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Help Wanted: The Wizard of Oz (1939) - Fan Preservation ( unfinished project )

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I’ve just decided to fan preserve 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. I will be using the 2013 Blu-ray version for the film footage and language tracks and the 1993 Ultimate Oz Laserdiscs for color correction and the extras, as well as sources from other releases. If someone could send me ISO files with rips of The Ultimate Oz Laserdiscs, the 1988 Criterion Laserdisc, and the 1989 50th Anniversary Laserdisc, that would be excellent. I will need (besides the ISO files):

  • Lossless rips of the digital tracks and PCM rips of the analog tracks (and a PCM rip of the Digital Right track on Side 1 of the Supplemental Disc) from the Ultimate Oz Laserdiscs
  • A rip of the supplemental feature section from the 1988 Criterion Laserdisc
  • A lossless rip of the 1988 Criterion Laserdisc mono track
  • A PCM rip of the 1988 Criterion Laserdisc audio commentary by Ronald Haver (not just from the film itself, but the whole discs)
  • A PCM rip of the 1989 50th Anniversary Laserdisc M & E track

I also own the MGM/UA 1997 DVD, the 2005 3-disc Collector’s Edition DVD, and the VHS box set of The Ultimate Oz, but the first VHS doesn’t work anymore.

And yes, help is needed.

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I can at least supply the foreign tracks from the 2013 Blu-ray. I’ll have to dig it up first, though…

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Charles Threepio said:

I can at least supply the foreign tracks from the 2013 Blu-ray. I’ll have to dig it up first, though…

Thanks, but I already have the 2013 Blu-ray box set. But you can go ahead and supply the tracks to me.

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how does this need preservation? The bluray was top notch.

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timemeddler said:

how does this need preservation? The bluray was top notch.

Well, I know that, but there were several “mistakes” that were “fixed” in it since the 1998 restoration. For instance, on the “original” mono track (which is actually the 5.1 track made mono) on the Blu-ray, Dorothy now says “Oh, Toto” rather than “Oh, Toto, Toto” when Uncle Henry gives Toto to Miss Gulch. This is because the 1998 restorers thought she said “Oh, To, oh, Toto” and deleted the first two syllables.

I, at least, would like to keep my preservation as true to what MGM intended, not what Warner Bros. intended.

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Why not use the Blu-ray as the main source? I’m not aware of any visual changes to this film.

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zxthehedgehog said:

Why not use the Blu-ray as the main source? I’m not aware of any visual changes to this film.

All right. Using the Blu-ray instead, so Charles Threepio doesn’t have to send the language tracks to me. I can rip them myself.

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zxthehedgehog said:

Why not use the Blu-ray as the main source? I’m not aware of any visual changes to this film.

I thought they did some digital wire removal on the Blu-ray… for things like the flying monkeys and some shots of the Lion’s tail.

<span style=“font-size: 12px;”><span>We seem to be made to suffer. It’s our lot in life.</span></span>

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https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/16mm-Feature-Film-THE-WIZARD-OF-OZ-1939-Judy-Garland-KODACHROME/233239150202?hash=item364e22fe7a:g:afEAAOSw5Ulc6xPS

waaaah

“Very good condition KODACHROME original printdown with printed in wear from 35mm source material (pics show the lines). Heaviest wear around the beginnings & ends of the source 35mm reels. B&W portions are KODAK stock (1959). Mounted on 3 reels. No vinegar smell”

I have no more links sorry.

Will do in future though

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Moiisty said:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/16mm-Feature-Film-THE-WIZARD-OF-OZ-1939-Judy-Garland-KODACHROME/233239150202?hash=item364e22fe7a:g:afEAAOSw5Ulc6xPS

waaaah

“Very good condition KODACHROME original printdown with printed in wear from 35mm source material (pics show the lines). Heaviest wear around the beginnings & ends of the source 35mm reels. B&W portions are KODAK stock (1959). Mounted on 3 reels. No vinegar smell”

I don’t have enough money to purchase that. But I can’t either way, because it’s sold out.

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I can’t confirm, but judging by that 16MM copy on eBay, it looks like the “real world” scenes were originally black and white, not sepia tone. Might be something to keep in mind for this project.

