want to see this stuff. Right.

So we were able to do the first season of Abbott and Costello. We scanned. Bob, how many reels was that total picture negative? Well, there's 26 shows, three reels, picture, three reels, track. So, yeah, hundreds and hundreds of reels, over 400 reels. And we had we had camera negative on almost all of them. I think we didn't have camera negative on three reels of the whole show. Yeah, the survival rate's crazy.

You know, there's a backstory to that because when I had moved to L.A. in 1984, you know, working for Jerry Lewis was wonderful. But it wasn't a lot of money. So I was looking to supplement my income. And I approached both the Abbott and Costello families and I said, hey, I'm, you know, Jerry's a visual archivist. I can do the same for you. And they both agreed and gave me the opportunity to start getting their film archive together. So the TV show was really important and such an iconic show. And the elements had been very, very badly handled over the years by

the distributors that had the rights to it. And quite a few of the original camera negatives had been junked in the early 70s. And I found some paperwork indicating where they were sent to be scrapped. And it was a film warehouse in downtown LA called Film Salvage. And I called up and somebody went and dug in the back of the warehouse. And he said, we've got about four pallets of Abbott and Costello negatives that have never been destroyed. And I couldn't get down there fast enough. And it turned out to be camera original, which was amazing. And for decades, I've wanted to go back and scan and preserve those and present the show in a quality that nobody had ever seen before. So that's what the whole classic flicks

release allowed us to do. And the response has been incredible. People, I think, are really blown away with how good a 1951 television show can look on Blu-ray and we're going to be doing season two. And in fact, I'll be launching a Kickstarter campaign for that probably mid to late July. I want to get Jack and the Beanstalk out the door to our backers before going live with another Abbott and Costello campaign. But yeah, that's been a project that was in the works for a long time. And we also did Abbott and Costello's independent feature,

Africa Screams, which was another one that was mired in really horrible public domain copies that had been floating around for decades. And I wanted to go back to the original nitrate elements for that. And we did a full-blown restoration of that a couple of years ago, that Classic Flix released. And that got a great response as well. So I think, you know, moving forward, Jack and I are always on the lookout for things that need to be sort of rescued from these bad quality copies that have been out for decades.

And we've got a few irons in the fire that I think are going to make some film fans very happy in the near future. Well, that leads us right into the discussion of the Jack and the Beanstalk. Was the work on the Abbott Costello show, Africa Screams, that kind of just the natural progression? Or how did you choose that for your next project? Well, it was another one that had gone public domain in the late 70s. And there are literally hundreds of really bad copies of the film out there. And I knew from having some 35 millimeter prints of the film over the years that what people were seeing versus how it originally

looked was a vast difference. And Jack and I both had an interest in the cine color process. And Jack could explain a little bit more about that and what's so unique about it. And Jack could explain a little bit more about that and what's so unique about it. But after Africa Screams had done so well and the TV show, it was only natural for us to tackle Beanstalk. And I don't think either of us knew going into it just how much of a challenge it was going to be technically. I'll just say that by all accounts, it looks like the original Eastman color negative and color separations went missing in 1959 when the rights were sold to a distributor in New York. Jack, maybe you can tell everyone just what was involved in bringing this one back to life. This may have been, without exaggeration, the most challenging project that we've had to date. Usually we have pre-print material to work with on the films that we're working on, unless they're very old and archival, like some of the silent stuff that we put on

3D rarities. In this case, we only had projection prints to work with because as Bob said, all of those elements disappeared many years ago. The goal was we knew of a few prints that were available. We actually purchased a print from a collector, a couple of prints actually, and we knew of several prints in several archives. And the problem was each print had its own set of issues, either splices or scratches. One print was pretty complete, but had an arc burn from the lamp house when it was projected. So it looked like just a dot, stationary dot that was on the bottom of the screen. The film emulates The Wizard of Oz in, it has a modern day setting bookends that are in sepia tone. And on almost all of the prints,

those sepia tone sections were very beat up. So we had to create kind of a Frankenstein digitally of all this stuff. And from start to finish, I think we spent about two years on this project. Uh, when it comes to the actual assembly and all that sort of work, uh, probably about six months on the project intensively, um, January, February, March, and April were all really packed schedules for both Bob and I, as far as this project in particular. So we had an A print, which came from Library of Congress. They had that in their archives. And I say A as in that was the best print, the top quality print that we had to work with. It was pretty complete in the color sections.

