Forbidden Hollywood:
Volume 4 - 7 (1932 – 34/Warner
Archive DVD sets)/42 (2013/Jackie
Robinson/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD)/Love Is A
Many-Splendored Thing (1955/Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)
Picture: C+/B
& C+/B- Sound: C+/B & C/B- Extras: C-/C+/B- Films: B-/C+/C+
PLEASE NOTE: The Forbidden Hollywood DVD Sets are only available from Warner Bros. through
their Warner Archive series, while the Love
Is A Many-Splendored Thing Blu-ray is limited to 3,000 copies and is
available exclusively at the Screen Archives website which can be also reached
at the link at the end of this review.
Stereotypes
and taboo subjects somehow have always gone hand in hand in filmmaking and the
next set of films show how that works from freedom to censorship to assumed
freedom to mixed up approaches to filmmaking in general; especially on serious
subjects.
Forbidden Hollywood:
Volumes 4 - 7
(1932 – 33) conclude a series of DVD releases Warner and Turner Classic Movies
launched years ago to show key films made before Hollywood started their sometimes peculiar
self-censorship until the system collapsed by the 1960s. These later volumes are Warner Archive DVD on-line
exclusive sets that reduce the number of films from 6 to 4 per set. We covered earlier volumes at these links:
2
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6671/Forbidden+Hollywood+Collection+%E2
3
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8366/Forbidden+Hollywood+Collection+%E2
Sexual
innuendo, other kinds of comments, language, concepts of death and even
pleasure in crime were not epidemic in these films, but they were looser and
more suggestive than they would be in Hollywood films soon to come, so they can
also age better and be more enjoyable than faker fare the studios would all
soon start producing. These films still
feature some big names behind and in front of the camera, but the films had
disappeared as all studios focused on newer and comparatively less
controversial films, even remaking some of them. Now for a look at the films from the final
releases…
V. 4 features the amusing crime drama Jewel Robbery with William Powell as a
sophisticated thief who also has designs on Kay Francis, a fine star who sort
of started to get lost in the shuffle later and too soon. The technology of the time is a hoot and this
is pretty well made. Powell also shows
up in Lawyer Man opposite a
formidable Joan Blondell and Claire Dodd as he takes up politics and scandal by
putting himself in the middle of it. Man Wanted has Kay Francis in the lead
of a comedy about relationships (joined by Dodd, Andy Devine, Una Merkel and
David Manners) that starts at the office and lands up all over the place. All are directed by William Dieterle, except They Call It Sin by Thornton Freeland
with a very young Loretta Young in a provocative drama with some comedy joined
by Merkel, Manners, George Brent and Louis Calhern. You’ll see why Miss Young was a major name
after films like this one.
V. 5 has James Cagney in the
serio-comic Mervin LeRoy film Hard To
Handle where he sends himself up a bit as a con artist in this decent turn
that is underseen, especially for Cagney fans.
A young Barbara Stanwyck in what turns out to be a prison drama in Ladies They Talk About, Roy Del Ruth’s The Mind Reader has Warren William as a
phony psychic named Chandra, but that is not to be confused with the famous detective
of the time and the biggest surprise here is Lloyd Bacon’s Miss Pinkerton with Joan Blondell as a bored nurse who gets a
chance to crack a murder case. She can
more than carry the film, opposite George Brent, but the real shame is that if
this had been handled better, this could have turned into a first-rate
detective film series that ran for years.
V. 6 has Victor Fleming’s film of
Upton Sinclair’s The Wet Parade
about the evils of alcohol, though it also seems to like alcohol, which is why
it has been lost in the shuffle despite a cast that includes Dorothy Jordon,
Walter Houston, Lewis Stone, Robert Young, Jimmy Durante and Neil
Hamilton. Compare it to There Will Be Blood and see what I
mean. Monta Bell’s Downstairs (1934) is a drama about class division with John Gilbert
causing it all kinds of trouble, something Code films would avoid as much as
possible. Michael Curtiz’s Mandalay has Kay Francis
as a Russian escaping slavery and going after her former lover (Ricardo Cortez)
for putting her there! Warner Oland and
Lyle Talbot also star. Finally we have
the very hard to watch Alan Crosland film Massacre
(1934) loaded with phony “Hollywood Indians” with Richard Barthelmess as a
Sioux Indian out to kill white men for revenge in ways you would not see in
later Westerns. The bluntness still
cannot overcome the stereotypes.
V. 7 has Edward G. Robinson in the
title role of William A. Wellman’s The Hatchet
Man (1932) as the title “ethnic” killer who will get you if you cross the
Tongs! Edgar Selwyn’s Skyscraper Souls (also 1932) fares much
better as the drama takes place and comes from that new kind of very, very tall
building called a skyscraper (this one is Art Deco, of course) with Warren
William, Maureen O’Sullivan, Anita Page, Gregory Ratoff, Jean Hersholt, Norman
Foster and a solid cast as one man’s obsession for the building and a woman
affects the lives of all around. Not a
criticism of Capitalism, but subversive in that anything like this could happen
in high society. Well done. Roy Del Ruth’s Employees’ Entrance (1933) has Warren William again, but this time
he is trying to control a department store and Loretta Young; oh the
impropriety.
And
finally, last and never least, the perfect film to end the series, Robert
Florey’s Ex-Lady (1933) with a
rising Bette Davis as artist whose family disapproves of her work and her
non-married status, so she lands up with Gene Raymond, who turns out to be up
to no good, making her wise to have approached life the then-uncommon way she
was. The Code would have never allowed
this, driving people in phony marriages for decades to come. You should see all these films at least once
and that some are just over an hour should encourage viewers all the more.
The only
extras are trailers on most films.
