Frankenstein (1931) Audio Preservation

[crissrudd4554]

Did u ever find out about those sound discs Jerry???

[jerryshadoe]

Not yet, as I wanted to have some kind of sample put together from this reconstruction before I attempt contact. That way, it's a lot easier to make a point, as opposed to just telling the person about the things I've noticed. I'm hoping that actual proof of my claims will help persuade this individual to be willing to help out with the effort

Unfortunately, I haven't moved forward with this project for the last couple of days and won't be working on it until Saturday night because the paid gig I'm working on takes priority. Fortunately, though, that project actually requires less work than I anticipated originally and a lot of my "presets," that I have developed over the years, are saving me some time now.

Although, I have been doing some research on the topic of the film score for Frankenstein and I can't find a damn thing. Everywhere I have found any reference to a score for Frankenstein, it's always about how this film didn't have one, while BRIDE has a "robust" score... So, I got the idea to look at all "monster features" of the 1930s-early 40s and have noticed a "trend." All of the music in the films has a certain "sound" to it and certain "style" that is very easy to identify. There is also the matter of the quality of the sound recordings, (i.e fidelity, dynamic range, instruments used, etc.) and a few other factors... When I lay down to sleep, (usually) it takes me a while to pass out and lately I have been using that time to look stuff up on my Android. I was curious as to whether this music score I have found in Frankenstein on the foreign dubs, actually belongs... I was also wondering if, maybe, this music is just "recycled" from a different film of the era.

So, I have not been able to find any part of this score in ANY other film of the era (and I looked through more than I care to mention here, LOL) but the music DOES match anything I found in films from that era, in terms of style, fidelity, etc... This confuses me even more... Why would this score be used on some of the dubs for such a long time span? From what I found, Frankenstein was dubbed into Spanish and released that way theatrically back in March of 1932, (three and a half months after the US premiere) but the Brazilian Portuguese redub was commissioned in 1967 and contains the same music cues, where they obviously still had the music stems...

This means that 35 years (!) after the music cues were used in the first dub, they were still available and I'm confused why they were never re-inserted into the English version if they were available. What messes me up even more, is the fact that the part of the scene with Maria getting thrown into the lake is actually in English on the Spanish dub (the part that was censored on the older "pre-restoration" prints) and STILL contains the music cues in the background (although there is an obvious drop in quality for that part, even though the music continues to play properly) which implies that the music was actually there on the English version at one point in time. Wondering why this is not available for the whole film... Sh*t, this just makes no sense at all and it's very frustrating that I am basically all alone on this with no concrete references.

What is even more frustrating about this, is the fact that I haven't been able to find anything about this music that was used in the dubs in any of those languages either. I was hoping I could find some information out about it in Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese, but so far: NOTHING!!!

I kinda feel like the crew of "Voyager" from Star Trek when they ended up in the Delta Quadrant: exploring uncharted space and only being sure of the fact that it is, in fact, "space." LOL

[crissrudd4554]

One last thing jerry. You mentioned there was French made counterparts for Frankenstein and Bride, like the alternate Spanish languaged Dracula. Where did you hear about that?? I actually never heard of that until now.

[monks19]

One last thing jerry. You mentioned there was French made counterparts for Frankenstein and Bride, like the alternate Spanish languaged Dracula. Where did you hear about that?? I actually never heard of that until now.

Neither do I. As far as I know, (according to some readings I did), it was poorly dubbed over with the original cast. Even the original french posters seems to indicate that because only the original cast is billed. Of course, that might prove nothing since most productions in that era could be partly dubbed and some small parts reshot completely in different languages, just like it was made for M (1931) or other production of that era.

[jerryshadoe]

Sorry guys, I may have been mistaken about an actual re-shoot of the whole film for the French version. What it actually was, was just the intro "warning" by Van Sloan that was shot with a French actor, in French. This was available for the original theatrical release in France.

According to everything I have found about it online, this original French dub was, in fact, a rather poor effort; although, there is no way to verify this as the original French dub is lost. What exists today, is a redub that was commissioned for the re-release in the late 50s, around the same time that the original German dub was made. (the original theatrical run of this film in Germany, apparently, was in English with German subtitles)

Also, from what I have been able to find online, the original Italian dub also got lost (probably during the war) and the dub available now is a redub that used multiple sources (based on my own observations of the material, I have been able to identify audio from the original English version, the Spanish dub [which appears to be the original dub from the original 1932 release - based on everything I have found so far] a part of the German dub, and various "localized" [for the Italian dub] "extra" sound effects and such due to dubbing of everything, even the sound of the chatter of students in Dr. Waldman's classroom and the yelling of the "angry mob" of people in latter part of film, amongst other things, into Italian)


STATUS UPDATE:

Slowly, but surely, I am moving forward with the work on this. It's a massive pain in the ... yeah... you know

I am now going through all the splices I have (one source at a time for now, although I see the waveforms for all tracks) and syncing them to... well, either the English audio or, if it's something not on the English track, then I'm syncing it to what's on-screen and determining whether it matches properly or not. This can be extra challenging for some sequences, as the timing changes as often as from shot to shot. Slowly, I'm "peeling" away all the "excess" audio that is unnecessary (either stuff that I missed that's actually on the English track or remaining snippets of dialog that I left intact as reference points for some of the splices) and it's all starting to "fall into place." I only have about 15-20 minutes (depending on source) for three of the five sources "synced and ready to go," but even within those splices there is still stuff that I have to dupe to keep a consistent background (portions where dialog is) and I am finally making use of the "marker" feature in my audio editor (never knew how useful that thing could be) to help me keep track of what's where and what needs to be inserted and where.