Looking forward to how it turns out. Good luck! 😃

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They were always intended to be sepia tone. The set for the shot where Dorothy opens the door was painted in sepia tones. It’s what makes the transition to technicolor more startling. The 50th anniversary release touted the restoration of the sepia tone.
Why prior reissue prints and the annual tv broadcasts lost the sepia I have no idea.

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

They were always intended to be sepia tone. The set for the shot where Dorothy opens the door was painted in sepia tones. It’s what makes the transition to technicolor more startling. The 50th anniversary release touted the restoration of the sepia tone.
Why prior reissue prints and the annual tv broadcasts lost the sepia I have no idea.

Ah, I see. Wonder why they got rid of it for that time…

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Maybe it was less expensive to strike new prints without it? A lot of Westerns used sepia, but you seldom see them with the original tints.

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

The 50th anniversary release touted the restoration of the sepia tone.

And yet, only the 1999 DVD/VHS release (and the 1998 theatrical re-issue) made Dorothy, Toto, and the inside of the farmhouse sepia toned in the transition from sepia to color, using “stencil painting,” as MGM did in 1939 for the original release. The rest of the releases don’t use stencil painting for some reason.

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The sepia scenes were lost in a fire. A black and white dupe has been used since and re-colored.

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Isn’t sepia something that is added in post production? A lot of black and white Westerns used it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with it intact.

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Where were you in '77?

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SpookyDollhouse said:

The sepia scenes were lost in a fire. A black and white dupe has been used since and re-colored.

Interesting, I have a LD of Wizard of Oz from 1983 and the opening pre-Oz is black and white but the transition to Oz is sepia. Always wondered why some copies of the movie were sepia and some were grayscale

Hello, although I have uploaded many things in the past, my Mega account was taken down recently. If you are looking for something I’ve previously said I uploaded, I may not have it anymore or know where it is. I’m sorry

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kchrules said:

SpookyDollhouse said:

The sepia scenes were lost in a fire. A black and white dupe has been used since and re-colored.

Interesting, I have a LD of Wizard of Oz from 1983 and the opening pre-Oz is black and white but the transition to Oz is sepia. Always wondered why some copies of the movie were sepia and some were grayscale

literally how they did that was for that specific shot whenever it transitions into the color what they did was get a double of Judy Garland, did her clothes and skin to make it look sepia, and paint the set of the interior of the house sepia that way it’s possible that it looks like a transition into a color world when in fact it’s not, it was in color this whole time it was just visual trickery (and the reason for the double is cause Garland was off camera for the sepia part of the shot, and after the double walked off camera then Garland came on wearing her colored clothes)

Raccoons

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Many films were actually released with tints originally but this didn’t always carry over to all prints, reissues and eventual video releases. Some early sound films supposedly had tints to them, and the sepia scenes in THE SEA HAWK were missing until the Laserdisc reissue finally put them back-same goes for the red tinted ending fire of MIGHTY JOE YOUNG.

The Criterion release is mastered from MGM’s Tech IB print, which then MGM did their own movie only version of twice over. Then for the Ultimate Oz set they remastered it in CAV and added their own extras. The initial DVD release is a port of this master and I believe it was the subsequent remastering for the DVD boxset reissue in 2005-2006 or so that introduced the error in the mono mix.

To be honest all of the versions look good for their respective times. I’m hoping the new 4K release will be as good as the supposedly better encoding of the new master locked onto the 3D disc.
Of course if the new disc even has the mono I’m sure it will be the defective track of the DVD mono that has been carried over already.

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captainsolo said:
The Criterion release is mastered from MGM’s Tech IB print, which then MGM did their own movie only version of twice over. Then for the Ultimate Oz set they remastered it in CAV and added their own extras. The initial DVD release is a port of this master and I believe it was the subsequent remastering for the DVD boxset reissue in 2005-2006 or so that introduced the error in the mono mix.

It was the 1998 restoration that introduced the dialogue error which has carried over into every other release since. This restoration was re-released theatrically and on DVD in 1999. The '98 was the last major photochemical restoration done before 2005.