I think we had a total of five pretty minor splices throughout that print, but it did have a fair share of scratches and dirt and stuff like that. We had the print that Bob and I got, which was sort of a B or C print, was very splicey, had scratches, had arc burns, but it had a lot of those fill-ins that we needed. So we went to that for certain shots. And we also had a C print, I call it a C print, from the British Film Institute, which was actually what looked like an answer print that Cinecolor had made. And it had more or less mint sepia tone sections on the bookends.

But when it came to the color sections, because it was an answer print, it was really messed up. I mean, it was way out of register. There were timing bumps at every shot i mean yeah that stuff was more or less useless although i'll tell you an interesting thing that we did in just a moment using it for something that we had to fill in but the goal was to try to have a complete frame accurate version of the film start to finish bob had a copy of the cutting continuity. So we knew what the length of everything should be. And so over the winter of this year, we pieced it together from all of these prints. I think we had, Bob, was it like five prints we had total to work? I think so. Yeah. And the first step was just assembling it, just getting it together, getting it complete.

And then there was about a month and a half of pretty intensive color grading work that we had to do on the film because the original Cinecolor prints are printed in a very strange process. This was in the early 50s when Kodak first started introducing Eastman Color negative and print stock. And before that, your choices were fairly limited. Technicolor was held a virtual monopoly on color film in Hollywood. Both Kodak and Technicolor had a backdoor deal, a kind of a hand. It was a legal deal. I wouldn't call it a handshake deal. deal, a kind of a hand, it was a legal deal. I wouldn't call it a handshake deal. It was basically collusion that Kodak would not go into the color business of theatrical motion pictures. And in trade, Technicolor got a 35 millimeter version of what we know as Kodachrome, which they called monopack. And in trade, they would stay out of the 16 millimeter printing

business. And Kodak had 16 millimeter Kodachrome on the market for home movies and things like that. So they got that end of the deal. And also Technicolor would buy exclusively Kodak film stock. And all of this was centered around a stalemate they had between the two of them with these patents. Well, in the late 40s, those patents expired. The Supreme Court started a case against both companies. And so they sort of dropped this deal. And Eastman Kodak started doing R&D on a process of doing just a single film strip color film, and that became Eastman Color. And they really rolled that out in genuine in 1951, which was the year before this film was produced. Now, the problem was the negative stock worked out just fine, but the print release stock didn't look very good.

So distributors and producers were still going to Technicolor to have Eastman Color films printed up in their dye transfer system. Meanwhile, at Cinecolor, they had had a three-color process on their plate for a while, a three-color process on their plate for a while, but they were stuck with their original two-color process because there was really no way of recording the color on a negative. They could do the print, but without something like Eastman color, they were stymied. And so when Eastman color came out, this became a great opportunity for them to roll out this process. And it's more or less a version of their two-color process on steroids. The original color process used two strips of negative that were run through the camera at the same time. And one strip of negative would record red light and one would record blue light. You'd have a two-color system. And then they would print those negatives onto a special

sort of print stock that had emulsion on both sides of the base. So typically when you have film, you have an acetate base or a nitrate base, plastic, clear plastic, perforated, and then they spray an emulsion, a photosensitive emulsion on top of one side of that and that's what you print the negative on well this has it on both sides and they would print both sides both sides with each negative that came out of the camera and then they had these long baths for lack of a better term they were giant tanks that had chemicals that would replace the little silver particles in the emulsion on each side with dye. So you would have one side toned with a blue-green dye and replace the silver, black, and white particles on that. So you'd get essentially a blue-green and white image on one side, and then they'd flip