So with
all that shock and even racism, how does a major studio, the same studio in
many cases here with Warner Bros., go back to the past and deal with racism and
stereotypes? Brian Helgeland’s 42 (2013) tells us the story of
baseball player Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman in a fine performance) became
the first African American player in big league baseball and permanently broke
the race barrier in professional sports.
The film
does a fine job (no matter some of its historical inaccuracies) telling us of
this story and reminding us of the blatant racism of the time, which even
Code-free films of the actual time would not address, especially since they
were often perpetuating it. The casting
is fine, look of the film consistent, cast (also including Nicole Beharie as
Rachel Robinson, Lucas Black as Pee Wee Reese, Christopher Meloni, Andre
Holland, T.R Knight, John C. McGinley, Max Gail and Harrison Ford in one of his
best roles as Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey) in fine form with
chemistry totally cohering and totally convincing and Helgeland making his
first truly memorable film after fleeting hits
However,
things that hold the film back include never addressing if having Robinson in
Major League Baseball was a way for the MLB to kill the Negro Leagues to get
more profits, almost every scene with a child rings false here and it is too
short at 128 minutes to deal with all the serious issues, especially since it
wants to be a feel-good 1980s-style film, which is contradictory to an honest
drama. That it still has some of the
pitfalls of the old Hollywood biopics does not
help and the film never reaches its full potential. Still, it was rightly a moderate hit and is
worth seeing just the same, but is it not a stereotype (a new one?) that the
only successful and worthy African Americans are the ones that pray to God,
even before the advent of Tyler Perry films?
Extras include
Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable devices, while we get
three Making Of featurettes: Stepping Into History, Full-Contact Baseball and The Legacy Of Number 42.
Finally
we have the bit hit melodrama, Henry King’s Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing (1955) with William Holden as a man
in post-WWI Hong Kong who falls in love with
an Asian Nurse (the absolutely non-Asian Jennifer Jones, at least taking the
role seriously) despite the fact that he is married! The Code was staring to crumble at this
point, but the main goal was to make money and keep the star system going any way
the studios could. If this were not a
big CinemaScope production, I wonder if it would have been the hit it became.
It is a
good-looking film, but despite some nice location shots and a fine cast that
also includes Murray Matheson, Torin Thatcher, Virginia Gregg and Keye Luke, it
is a bizarre film to watch, playing like a museum piece and one of the last of
a series of Old Hollywood views of the world that was about to change very fast
and eventually render even lite stereotypes (we could say that Miss Jones was
in “lite yellowface” to be kind about it) and even the lead’s chemistry is odd,
as it always was to me.
The Four
Aces had a huge hit record off of the title song which really helped sell the
film in one of the earliest such examples in what we now know as the Rock Era,
even if the song was not a Rock song, getting up to 6 weeks at #1! Fox went all out to make and promote the
film, scoring a home run that was also a critical success at the time. No you can see what is at least a big budget
curio that did not bomb and how Fox used this film among may to make widescreen
filmmaking a permanent part of world cinema.
Extras
include another nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative
text and an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray adds an Isolated Music
Score track of Alfred Newman’s music for the film, Fox Movietone Newsreel
Footage on the film’s release, the Original Theatrical Trailer and a solid feature
length audio commentary track by Jon Burlingame, Michael Lonzo and Sylvia
Stoddard on the film and its historical context.
So films
throughout the years and not just in Hollywood
have had to deal with stereotypes and strange standards of censorship. It becomes a legacy that is hard to escape,
no matter how even recent, progressive, serious films might seem.
The 1.33
X 1 black and white image on all 16 films on the Forbidden Hollywood sets look good for their age, though some cam
show more wear than others, but when Ted Turner owned them took care of them
early on and that is why they survive in the good shape they are in today. Some look even better than others, but all
(whether Warner, First national or MGM releases) have a look that sticks with a
viewer long after watching any of them.
Softness can also be an issue, as expected from the format and standard
definition.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on the 42 Blu-ray is slightly styled throughout to conjure the earlier era
the film takes place in, was shot on a RED EPIC HD camera and is not bad
throughout if lacking detail in parts, the work here is pretty impressive
making it the best playback performer on the list. The anamorphically enhanced DVD version is
noticeably softer by comparison and is harder to watch.
The 1080p
2.55 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Splendored Thing is shot in old two-lens CinemaScope and though it
is a well shot color film (with color by DeLuxe), the print shows its age,
flaws and other limits of a production from its time. However, this version is far superior to all
previous releases of the film on home video with the best color and definition
reproduction you will see outside of a good film print, though again some shots
are not always as good as others. Too
bad this was not in Technicolor, but Fox started DeLuxe so they did not have to
pay Technicolor money for film prints and the later films suffer a bit, not
always aging as well.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on all the Forbidden
Hollywood sets have sound going on 80 years old, but more sound smoother
for their age and in better shape than you might expect. Unfortunately, some sound can be brittle and
distorted, but that is to be expected from films of this age and the early
years of film sound.
The DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on both Blu-rays have limits, but 42 is the sonic champ here despite
being a film with much dialogue, it also is well recorded, mixed, has warm,
smooth playback and never overdoes its sound.
The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVD version is adequate, but no match
for the DTS on the Blu-ray. The same DTS
configuration on Splendored Thing is
a bit towards the front speakers as this was a film originally designed for 4-track
magnetic sound with traveling dialogue and sound effects on its best 35mm
playback (and playback prints), so that is to be expected. This is a nice upgrade in the sound that
still stays faithful to the original mix and is almost as impressive as the
isolated music score track, which is slightly more impressive sonically.
The Forbidden Hollywood DVD sets can be
ordered from Warner Archive on line, so go to this link for them and many more
great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
…and Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing can be
ordered while supplies last at:
www.screenarchives.com
-
Nicholas Sheffo
