Raw Rainbow Parade Transfers: “The Rag Dog” (1935) and “Scotty Finds a Home” (1935)

It’s a (very) brief entry this week. Response to the new Fleischer Rarities Blu-ray set has been really astonishing. It’s sold better in the first few days than any title we’ve ever produced. There’s so many orders I’ve just been unable to keep up with them… but I’m working hard to get all out out door (the last of the pre-orders first), finish additional masters for other projects and (attempt) to start some other folks on cleanup for the remaining Flip the Frog films and Noveltoons films. The response brought in enough revenue to cover the replication cost on one of the ‘Mid Century Modern’ blu-rays- so we’re sending that out the door to make a cutting master this week as well. Thanks so much for supporting these projects!

I’ve barely had a chance this week to do anything but master and pack things. Cinevent, the annual show in Columbus, Ohio, is this weekend, and I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and new, and showing some of the things I haven’t shown here as of yet. Having quick break doesn’t hurt either.

It’s funny – as soon as one of these is done, I have an itch to start looking into other projects that have been on the back burner. I’m leaving those alone for a little while at this point to concentrate on the ones that need to get out the door… but they have a funny way of requiring attention or having new piece of material show up right around these times.

Out of lack of time (and energy at this point!) I thought it might be a good week to show a couple of prints that, for the most part, will *not* be on the ‘Rainbow Parades’ set. The cartoons themselves of course will be, but not these particular prints will come in handy to fix things that are problematic in ‘better’ prints of each of these titles. Such is the nature of trying to do these sets as best as possible.

These two were scanned a little more than a week ago (along with Bird Scouts). The color on The Rag Dog was beautifully intense, and really lit up the edit room when we put it up. The scores are great too. It’s no wonder the Winston Sharples tracks on these films were used on so many silent cartoon prints later. Do you have a favorite score originally from a Rainbow Parade that you got to know from watching the silent Kokos or silent Van Beuren TV prints?

I’m doing a ‘faux’ wet gate as the scan is happening, to hide any surface abrasions (mostly vertical scratches) but actually wiping the print with cleaner as it is scanned. Some systems have a digital version of this same process- but I’ve found I get often get great results this particular way. These scans were done on a Spirit Telecine. I’ve left them raw here- uncorked and without any steadying or cleanup.

The first is The Rag Dog. It’s a nice old Cinecolor print that once belonged to me that I borrowed back. It’s missing the beginning and has quite a bit of emulsion wear. The footage at the start has been replaced on this print with black and white footage from a black and white print— and the music on this little piece is better than what I have scanned already.. although still slightly clipped on the first note. The second film is Scotty Finds a Home, also an old Cinecolor print. This one is cleaner in terms of overall picture quality, but it has quite a few splices. I owned this print at one point as well. Tommy Stathes was nice enough to lend them back to me, and even though they aren’t as good as some of the other material coming, I’m glad to have access to them.

Anyway, here are both these films in HD. I’m still hoping 35mm on one of these (or the four others that are only in 16mm) shows up sooner than later. Have a good week everyone!