it over and they'd do the same thing on the other side with red dye and you'd get a red and white image. And because they're sandwiched together on that stock, they sort of subtract from each other and create this really nice two color image. Well, they pushed it a step further. And when you have three color printing, what you want is cyan, magenta and yellow to fill out the whole spectrum. cyan, magenta, and yellow to fill out the whole spectrum. If you've ever seen a lithography done at a printing press, they do four passes of color and that's cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. And the black is really just to give it contrast. They didn't need that here in this film process. So they figured out a way to actually print three colors onto that double-coated stock, to actually print three colors onto that double-coated stock.

And that became Super Cinecolor. And that is the process in which Lou Costello contracted the company to print Jack and the Beanstalk with. And it's very pronounced color. It looks very different than a lot of Technicolor prints from the period. The good thing is that unlike Eastman color print stock and some other color stocks, it doesn't really fade. There is a problem where the yellow layer will fade if it's exposed to intense heat or light like a projector lamp house. So one of the problems that we had on this project was there was a blue box on all of the prints that was left there from running those prints over and over again.

And we had to dial that back. And that was pretty much on all of the prints, but in different ways, because, of course, not every projector aperture plates print, you know, cut the same. So on one, you might have it in one spot and on another print, you have it in another spot, but we were able to dial that stuff out pretty well. You have a bonus extra, I think, where you really kind of deep dive into the CineColor process. That one's called, I think, Imperfect Spectrum. Yeah, I put that together. It's about a 10 minute piece where, I mean, if my verbal explanation of this seems kind of cut and dry or confusing, there are a lot of really good graphics on screen to sort

of explain the whole thing. And we talk about the history of the company. And I had a number of trailers scanned in at 4K that we included clips from each of those films so that you could visually see what the films looked like. Yeah, one of the things that we out of the gate wanted to try to do with Beanstalk was even out the color grading. Because you're working with prints and all these weird anomalies that were baked in from the original, very complicated three color printing system, the color was bouncing all over the place. And that for us was an enormous challenge because you want it consistent. And we worked on getting the skin tones very consistent. But we had challenges, especially with the costumes. Lou Costello is wearing a very distinctive tunic that some shots is blue, some shots it's green.

And you try to dial that in. But it's very challenging because then you start to screw up the skin tones. And I think we got it as close as possible. you start to screw up the skin tones. And I think we got it as close as possible. And I have to say that we had supplemental color work done by Dave Northrup at Film Media in New Jersey and a brilliant colorist. And we went in for an initial session figuring we could knock this thing off in what, about 12 hours. And I think we wound up going back like three more times because it just, you know, nothing is easy. And the color, we worked so hard

to try to get that consistent. But we've got it as close as possible. We're very happy with that. We also had tremendous input from a gentleman named Scott Jondro that Jack can explain a little bit more about what he contributed. And then for the audio, Ray Faola of Chelsea Rialto Studios took these original tracks, which were variable density printed in super cine color, which meant they had

a blue cast to them. And there was a good signal there, but a lot of noise. And Ray was able to dial back that noise quite a bit. And people will be hearing the audio track in a fidelity that they've really never experienced before. And the film had so much dirt and scratches and stuff baked into it. And Thad Komorowski, who's been with us for many years now, did the cleanup work on it, and he did a really excellent job. Well, that's true, yeah. And because the SuperCity Color release prints

are three generations removed from the original camera negative, that was all done optically, and every step of the way, more dirt was introduced. So I know it's a cliche, but it's really true that with Thad's cleanup, you're seeing the visual of the film cleaner now than audiences did in 1952. Oh, well, definitely. After having seen what we've seen like six or seven prints of this film at this point projected, it's no exaggeration to say it looks better than when it came out

