laureatedvd.com

[Christoph Nestel]

Although I'm very glad that SECOND CHORUS is available in good quality as PAL-DVD now, there's one point of Laureate's DVD-presentation I really got angry about. Why where the original main title cards of Paramount Pictures and Astor Movies Corporation cut from the DVD master and substituted by a Laureate-Signet ? The first two titlecards are only shown as frozen frame stills with the Laureate-Signet digitally put under the main title. When the movie ends, again a Laureate-Signet instead of the original Paramount-Signet is shown, before the final cast credits are also only shown as frozen frame stills. This sort of manner is in particular disturbing, as Laureate states intending to issue an affectionately restored collection. Due to my opinion serious preservation means to present a classic movie in its full original entirety (as far as possible depending on the surviving film elements) - that certainly contains the original first release distributor & company credits. Laureate may place its Signet a hundred times BEFORE and AFTER the feature, but must not manipulate the original title and end sequences. I guess every true movie lover will agree and consider it to be a torturing of a film, too. So what's about ROYAL WEDDING, I didn't buy so far - cut the roaring of the MGM lion from the print ? I desperatly hope Laureate will not continue this way of presentation on further DVDs. I would be glad for your statement on this. It would especially be a pity, if HOLIDAY INN I'm really looking forward to, should suffer similiarly on the DVD. Another classic musical I'd love to find on DVD is Alfred E. Greens THE FABULOUS DORSEYS (1947).

Best wishes,

Christoph Nestel

[Ken Barnes]

I take your point about "Second Chorus." This film - which no longer belongs to Paramount or Astor - was Laureate's first release. Since we had spent a good deal of time and money in not only obtaining the print but also restoring it, it was thought advisable by my distributors to add the Laureate imprimatur and there was,in fact, every legal justification for doing it.

We have also applied the same practice to "Royal Wedding" for the same reasons. Today,however(almost two years since these first releases)we are placing our logo ahead of the film and no longer impressing it onto the original print.

In the case of "Holiday Inn" - which was a Paramount picture originally - Universal bought the entire Paramount catalogue up to 1949 and they are now the official owners. We at Laureate were commissioned to produce the Special Diamond Anniversary Edition for Universal - whose logo appears at the beginning of the disc but followed by the ORIGINAL Paramount logo So you should have no complaint with this DVD. Nor should you have any complaint about the quality of the picture which has been digitally mastered from a pristine 35 mm fine grain print.

I'm equally proud of our new DVD of "The Man With The Golden Arm" - which we have produced in association with the Sinatra estate. This too has been beautifully rendered.
And here again, we have placed our logo ahead of the film along with that of our distributors - Sanctuary Visual Entertainment and Artanis Entertainment Group( the Sinatra office). The film itself remains in its original state from the first frame to the last.

We, at Laureate, have a great love of film but in certain cases it is necessary to establish our identity and our legal claim to certain titles in order to forestall piracy or counter claims. "Second Chorus" and "Royal Wedding" are two such titles. However, you will note that our presentations of these two films do have the blessing and participation of Fred Astaire's daughter, Ava who makes a welcome and telling contribution to both DVDs.

Given your obvious passion for classic films, your complaint is not an unreasonable one and we will do our best in the future to meet your criteria.

Thanks for your interest

Kind regards
Ken Barnes

[Dominic McHugh]

I'm quite glad that this issue has been brought up, because it is the only criticism I could ever make of your otherwise loving releases. In all other respects the Laureate Collection is probably the most professional series of DVDs that I have seen, but I, too, was astonished when I first saw 'Royal Wedding' in particular, that 'MGM' had been removed but the lion's head retained. As far as musicals go there is no greater sign of quality than MGM, and there is no need to insult the readers of this message board by me describing why. However, I do think that it was a shame to spoil the film's appearance at the beginning and end by the slightly unprofessional interpolation of the Laureate logo. In fact, wouldn't the fact that it's an MGM musical have encouraged people to buy it? I'm sorry to give you a hard time, Ken, and I understand your motives and legal worries, but in the future a pristine print would be rather nice. The beautiful layout on the box and the Laureate sign on the cover are enough to show that the contents are of your constant high quality.

Thanks

Dominic

[Ken Barnes]

Hi Dominic,

Ownership of both "Second Chorus" and "Royal Wedding" is questionable. Due to negligence of copyright procedure both films are now in the public domain and good prints are hard to come by. In the case of "Royal Wedding," I have been given to understand that the negative no longer exists and was said to have been destroyed in a fire at the MGM studios some years ago. How true this is, I cannot say - but having heard this from several sources, it would seem to be true.

The American Film Institute have announced their intention to restore and preserve every one of Fred Astaire's films.
They are said to have a good print of "R.W." - far better than the one that Turner issued on laserdisc a few years ago (which wasn't too good.)

I have to admit that the Laureate version of "RW" is not perfect - but it's fairly scratch-free and we've done as much digital enhancement as possible to make it watchable.
Because of the work we put into these two Astaire rareties, it was deemed legally necessary to put our own imprimatur on these - and on Sinatra's "Suddenly" as well as the Frank Capra classic "Meet John Doe."( the latter, I'm particularly proud of )

Because of the cost and time involved in these projects, we needed to protect ourselves and to deter would-be pirates from capitalising on our efforts.

I hope I've made a reasonable case for the defence.

Best
Ken

In all other respects, we've preserved the original logos.

[Christoph Nestel]

Dear Ken Barnes,

thanks for your reply. I'm glad to hear that credit changes will be an exception and HOLIDAY INN is not affected by this. But I agree with Dominic for the following reasons: For the first with public domain titles every movie fan is able to look up the original credits and its obvious to anybody that something is wrong here. Second the changes will not be a proper way to protect yourself from piracy. The pirates will use the first and last original title cards from their own less quality prints and then switch over to your restored print. So it would have nearly no effect of protection. Third I query if interest in these old and less renowned films is huge enough to encourage large piracy. When SECOND CHORUS was shown on Sky Channel several years ago they carried original titlecards and ROYAL WEDDING even on German television has its original American opening (actually this is a really good print culled in 1976 from MGM but unfortunately has an awful TV dubbing as ROYAL WEDDING never was theatrically released in Germany in 1951). So for me it's only to repeat: Avoid this in the future - everybody will be pleased even more with the quality of your products and be totally satisfied.

(Finally I may add that I gave review about the German TOP HAT DVD which has a similar subject, but this DVD carries the old original German cinema first release titlecards, so this is a different case. Perhaps nobody notices as the thread has decreased too much downwards since first discussions.)

Kind regrads,

Christoph