Disney Technicians Meticulously Restore 'Lady'

Technicians at the Walt Disney Co. went through 339,552 original frames of 1955's The Lady and the Tramp and digitally removed 30 million pieces of dust and dirt from them, the company said in a news release. The classic animated feature is currently being shown on the big screen at the Disney-owned El Capital Theatre in Hollywood prior to the re-release of the "50th Anniversary" DVD on Feb. 28. Technicians indicated that the new film will represent an improvement over the original, which was the first animated film to be released in the CinemaScope wide-screen format. It also was originally released with a magnetic sound track, but while it was relatively simple to change the lens on projectors to show the CinemaScope movie, it was far more difficult -- and costly -- for theater owners to convert the sound systems. The result was that an optical soundtrack was included on most of the final release prints, which obscured a significant portion of the picture.