because we were able to do so much enhancement work on it. And I think we dialed it back at least a generation from what the release prints looked like. Scott is a very talented guy who has his finger on the pulse of a lot of AI software that's available now. And we use some proprietary software to try to pull as much detail that was buried under a noise of three generations of grain on the print as possible. It's still not a grainless film, as people will see on the Blu-ray disc, but it's a lot more even than it looked like projected. I mean, the prints are colorful, but as far as grain goes, you've got to imagine three layers of grain just being added on top of it at that point.

Yeah. And in any film restoration, you're going to have that grain, which, you know, lets you know that it is film. And that seems to, you know, kind of represent, I think, part of that era too. So, I mean, when I watched it, I noticed the grain, but I thought the colors were really vibrant. They really popped. Obviously the difference between the kind of the real world sepia tone elements and then the fairy tale was fantastic. So I thought that it really, it's visually very compelling. The balancing act too is very difficult in that, you know, we don't like to remove grain. We didn't remove any grain from this. Right. You know, keep it natural, keep it what it looked like originally.

We're sticklers for the idea being, make it as look as good as possible within the confines of what it would have looked like back then. Right. And so the one thing that's a little jarring is the the switch from the sepia stuff, which is sepia toned black and white film off of the camera negative that they shot it with. And then jumping to the color stuff, which is three generations later, we try to make it so that it's not so jarring because on the film prints that transition happens and it's like, whoa, hold on a second. You know, this, the quality on this dramatically jumped. Well, we were very fortunate in that we had one very short surviving piece of camera negative. Back in the early 80s, I was working at a

stock footage house in New York and I found a piece of film. It was labeled Beanstalk with a question mark. And that got my attention and I looked at it and it was an original piece of the camera negative for the film that had somehow been clipped out. A cut scene. And it was a deleted scene. Yeah. And we did a 4K scan of that. And that was kind of the template that we followed. We thought, OK, the camera negative is long gone, but if it had survived, how would it look? And that was what we aimed for on the restoration to restore the visual look of the film to as close to camera original as possible. And I think I'd like to think that we got pretty close. I mean, the audience can be the judge because we actually include the clip on one of the special features, which is the Ron Palumbo mini doc about deleted scenes from the film and the production and all that.

So if you want to compare it to that, um, we, we got pretty close. We haven't really talked about what the, what the movie's about, but it's a retelling of the fairy tale, Jack and the beanstalk, but it's also a musical with songs. So the audio work you mentioned, I think, really was important to the final product. I agree. And within the limitations, of course, of the production at the time, trying to make the best out of what they had done. I mean, for example, the opening title music really sets the tone for the film. But when they recorded the track negative for it, it was a little distorted. So we had to try to make sort of the proverbial silk purse out of a sow zero with that. But I think it came out great. Ray Fiala did a really great job with the

audio. And the movie is interesting because it's a departure from Abbott and Costello's work in general in that they're best known for the wordplay of course and with this film which was a independent production of Lou Costello's he wanted to do something a little different try to get away from the slapstick stuff and get away from the wordplay stuff, try something different out. And it's a different tone film than their Universal films, for example. But it's a it's rather charming. And one thing that I will say about this film, and I think it's true about Africa Screams as well, is that they both have not been well heralded by Abbott and Costello fans. And I think the biggest reason for that is that the quality of the copies that are out there is so poor that it's hard to

judge what is going on in the film. And with these new additions that we've done, certainly was the case with Africa Screams, people have reassessed them. They're better films than they remembered because now they can actually see them in some sort of good condition. And working on this film was never really one of my favorite Abbott and Costello films, but I felt the same way after we were done with it. I think too, to add to that, this was about a decade into their careers in film and their contract with Universal allowed them the opportunity to produce their own individual productions every year. And they were always frustrated with the fact that Universal never gave them a color production, even though their films were making a ton of money for the

