Kit Parker and I were going back and forth about Johnny Guitar (1954) recently. He brought up that when his company distributed 16mm films for Republic, the Johnny Guitar prints had Arizona scenery behind the titles, while the restored 35mm prints did not. (Martin Scorsese had a hand in the restoration, by the way.)
Did a little looking, and there it was. You can find anything on the Internet. Wonder what the story is on this?
Thanks to Kit Parker for giving me something to obsess about today.
Oh, too bad! The movie I have without Arizona scenery behind the main title. Sigh! I don’t understand why Martin Scorsese done this. He damage an artistic work. I hope the new release will have Arizona scenery behind the main title as the original print.
Thanks for the info, Sir!
Do you mean we’re stuck with the blue background now?
I’ve never seen it without the Sedona, Arizona scenery behind the credits and have seen it so many times, so if this is changed, I’ll find it jarring. Maybe not as much as if they took off Peggy Lee’s vocal at the end but still…
Can’t understand why this would happen–and hope it was some temporary thing.
I’d love to know how this happened — and more important, WHEN it happened. If it’s a relic from 1954, I’m fine with it. (If I remember right, the old laserdisc had the Arizona titles.)
Being that the recent material I’ve seen on it has been gorgeous, and has had the blue titles, I’m assuming that’s the restored stuff and what the Blu-ray will offer up.
I’m really hoping it’s widescreen, too.
I saw it in 1954 Toby and had the Arizona card then. The blue is new.
Well, between you and Kit Parker, it sounds like it was meant to have Arizona and be cropped to something like 1.85.
The experts have spoken!
Wow, why would they take that away?
Why don’t we ask Olive Films about it since they are the company releasing Johnny Guitar? Their comment page is here: http://www.olivefilms.com/about-us/
I volunteer to e-mail them unless Toby or someone else here wants to do it.
Home Theater Forum is another good place to ask about it. You all should have seen the flap there when West Side Story was released on Blu-ray with a defective title sequence!
I’ll get on it.
I asked Colin at Riding The High Country about the DVDs he’d seen. Here’s his reply:
You know, I was looking over your post on this matter last night, and avoided replying since I wanted to check something, namely if I still had my old UK DVD. Well, I can’t find the UK disc, I reckon I must have sold it.
Anyway , trusting to memory, I’m almost sure the old UK Optimum release (featuring the Scorsese intro, by the way) had the titles on the blue background. Now that transfer was pretty poor, and not what I’d think of as a restoration.
The superior French Paramount edition I currently have (and I believe all the other Euro Paramount discs are the same) features the titles over the Arizona backdrop.
Seeing as Olive have licensed movie direct from Paramount’s Republic catalogue it seems a safe bet that the US will be getting a Hi-Def version of the transfer issued in Europe by Paramount themselves.
Hi, I have the 2005 Universal DVD (Region 2) – with Scorsese intro and it has the Blue background
Thanks for helping clear this up.
I’m guessing we don’t need to worry about this having the original background. When TCM did Ray series last year I got it on DVR though haven’t watched it yet (and may now wait for the DVD), but I took a look at the credit sequence last night and it does have the Arizona background.
I think we can trust Colin and appreciate the information he provided.
It has occurred to me that maybe the titles were in bad shape on the negative, with significant splices or tears, and they made a tentative replacement to get out that old release before getting it restored. Seems logical, doesn’t it?
Especially because I’ve seen so many UCLA restorations and know that in many cases they had to search for different sources to do a proper restoration.