1941 soundtrack CD
La-La Land Records, 2011
Studio assets for 1941 were in remarkably poor shape. Each of the digital scans provided were taken from 35mm slides--possibly from reprinted photos, meaning there was a noticeable lack of sharpness and increased grain. Each of the images was also covered in dust specs that had been trapped on the scanner's glass. But there was still more good news: Additionally, something had broken down chemically with the film in the years since it was originally processed and the colors were buried under a heavy yellow cast. Thankfully, it was all fixable.
(left) The original scan from 35mm. (right) Same image, after retouching and color restoration.
The artwork used on the new cover for the CD was also seen on the original laserdisc edition of the film. It's originally by California-based artist David McMacken, who produced a pair of posters for the film at the time of it's release. The other can be found on the inside cover.
For the set's pair of discs (pictured below), the album producers had requested the caricatures seen on the film's US one sheet. Once the poster was photographed, the caricatures were cut out and retouched—mainly to remove fold lines but also to extend parts of the artwork that had been obscured by other figures in the collage. The Belushi likeness is really quite good but I sort of think Dan Aykroyd looks more like Stephen Colbert doing a skit here.