studio. And they saw other comedians like Danny Kaye and Red Skelton and Bob Hope doing Technicolor films. So that was a big inspiration for Lou Costello to produce the film in color. And they had a huge following among children. And Lou was inspired to do this film when he was reading the Jack and the Beanstalk story to his little daughter, Chris, who was two years old at the time. And he thought this would make a great movie for kids. So they really made an effort to tailor the movie for children. And that's one of the reasons they did not lapse into a lot of, you know, sort of the tried and true routines. There are some interviews they gave at the time where they said how tempting it was

because they were shooting scenes with the cow and they were tempted to go into the various cow's udder routines and things that they did in their movies and TV show. But they held back. And in one of the supplements on the various scenes that were shot and cut, Lou filmed about 25 minutes of footage that didn't make it into the final film. There was one very slapstick type scene where Lou is, is trying to steal the keys from the giant who's asleep and gets into some physical bits of business. And he took it out of the film because it didn't, it didn't work. But I think it's a film that if you grew up with it, as as generations of fans have done, myself included, it really gives you an opportunity in seeing it in such a good quality to reassess it.

And Jack's point is spot on that when you're seeing it in optimal quality, it adds a quality to the film that I think elevates it quite a bit. And you just mentioned some of the, what I call the extras on this, but you have two and a half hours worth of bonus material. I mean, that's a huge, I mean, I personally, I love it because, you know, this show is all about the extras that people do and taking a little bit into that. So why don't you run us through a few of the others? You just mentioned Chris Costello, the daughter of Lou, and she actually introduces, does an introduction for the film, which I saw, which I thought was charming. Yeah, Chris, it's one of her favorite films of her dad's. And we asked her if she would like to do that.

She was delighted to. So she recorded a brief intro to the movie. Ron Palumbo, who was my co-author on the book that we wrote, he did a full feature commentary track as well as a supplement on the tour that Bud and Lou did to promote the movie. It was the most extensive tour they ever did for one of their movies in April 1952, including photos and some rare footage of them in Boston for the tour. Ron also did a segment on all the deleted scenes and not all of them survive in terms of photographs, but he was able to recreate some of them.

And I should add that when the movie went public domain in the late 1970s, there was a version that was circulated using some reels of a first trial preview print that had scenes in them that were never meant to be part of the final film. that were never meant to be part of the final film. And we were very careful with our restoration to restore the film to the version that Luke Costello originally approved and wanted seen in 1952. And that's a 78-minute film. So some of that extra footage that surfaced in the late 70s is part of Ron's deleted scenes segment. So the material is included, but it's not in the body of the film. And we wanted to respect Lou's vision. We also have a lot of photo galleries. Chip Ordway did some behind the scenes production photos, including some Kodachrome test wardrobe shots that were taken,

publicity material, lobby cards, press book, everything but the kitchen sink is thrown into there. And we also- We threw that in too. Yeah, exactly. In cine color. And there's some rare audio. There's a 1952 children's recording they did that we restored from the original tapes.

And Jack, you want to mention some of the rare film extras that we've included? There's a ton of it. We also put a Rudy Valli radio show from late 40s, was it? 1945. 1945. from late 40s, was it? 1945. 1945. And they do Jack and the Beanstalk on his show seven years before they produced this film. So that's interesting. There's a commentary track, of course, with Ron Palumbo and also the child actor that's in the film, David Stollery. We were able to get him to say a few words about working on the film, which was fun. We have a trailer

gallery on there that I think Abbott and Costello fans won't want to miss because it's 45 solid minutes of trailers that you didn't see on anything else. Universal put out a box set a few years back of all of their Universal films. And they included trailers for most of the films, but not all of them. And some of the trailers that were on there too, were the only element that they had at the studio, which were textless. So for those, we included those trailers that had text, we found copies of them that had text. So you'll be getting to see the complete trailers on those. Standouts in particular are the complete uncut Abbott and Costello meet

Frankenstein trailer, which has only been seen in a cut up and really nice color trailer for their second second and last color film Abbott and Costello meet Captain Kidd which Bob worked on the restoration of with UCLA Film and Television Archive and so there's a ton of trailers on there you're gonna love that we were really racking up the pre-orders on this thing. So every time we saw the numbers go up, we felt like we had to add more to the film, to the package. I mean, we maxed out the Blu-ray space on this without compromising the bitrate quality on the feature.

