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Vol. 8 Screencaps

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Offline Wilson7777

Hi All,

Was just wondering if anyone was able to do screencaps for the Vol. 8.  I realize that most of the shorts have never been released on VHS before but we did have them on bootlegs, tv vhs, and Internet.

If someone would be willing to post some that would be great.

Thanks.
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Wilson7777


Offline falsealarms

I'd be interested in seeing comparisons between the Goodtimes VHS' that contained some of these final Shemps and VOL 8.


ThumpTheShoes

  • Guest
I could do screencaps again but you'd have to wait 'till Saturday or Sunday. Work and a wedding (Not mine! Oh, no! Not that!) to attend this week.


Offline Smaug

Could you please get a couple of screenshots comparing a full frame short and the remade widescreen, that is, the same footage made to widescreen.
Malice In The Palace and Rumpus In The Harem would be a good example. Thanks!


ThumpTheShoes

  • Guest
Let's start off with a real night-and-day comparison of the new dvd with an old, grungy VHS release from the 80's. The tape series was from Australia, I don't remember the video company, but there were about 3 or 4 films on each one, much like the GoodTimes releases here. Prints were complete, focus very poor and they had the 4% speedup from the conversion to PAL format.

The Australian tapes were notable for being the only official/semi-official commercial source of Shemp films at the time, and those transfers were converted to NTSC format and used in one of the more popular bootleg Stooge sets, which were prominent a few years ago.

Bend yer eyeballs around these captures from Creeps:

1
Sony DVD, widescreen
Australian VHS, full frame

2
Sony DVD, widescreen
Australian VHS, full frame

3
Sony DVD, widescreen
Australian VHS, full frame

4
Sony DVD, widescreen
Australian VHS, full frame

5
Sony DVD, widescreen
Australian VHS, full frame


In capture 3, we see how the theatrical framing compromises the special effect in the stock footage. This is largely inconsequential, as we see the glass emptying itself in the previous shot, and there really isn't much to see once they look down at the table, but we do end up with The Boys reacting to something that we can't see onscreen.


ThumpTheShoes

  • Guest
Stone Age Romeos

This film poses an interesting (or frustrating!) question: To widescreen, or not to widescreen? Yes, that one again! Most of the new footage is framed for widescreen matting. However, the new map of Jerkola is not. To combat this for the dvd, Sony folks "fudged" a little and came up with an interesting solution to avoid losing any of the gags. Have a gander (or a goose, or even a lot of little goslings!) below:

1
Sony DVD, widescreen
Australian VHS, full frame

2
Sony DVD, widescreen
Australian VHS, full frame

3
Sony DVD, widescreen
Australian VHS, full frame

Just for fun, and to make the whole thing more frustrating, here's a VHS screencap from a more recent airing of this short taken from Stooge-A-Palooza, which is far less zoomed in than the Australian one. Here, we can clearly see "Map of Jerkola" and can almost see the elusive "Skeleton Bay":


Notice how the new dvd image is optically squashed to fill the widescreen frame? And some of the text is still cut off due to the framing of the transfer. Weird, ain't it? That would mean that the map of Jerkola is very probably the only bit of new footage from the widescreen era not composed for widescreen. Unless, of course, the intention was for the map to look like this when projected:

(Mock-up widescreen cropping!)

Or, a less-likely scenario would be that the map had been filmed for a previous film and never used. But, I don't think that's the case. Either way, Skeleton Bay is still cut off at the bottom!

I'll state my opinion here and say that, despite one projectionist's memory of exhibiting films such as these in the wide format, these pictures were made with the assumption that while they could be projected widescreen, they likely wouldn't be. Now, of course that's not fact, it's my opinion based on the evidence provided here and in the past screenshots threads.

Really, I don't have an argument, per se, towards a full-frame video presentation, however, based on the visual evidence provided here and in past screencaps, I'd argue against a widescreen video presentation. As a personal choice for the Stooges films I'd pick a full-frame transfer though or, ideally, a disc with both to pick from.





Offline Curly4444

Yeah, i wish they would have givin us a choice. The Fu*!ed up gag in #3, just sucks. Not Seeing the milk dis-appear just ruins the gag.


ThumpTheShoes

  • Guest
Yeah, i wish they would have givin us a choice. The Fu*!ed up gag in #3, just sucks. Not Seeing the milk dis-appear just ruins the gag.

Well, you do see it in the prior shot, you just don't see the glass, which is still draining out a little, and the empty bottle when they look down.


ThumpTheShoes

  • Guest
Wham-Bam-Slam!

This one's pretty straightforward.. The VHS grabs come from the GoodTimes release.

1
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame

2
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame

3
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame


Offline Curly4444

You do see more left & Right, its just the top & bottom that get chopped.


Offline falsealarms


xraffle

  • Guest
Yeah, this is really messed up. Did the shorts look this screwed up when shown in theaters?

And speaking of optically squashed, it looks to me like a few shorts here and on Vol. 7 were optically squashed during the opening titles. I could be just imagining it, so I could be wrong. But it looks to me like these shorts aren't as "historically accurate" as Sony claims them to be. I just find it so odd. Out of the MANY DVDs I've owned and watched, I've never seen such weird cropping on a widescreen picture as these stooge discs. :-\

Gotta agree with Thump on this. I'd pick the fullscreen version of these shorts any day. I just feel like I'm losing more when watching the widescreen versions. Though, it really should be the opposite.


ThumpTheShoes

  • Guest
...it looks to me like these shorts aren't as "historically accurate" as Sony claims them to be.

We can toss "historically accurate" out the window with The Hot Scots. That slowing down the audio thing was just wrong, on all counts. And fixing the editing glitch in Half-Wits' Holiday.

I get the thing with the map-- that's just a compromise. On some earlier disc or other, one of the comedy maps was window-boxed to make nothing got cut off. Visually, it's not too pleasing, but it is a way of getting the whole picture!


ThumpTheShoes

  • Guest
Rumpus in the Harem

This one's sort of a Three Stooges Three-way-- we have grabs from the new dvd, the GoodTimes VHS and from the Sony edition of Malice in the Palace. Enjoy and try not to get lost..

1
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame

2
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame

3
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame
Sony, Stooges dvd collection, full frame

4
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame
Sony, Stooges dvd collection, full frame

5
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame
Sony, Stooges dvd collection, full frame

6
Sony DVD, widescreen
GoodTimes VHS, full frame

Anyone notice the optical trick used on the note? Look familiar?

And, finally, one last comparison.. Suzanne Ridgeway/Jim Frawley:



They, uh.. look alot alike. Ejejejejejej!!!!!



xraffle

  • Guest
It's funny. On the new footage, some of the widescreen shots look nice. But in #6, everything looks cramped. This is where the full screen version is better.


Offline JazzBill

Job well done Mr. Shoes. I agree with you on Ridgeway and Frawley. They could pass as brother & sister.
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