Keep in mind, that even after I have everything lined up in all the sources (and have chosen the "best" one for each instance) that I still have to actually insert all of the splices onto the English track and that's gonna be a separate nightmare of it's own due to the different quality of all the audio sources. I can get it done, don't get me wrong... but... damn, what a chore

[crissrudd4554]

This is slightly off topic but there's something I noticed on the pre-1999 VHS releases (probably the Laserdiscs as well). When the scene where the Monster is brought to life goes to black, at one point the last 2-3 frames of the fade out repeat themselves after the scene initially goes to black. Remember that noise missing on the BD you and me noticed Jerry where it almost sounds like Henry 'sneezes' when the scene cuts out?? The repeated frames occurs right after this.

[jerryshadoe]

Alright people...

I have not posted anything here (or on the forum really) for over a week now and I wanted to fill y'all in a little bit on what's been going on...

So, this has been an extremely stressful year for me so far and things have not been going well, aside from the paid gig I landed. I am still in the middle of a legal battle with my old slumlord, my folks health is deteriorating rather fast, my daughters have been going through some sick times themselves (things they NEED to go through now while they are young and their bodies can handle it, whereas getting some of it as an adult the first time, could kill you...but still, been a heartbreaking hassle to deal with) my wife has been over-worked at her job and is home less lately which puts a bigger strain on me and gives me less time to deal with anything....

Finally, this past Monday, when I found out that a very close, life-long friend passed away (known this mofo since I was in third grade[over 25 years]) He was out with his wife at a nightclub (for the first time since they had kids six years ago) and some a**hat was trying to grope his wife, a fight started and was ended with a knife to the... ...Damn,...
I was just making plans with this mofo about our summer vacation trip for the kids and how we were going to do it all together this year (missed out last year because of work schedule conflicts) and then this happened...

My body slowly "shut down" on me... First, my tonsils swelled up to the point where swallowing my own saliva felt like eating glass with turpentine. I quickly developed a rather high fever and felt like I was in a freakin "Twilight Zone." Sleep consisted of me laying in bed tossing and turning constantly, every 10-15 minutes, sweating a stuck pig while going through hot and cold chills. I couldn't eat or drink anything and to make things worse, I developed an ear infection, first in my left ear and then, as that started to subside, in my right ear. Finally, on Thursday, I forced myself to "eat" some chicken broth. That helped and on Friday I ate a little more, but this time it was more "solid" food. I barely got to the point where I can talk yesterday, although my throat is still sore (but nothing is swollen anymore) I lost 15lbs this last week and I feel like I've been shot out of a cannon into a titanium wall multiple times, while being reheated in a microwave in between shots... I'm just getting over the ear infection in my right ear today and, hopefully, will be able to resume working on this project tonight.

I am looking forward to continuing the work on this project and am still very anxiously awaiting it's completion, but, to say the least, I'm a little distracted at the moment so... yeah, bare with me guys...

I might end up dedicating this project in his memory, as he was one of the few friends that I have that completely supported me on the work I'm doing with it and encouraged me this far...



Sorry for the rather depressing post, but I wanted to fill everyone in on why there has been no progress on this at all since my last post... Stay tuned though, as this is getting closer and closer to being done every time I will be working on the project.

I might just "bury myself" in this project for now, as it's a good escape for me and considering how crazy of a project this is, that should tell you guys something about where my head is at right now if it's an "escape"...

[crissrudd4554]

I'm so sorry for the rough times that befallen you this year my friend. It hasn't been fun for me either, particularly the last few days. Last December we took our dog to the vet to have a tumor removed. The vet said it might be mass cell. We unfortunately didn't have the money to have a biopsy done so we just paid in hopes they would remove it and it wouldn't come back. Until about a week or so ago, it didn't but then it did and now she has another rumor which was hurting her so much she didn't wanna get up or eat. Sadly her vet wouldn't be able to take her til this Friday which we knew we couldn't wait for so we took her to another vet yesterday. They confirmed its cancer and even if we pay to have surgery done again we'd have to put her on chemo if we want to clear out the cancer which we don't have money for. So for now we have her on pain meds and...the time will come when it comes I guess.

Also I've just been physically exhausted from work. I just did 8.5 hours outdoors today, 6 of them by myself, and I'm whipped. Even worse is I gotta do it again tomorrow. All because my stupid managers are too cheap to schedule more than 129 hrs for this week, for the people in my line of work at least. And to top it off my uncle was in a slight accident with my car yesterday. Nothing major. He was trying to get in another lane and a red truck whizzed by and knocked off my rear view mirror. So gotta get that fixed asap. Plus I got health insurance and school loan issues to deal but I'll get to that. Also the matter of my dad losing the house if he don't get caught up with the mortgage but he said we should be able to rent a place should that situation occur. Just been very shaky lately.

I'm so sorry about your friend. That ahole who killed him should rot in hell. Sorry if I'm getting personal in a public thread. Just reaching out is all. Dedicating this project to his memory I have no problem with Jerry.

[jerryshadoe]

No worries man, seems like we both needed to vent

I'm sorry to hear about your dog ....and I understand how life can be hectic...

From what I understand, there is some justice in the world, as the a-hole in question is apparently no longer with us either and probably getting raped by Satan as we speak

[crissrudd4554]

Well that's good news in a twisted way. And thanks. It is what it is. Like I said the time shall come when it comes. Truthfully this project has been a bit therapeutic for me as well. With the level of stress that can occur in my life, at least this is something I can look forward to!