I mean, we were really down to like, I think when all was said and done, we could have squeezed like three minutes more worth of stuff on there. But you're getting your money's worth. We also have a really rare 1954 appearance on the Colgate Comedy Hour of Abbott and Costello hosting. sketch where they go to a prop department at Universal and they do a lot of horror related comedy in that they've got costumes from Abedin and Costello meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the background. And Lou does some routines. And then they do the routine from Abedin and Costello meet Frankenstein, where Lou is sitting next to a crate, which he doesn't realize has the Frankenstein monster in it. And Glenn Strange as Frankenstein pops out of that. They do a routine for a few minutes with that.

And then finally, they unleash. This was the big get for this sketch. The first time anyone saw it, in fact, the creature from the Black Lagoon pops out. And so we had an original 16 millimeter kinescope and we scanned that in at 4k. And Scott and I did a little video trickery to it. Of course, when it first went out on the air, it was sent out as an NTSC, uh, 30 frame a second show. Uh, and of course the kinescope is going to degrade it a little bit. You're going to get get first off, it's going to be recorded at 24 frames a second. But also, you know, if there's any issues with the stock itself, you're going to get dust and scratches and all that stuff. We cleaned it up and we worked some AI magic on it.

And now we've got it back to the 30 frames a second. It originally went out as so you're going to get that real live television video look to it. And so that's something that we're pretty proud of. All the behind the scenes stuff, of course, is great. There's a Ron Palumbo mini doc about their tour that they did for the film to promote it. I found that really fascinating because, I don't know, it's not one you normally would see having produced, you know, behind scenes extras from that era to be able to kind of run through the different cities. And it was what their biggest promotional tour to date, right? had a policy at the time of doing big promotional tours with people. I mean, even people that had nothing to do with the movie, they just send a celebrity out on tour and try to make some sort of tenuous association with the film. Probably a good example of that was when they released

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. It went out on the road and they sent the actor Paul Perturni out with it. And he's not even in the movie. So in order to try to make some sort of connection, they have him narrate the trailer for the film. So that's his connection. But you know, it was a way to bolster ticket sales for the film in each city. And Abbott and Costello, it made sense. And I know Lou definitely wanted to do it because it was his baby. And he and Abbott were both used to going out on the road and doing sort of like barnstorming tours type things. So something like this worked out.

Although as you'll, not to spoil it, but as you'll see in the mini doc, they had to call it quits early because Bud hurt himself during the tour and they had to cancel the last two cities. But we've got newsreel footage of two of the cities, which I thought was really great. I thought that was great. You got that footage in there and just following it and just seeing kind of the publicity side of it as an extra was a lot of fun. And then you also had some footage of Abbott and Costello performing their Who's Up first. Yes. Yeah. That's a pretty rare film that was shot by a newsreel cameraman in 1940 when they were visiting an army base.

Bob, you can confirm this, but I think that's the earliest film version of their routine that exists. Well, they did it. They did it in their first movie, One Night in the Tropics, but it was very shortened for that film. But this was December 1940. It was just a few weeks before they began filming Buck Privates. And it's not out there at all. there at all. So I think the fans are going to be really excited to see footage of Bud and Lou doing their most famous routine, you know, really at the height of their breakout in 1940. Yeah, this release between the restoration you have put into it, the songs that are very charming,

I Fear Nothing. I mean, that kind of sticks in your head after you hear that song. Charming, I Fear Nothing. I mean, that kind of sticks in your head after you hear that song. It's very memorable. And then this two and a half hours worth of extras that you put on here. I mean, it just kind of blows me away when people put that much into the release. Because the whole idea that I talk about on this show is that if you're going to convince people to buy films these days, instead of just waiting for them to stream or something, you have to provide something.

