a 40th Cathay film is on DVD: Mad About Music (1963)

[Stephe]

For about a year, I have been searching the internet for a copy of the 1991 book
Cathay -- 55 Years of Cinema. A little over a month ago, I found one. It was at
a store called Clique, located in the main Cathay Pictures building, The Cathay,
at 2 Handy Road in Singapore. They were not accepting online orders from the USA,
but via e-mail correspondence, they proved very helpful in setting up a PayPal
account in order to facilitate ordering.

Cathay -- 55 Years of Cinema
http://www.cliquestore.com/index.php?ma ... ucts_id=61

Clique originally had two sealed copies of Cathay -- 55 Years of Cinema
(until I bought one). Now they have one.

While searching through Clique's web pages, I stumbled across something called
We're 75: 1935-2010, which is aka the Cathay 75th Anniversary Collector's DVD Set.
This is a commemorative set released only in Singapore, with no Hong Kong counterpart.
Clique now has 23 copies of this set for sale. They had 24 before I bought one.

Cathay 75th Anniversary Collector's DVD Set
http://www.cliquestore.com/index.php?ma ... cts_id=783

This set is comprised of six films, three of which are Chinese in Mandarin, and three
of which are Singaporean in Malay. Each of the two three-film batches have their own
DVD-height digipak which houses one disc in the front and two in tandem in the back.

Among the Chinese films are two that had already been released by Panorama,
Darling Stay at Home (1968), starring Betty Loh Tih, and Her Tender Heart (1959),
starring Lucilla You Ming, but the third, Mad About Music (1963), starring Yi Guang
(aka Maria Ye Kwong) and Julie Yeh Feng, appears here on DVD for the very first time --
which makes it the 40th Cathay film (after the 39 Panorama discs) to make it to DVD.

Like all the Panorama discs, the images are cropped / pan & scan in the case
of those films originally released in widescreen. Because of Her (1963), starring
Ge Lan (aka Grace Chang), is supposedly the first CathayScope film. Since Mad
About Music is from 1963, it is possible that it was not originally widescreen, and
hence not cropped / pan & scan. Judging by the MP & GI logo at the start of the
film, Mad About Music was not released in CathayScope.

I had never heard of Maria Ye Kwong before. Her entry at
http://www.hkmdb.com/db/people/view.mht ... ay_set=eng says that
she appeared in a total of only eleven films.

If you click here, http://www.hkmdb.com/db/movies/image_de ... ay_set=eng
you'll see that at one point, Li Mei was slated to star in Mad About Music. According
to the Hong Kong Film Archive, she got sick, and was replaced by Julie Yeh Feng,
whereupon the film which had originally been scheduled to be in black and white,
became a color musical, instead.

Re Mad About Music (1963) at
http://www.hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mht ... ay_set=eng

I have uploaded images at http://www.hkmdb.com/db/movies/images.m ... ay_set=eng

More specifically, I have uploaded two pages from the film from International Screen 86,
December 1962 ( http://www.hkmdb.com/db/movies/image_de ... ay_set=eng ).

I Also uploaded the menu screen from the DVD, the front and back of the DVD box art,
the front and back of the Cathay 75th Anniversary Collector's DVD Set, and the
Cathay 75th Anniversary box set certificate of authenticity (because it lists the
contents of the set).

Additionally, I have uploaded the film's credits at
http://www.hkmdb.com/db/movies/credits. ... ay_set=eng

I have watched the film and was rather crestfallen to find that none of the musical
numbers are subitled in English. They are subtitled in Chinese, but not in English.
The dialog is subtitled, but since this a musical with a dozen numbers, it is a
disappointment not to be able to know what the lyrics to the songs are. (I have the
VCD of the 1961 Shaw Brothers film Les Belles, starring Linda Lin Dai, and none of
the musical numbers therein are subtitled in English nor Chinese.) And I suspect
that Mad About Music was shot in CathayScope, despite the presence of the non-scope
MP&GI logo that appears at the start of the film.

I am not ready to upload any portraits or screen captures yet.

Among the Singaporean films is the highly sought after cult movie, Sumpah Pontianak
(1958), aka Blood of Pontianak, aka Blood of the Vampire, which appears subtitled in
English on disc for the very first time. It had appeared on unsubtitled Malaysian VCD
in the past. The other two Singaporean films in the set are a comedy from 1958 named
Satay, and a drama from 1962 named Dang Anom.

Here are some links re Sumpah Pontianak:

SUMPAH PONTIANAK
http://inkpot.com/film/sumpahpontianak.html
Sumpah Pontianak
http://www.braineater.com/pontianak/sumpah.html
Malay ghost myths entry at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_ghost_myths
Pontianak (folklore) entry at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontianak_%28folklore%29
Article by Singapore Paranormal Investigators about pontianaks
http://www.spi.com.sg/spi/spi_files/pontianak/
o

[calros]

added dance directors, 1 actor and "logotized" prod. co.