Help Wanted: 'The Flim-Flam Man' (1967 - directed by Irvin Kershner) - a preservation...

Hello all, I’m a long time lurker and new to the community; excited to contribute!
 

A project that I have been working on and wanted to share/ask for contributions is an 1080p restoration/upscale of “The Flim-Flam Man”

If you haven’t seen this movie, directed by Irvin Kershner, you’re missing out.

IMDB Page - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061678

 
I would like to complete a BD-25 release.

What I have so far is:

The original Playhouse VHS
A low resolution cable broadcast rip (appears to be the same master as Twilight Time Dvd)
Twilight Time DVD rip (800mb not a lot of quality here)
720p Mux from “Mister Flim-Flam” German LD release
A separate 720p rip of “Mister Flim-Flam” LD release with German audio track

What we need:

If someone could come up with the actual 35mm film or broadcast master tapes!!! I will arrange a film scan! This would be the greatest thing of all time

This aired on FXM in 1080p around January 2019. I about pulled my hair out when I was at work to find out that we didn’t DVR it. If only someone had captured it…

Cable broadcast version from early 2000’s. This aired at least once on AMC in standard definition and again around 2010 on AMC in HD.

Satellite/Cable broadcast version early/mid 1990s. (I don’t expect this to be of high quality, but there may be some extra material or scenes)

If anyone has the physical disc of the Twilight Time release it would great to have an uncompressed copy, same goes for the LD.

If anyone has any information about other releases that I have not covered here, that information itself is valuable. I’ve heard rumor there was a limited US LD run, I cannot confirm if that’s true.

There is absolutely a 1080p version of this film somewhere or at least master tapes as it has been broadcast at least twice in HD.

If anyone has any extras that would be fantastic

Current Plan:

The best material I have is the two 720p German LD rips. My plan is to try both a software upscale and two different hardware based upscales to 1080 and see what looks the best. This will probably look awful, but it is worth a shot failing no other source.

I’d like to release some limited extras.

So far:
2014 Video of a review of all the filming locations (check it out on youtube)
Production Stills
Original Theatrical Trailer

I will keep you updated on my progress in putting this together. Please let me know if you have any material or information you can contribute, I really appreciate it!

-Rifts

Doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in this project which is a shame because this is a fantastic film.

So far about 1/3 of the way through a frame by frame scale. Results are surprisingly impressive given the source material.

riftamos said:

Doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in this project which is a shame because this is a fantastic film.

So far about 1/3 of the way through a frame by frame scale. Results are surprisingly impressive given the source material.

Hang in there FXM will most likely show it again. I have been capturing a lot of FXM stuff, but I do not have the ability to capture in HD. The best I can do is a Copy to a DVD recorder in SD using the HD source.

suntech said:

riftamos said:

Doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in this project which is a shame because this is a fantastic film.

So far about 1/3 of the way through a frame by frame scale. Results are surprisingly impressive given the source material.

Hang in there FXM will most likely show it again. I have been capturing a lot of FXM stuff, but I do not have the ability to capture in HD. The best I can do is a Copy to a DVD recorder in SD using the HD source.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will come on again.

If you can snag it, even if it’s just in SD, that would be a great help!

In case anyone is still following this thread. I purchased a copy of the German DVD release, ripped it and dumped the frames. Completed a frame by frame upscale using GigaPixel AI.

Reassembled and slowed to 24fps. It looks surprisingly crisp.