You have to provide these extras. You have to give them something that makes that ownership desirable. And you really, you guys just really knocked it out of the ballpark for this 70th anniversary release. Well, the secret to that is that we're fans of the product that we work on. You know, it's not just a job for us. It's not something clinical. We actually love these movies. So

we're producing sets that we would want to see ourselves as fans of these films. And if that means jamming them with a bunch of special features, I know everyone's not going to say no to that. Right. Well, it's also, too, I think the fact that it is the 70th anniversary, we wanted to really differentiate our release from any version that had come before. But, you know, you're still going to have people that are hesitant. I had somebody online a week or so ago say, well, I really don't like the movie. I said, well, then buy it for the two and a half hours of bonus extras. I mean, if you're an Abbott and Costello fan, you're going to be seeing a ton of rare stuff that you've never seen before. And I think the other point we should

make is this is a limited edition and the Africa Screams Blu-ray is now out of print. So if anybody is on the fence about it, I would say don't hesitate because once it sells out, it's gone. Yeah, grab it now. And I mean, even if we do a reissue of it at some point down the road, it's not going to be this deluxe edition. It'll probably be more of a bare bones sort of set. And so if you want the extras, yeah, definitely grab this now. Well, along those lines, I think the release date is currently scheduled for late July, but people have been pre-ordering this for quite some time. Where would they go to get more information on this?

You can go up to ClassicFlix.com. That will have a pre-order link right there on the website. The film will be available through all the usual vendors. So if you want to grab it through your favorite, they will no doubt have it. The release date was up until recently, mid-July, about July 12th, I think was originally. But a replicator had some setbacks. So it's going to be more like late July at this point, but no later than that. And Bob, where can the listeners learn a little bit more about the 3D Archive and the upcoming projects you guys have? Well, we have our own website, 3DFilmArchive.com, that has a lot of background about the 3D restorations we've done and some real deep rabbit holes if you want to learn about

things like 3D comic books or the early years of widescreen cinematography and the big transition in 1953. I've also got a few of my personal interests there. If you've always wanted to know about the first year of stereo records in 1957, there's a very detailed article. There's a variety of topics that you might find of interest on the website. And we also maintain a pretty active Facebook page. And we interact with a lot of the people that like our work on there and we'll answer questions and whatnot. And that's, I think, probably the best place to keep in contact with us at this stage.

We're all over social media. You know, that's the other thing is we got to promote this stuff. We don't have much of an advertising budget. So we've got to get on all of social media and start blasting it everywhere, you know, honking the horn that this stuff's coming out. I mean, we've got so many projects this year. We already mentioned the Diamond Wizard, the second season of Abbot and Costello. We've got a special edition in 3D of Robot Monster coming out soon. That ought to be a lot of fun. I don't know, Bob, did we announce anything else lately?

Well, we're going to be doing the very first full color 3D feature, Bawana Devil, the one that opened the floodgates in 1953. And we're going to be restoring that for Kino Lorber. That will more than likely be a 2023 release. We're also doing an early 70s soft core extravaganza called Prison Girls for Kino Lorber. And there's a few other pretty exciting irons in the 3D fire that we're not able to announce yet. But one of them in particular has been a very highly requested title over the last decade that will be announced probably early next year. And I think that's going to make quite a few people very happy. I know it certainly made me happy. So, you know, we're we're doing well. We're busy. Yeah. And a lot of the fans have been asking for

