M*A*S*H to Air Commercial Free Sunday, May 29
NEW YORK, NY, May 23, 2005 – AMC, basic cable's premiere destination dedicated to movies and movie culture, will celebrate Memorial Day with a weekend-long movie festival, featuring the world television premiere of the digitally restored, widescreen version of Robert Altman's Academy Award®-winning movie M*A*S*H, which will air commercial free, and the original documentary, HOLLYWOOD VIETNAM. AMC's "Memorial Day Movie Festival", May 28-30, also includes: "Apocalypse Now Redux," "G.I. Jane," "Sands of Iwo Jima," and "Hamburger Hill," among other war-themed movies.
"As part of AMC's mission to provide its viewers with quality entertainment, we continually search for those great movies that stand the test of time," said Rob Sorcher, AMC's Senior Vice President of Programming and Production. "M*A*S*H represents a pivotal time in our nation's history and we are especially proud to premiere it to our viewers as a never-before-seen work that has been restored to its filmmakers original vision."
For over a decade, AMC has worked closely with the film industry to preserve and restore our country's film heritage. AMC's funding has helped to restore such masterpieces as Sergio Leone's The Good The Bad And The Ugly, John Ford's My Darling Clementine, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, The Birds and Marine, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo and Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front. To date, AMC has raised over $2 million for the cause.
Celebrating its 35th anniversary and airing commercial free, the digitally restored, widescreen version of M*A*S*H will be broadcasted on television for the first time ever. Throughout the Memorial Day Weekend members from the original 1970 cast, including Sally Kellerman, Tom Skerritt and Rene Auberjonois, will talk about their experiences from their film through on-air interstitials.
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and in tribute to the Vietnam Veterans, AMC will present the one-hour original documentary, HOLLYWOOD VIETNAM, on Monday, May 30 at 10 pm ET/PT, as part of the network's "Memorial Movie Festival." The documentary, directed by Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Robert Stone ("Radio Bikini," "Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst"), examines Vietnam War movies and their influences on our understanding of both the Vietnam War and the genre itself.
The restoration of M*A*S*H included the original visual and sonic elements, and was a collaborative effort between the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive and the Preservation Department of Twentieth Century Fox.
About The Restoration
The visual restoration of M*A*S*H began with careful inspection and testing of every film element. Since the original camera negatives were not available, new color separation masters were prepared, which captured the color record on black and white film stock and, unlike the original negatives, will not fade over time. The new negatives were subsequently color-timed to restore the film's original hues and color schemes. After viewing the new answer print, director Robert Altman commented that the restored print looked just as good as his 1970 original.
Restoring the film's soundtrack also required considerable effort. Facing severe deterioration of the 30-year-old magnetic mix track of which some portions of the original three-track mono mix of M*A*S*H were so deteriorated that they simply could not be played back accurately, the restoration team transferred and re-transferred the element until everything that could be utilized from the original mix element was salvaged. The restored track element was then carefully re-mastered to accurately play back on modern Dolby® theater and home theater equipment, capturing the brilliant sound design that Altman treated audiences to more than 30 years ago.
About AMC
AMC, a division of Rainbow Media's Entertainment Services, which also includes WE: Women's Entertainment and IFC Companies, is a 24-hour, movie-based network, dedicated to the American movie fan. The network, which reaches over 86,000,000 homes, offers a comprehensive library of popular movies and a critically-acclaimed slate of original programming that is a diverse, movie-based mix of original series, documentaries and specials. AMC has garnered many of the industry's highest honors, including 14 Emmy awards. AMC is "TV for movie people."