NavList:

I wrote previously, "Must have been a still camera shot for publicity..."

And Sean C, you replied:
"Probably. Another possibility is that the original film was rescanned using modern equipment. Film has a relatively high resolution. I've seen very old films that have been rescanned and the level of detail that can be seen is astounding."

Yes, I agree. Could be! That astounding detail you mention can even break the illusion and show us things we shouldn't see in some old tv shows. For example, in the digitally remastered episodes of the original Star Trek, there are occasional moments where the little gap between Spock's glued-on Vulcan (*) pointy ears and Leonard Nimoy's real ears can be seen. In later remastered Trek (series from the 80s/90s), some of those futuristic spaceship components are revealed to be painted sheets of plywood --probably not intentional, but who is to say that wood might not be abundant, cheap, and useful for bulkheads in starships three centuries from now? ;)

Back to the show, I found the smoking gun: the episode with the sextant is the series 3 (season 3) premiere of "Steptoe and Son" from 1964. The setup has "son" tossing "dad" in a retirement home and making plans to sail off around the world for adventure. It all falls apart, but while he is fantasizing about the trip and locating Midway Island on his little globe, he picks up that sextant off his desk and fiddles with it. We see him carefully adjusting some sort of knob on the back side of the sextant near the top of the index arm (just putting on a good show for the camera, of course --there's no knob where he is fiddling). In this scene in the first image below, the index mirror ends up pointed at the stage lighting, and there is a "flare" in the image that does not typically happen on film. Also the scene is distinctly different from what we see in the photo I first posted, so I think that fits with the idea of a publicity photo, staged for the p.r. folks. Incidentally, the joke that makes the episode is that "son" receives a letter returning his deposit and informing him that they have decided he can't join the "blocks and birds" on the voyage since their average age is about twenty and "son" is 37 --he's too old. Steptoe "dad" laughs and laughs, returns home... and we're reset for the next episode with everything back the way it was.

Eight years later in 1972, they were clearly producing episodes, now in "colour", on film, and, amazingly enough, some of these have been digitally remastered, just as you suggested, as you can see in the second image below. In that episode "son" is trying his hand at acting (always fun for actors to pretend to be actors), and in this scene he is failing at flirting with his digitally remastered co-star in the local theatre company. Incidentally, they are doing a play about a late 19th century battle in Afghanistan and the director suggests, as an excuse (and a joke for the viewing audience), that it's an allegory for the American war in Vietnam (and fifty years later??). But that answers your question about the popularity of the show: it ran for nearly a decade, made the transition to colour, and some episodes have been transferred from film in high def.

Frank Reed

* Vulcan, twice in my NavList posts in one evening: in my last post referencing the Vulcan bombers that David Pike used to navigate, and here referencing the planet where "Spock" was from.

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