and we've been delivering a lot of the so-called Silver Age 3D titles, 70s and 80s stuff. So Prison Girls falls into that. We just released through Kino Treasure of the Four Crowns, the Tony Anthony, Indiana Jones ripoff, which is great. I mean, it's if you want 3D that's in your face, that's the one to get. Right. And we're restoring one of our first releases was Arch Ober's 1966 3D feature, The Bubble. And that's out of print now. And we allowed that to happen for a very deliberate reason, because in 1969, Arch Obler went in and cut about 21 minutes out of the film. And a few years ago, during an expedition to the Library of Congress, I found the original negative for all those cut scenes. So we're

going to be restoring the roadshow version of The Bubble, which has not been seen anywhere since the late 60s. So that is another one that's coming up in 2023. And we've got a few flat projects we're working on as well. No titles announced yet, but I will leak a little bit that one of them is a super CineColor film. So that'll be our second super CineColor restoration. Well, for listeners who are interested, you know, check the social media, send Jack your best guess for what he's referencing. That can be kind of fun. Now, you have a lot of interaction with your fans with the whole Kickstarter. Will you be doing Kickstarter in the future? Fans want to be involved with that? Yes. The next campaign that we'll be launching

in mid to late July will be for season two of the Abbott & Costello TV show. We're going to have to scale that one back a little bit from season one, only because the extras really were kind of out of control on season one. We went nuts with it. We had, what was it, eight commentary tracks? I think it was 10, actually. Yeah, there was a lot of bonus. And for various reasons, we're not going to be doing that level on season two.

But that will be the next Kickstarter campaign. And once we move forward a little bit more on Robot two, but that will be the next Kickstarter campaign. And once we move forward a little bit more on Robot Monster, we're in sort of a holding pattern on that right now, because the elements that we had to work with have some problems. And I found superior materials at an international archive, and I'm just waiting, it's three months now. I've been waiting to get approval for access. But, you know, when you start going around the world, things don't happen quickly. And just as we encountered with Jack and the Beanstalk, sometimes there are still staffing issues because of COVID and you get a little bit delayed that way. a little bit delayed that way. But once we get a little further with Robot Monster, we've got another 3D related Kickstarter that only came into our attention a few months ago. But Jack and I

went to look at this material and were blown away. Some really incredibly exciting and I would say historic 3D footage. Never before seen. Nobody's ever seen these outside of a small group of people in the 1950s. Yeah, it's amazing stuff. I'm just so anxious to tell people about it, but I have to wait for the right moment. But yeah, there's going to be some very, very cool 3D stuff coming from us in the very near future.

Well, one thing I really enjoyed about looking into the 3D archive and the work that you did on previous titles and then on this film, Jack and the Beanstalk, I love the fact that fans can actively be a part of it very early on. very early on. And I think a lot of fans enjoy that element of being a part of it and knowing that they had a direct impact on your ability to finish the restoration and get all those bonus extras that you mentioned. Well, we like it too, because it's a great barometer for if we're doing something right or wrong. You know, I think we have a pretty good reputation, but there've been some people that have complained about certain things and they're always duly noted. Trust me. Yeah. And I think out of the gate, when we first, a decade ago, started getting off the ground with this, social media was a great asset for us because it allowed us to interact and raise awareness. And it didn't cost anything.

You know, there was no financial outlay. It was just the time. And we were happy to do it. And we still continue to do it. It's a little more difficult now because with so many projects and we have two different teams working on them, time is limited. And we don't have the opportunities to interact as much as we would like. But we wouldn't be where we are and have over 30 releases in a seven-year period if it wasn't for the amazing support and interest. And we don't take that for granted at all.

So we're all very grateful. Well, Bob and Jack, it's been a real privilege to have you on the show to talk about this title, but also all of the great work that you do there at the 3D Archive. Thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedules to tell us about this exciting new release. Thanks for having us. Tim, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much. For those of you interested in finding out more about the 3D Archive and the films we discussed

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