I don't know what happened to the print commonly used for broadcast and video, but at some point in the 80s this "cut" music print surfaced, and I've seen nothing else since.
As a film purist, this annoys me no end, and I don't know why no one can seem to find the original print with the music fully intact.
Well, here I am replying to a post of yours over four years after the fact. Perhaps you recall the
A Star Is Born thread concerning missing picture elements where we first encountered one another a couple years ago. The same basic answer I gave there applies here, with only a personal embellishment.
As I'm sure you know, the Allied Artists library was acquired by Lorimar in 1979. When I joined that company's Post Production dept in '81, the inventory of its preprint elements was still in massive disarray, and remained so two years after that when I was put in charge of design and implementation of a software system for inventory management (which itself took another three years).
When I left the company in early '88, AA preprint elements were still being discovered (and by that time, more incidentally than by concerted effort) at labs, sound facilities, film exchanges and vaults all over the world, and the following year, Lorimar was swallowed up by Warner Bros, relegating titles like
The Big Circus to "stepchild once removed" status. It took Time-Warner another 24 years to devote attention to a decent restoration and HD mastering of even as prestigious an AA title as
Cabaret for Blu-ray release. And as you can tell, no such attention has been given
The Big Circus, which, while acceptably watchable, is pretty much a "quick and dirty" affair on their "Warner Archive" DVD release ('scope notwithstanding).
I won't even express sentiments about
The Big Circus similar to those I did about
ASIB, which were somewhere between guarded optimism and mere hope, butcha never know. Complete music tracks could turn up (or already may have), and by whatever inscrutable process marketing decisions are made, a pristine and complete release of it may yet emerge.
The centennial of David Nelson's birth, perhaps? (Freely infer here all the sarcasm you wish.)
Poe! You are...avenged!
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hobnob53
8 years ago
Aha! You again, Doghouse-6!
Boy, am I glad you turn up at my old posts with the right answers.
It still strikes me as odd how a piece of a music track, long perfectly intact, should suddenly drop out and have to be bridged by another portion of the same track (now heard twice). None of the film itself is missing. But at least now thanks to you I have some technical background and reason to hope for a complete restoration around 2036, David Nelson's centenary and the year Everytown will launch its toga-clad lunar voyagers to the moon despite Cedric Hardwicke's best efforts to sabotage the space cannon.
Remember, there's no such thing as a free launch.
But I'll lift a glass of vodka to anything labeled AA.
Now, on another Warner Archives mystery (but concerning a real WB film, not an AA one), maybe you have some thoughts. Back in 2009 the Archives released Ice Palace (1960), which while hardly a giant of a film nonetheless is one I always enjoyed for its refusal to showboat. It was around for about five months but was then suddenly yanked from their catalogue, a fate I've seen hit only one other WA title (Kind Lady, 1951). I've assumed there was some rights issue that belatedly cropped up, but it seems odd, especially since no other Ferber-based films have been pulled from circulation. You're much more informed about such things and certainly have a vast experience in the industry that peons like moi lack, so as long as I have you trapped, any good guesses would be welcomed.
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Doghouse-6
8 years ago
It still strikes me as odd how a piece of a music track, long perfectly intact, should suddenly drop out and have to be bridged by another portion of the same track (now heard twice). None of the film itself is missing.
My educated guess would be that at some point, perhaps for either broadcast or videocassette release, a new master for one or the other was ordered (which would likely be done by pulling together best existing picture and sound elements rather than from a composite print), at which time damage to the music stem could have been discovered. And with the inventory in such disorganization, a quick edit to cover the damaged portion may have been done in lieu of the time it might take to locate a suitable replacement. What you describe doesn't sound to me like the type of thing that would be resorted to for reasons other than expediency.
I'm afraid I come up cold on
Ice Palace; if not a giant gap in my knowledge, at least one that's about so big. A simple marketing determination would be the usual explanation, but the "Warner Archive" titles are supposedly MOD, so a dearth of customers wishing to come and get it wouldn't explain the title's retirement.
I suppose it'll remain for now just another unexplained Alaska-associated eccentricity, along with Joe Miller, what's 'er name and homes without indoor plumbing.
Poe! You are...avenged!
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hobnob53
8 years ago
Thanks for your thoughts, D., especially on the TBC soundtrack.
I very much doubt the Ice Palace thing was due to the market, since as you say the line is MOD and with that single other exception I noted no title has ever been withdrawn. Apart from which, withdrawing a title after just five months seems a bit premature to judge its sales potential. A few years back I wrote WA inquiring and eventually got nothing more than a form reply that didn't mention the film or even remotely touch on the subject I wrote about. Worse than useless, and so much for their claim that they reply to all inquiries. Well, I guess they do, if "Thank you and good-bye" constitutes a reply.
Joe Miller! He's running again, as a Libertarian. That party just gets goofier and goofier.
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