Forbidden
Hollywood, Volume 8 (1931
- 1934 w/Blonde Crazy,
Strangers May Kiss,
Hi, Nellie
& Dark Hazzard/First
National/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Frank
(2013/Magnolia Blu-ray)/Happy
Days: The
Sixth Season (1978 -
1979/CBS DVD Set)/Let's
Ruin It With Babies
(2014/Cinema Epoch DVD)/Magic
In The Moonlight
(2014/Sony DVD)
Picture:
C+/B-/C+/C+/C Sound: C+/B/C+/C+/C+ Extras: C-/C+/C-/C-/C
Main Programs: B/C+/C+/C+/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Forbidden
Hollywood
DVD set is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are a wide range of comedy releases for you to consider...
Forbidden
Hollywood, Volume 8
(1931 -
1934) surprised us by not letting the last set be the last as was
originally intended and it is as strong as any of them with four
must-see gems that include some of the best performances by their
stars you have likely not seen because the films were somewhat buried
when the Production Code censorship put their shelf life on the
back-burner. This is my favorite of these fine sets so far and
include...
Roy
Del Ruth's Blonde
Crazy
(1931) has James Cagney and Joan Blondell as employees working at a
fancy hotel who land up becoming con artists at his behest, leading
to all kinds of backstabbing, funny moments and wild plot twists.
The script is incredible, sharp and has great dialogue throughout,
plus a young Ray Milland turns up along with Noel Francis and Nat
Pendleton. All serious film fans should see this one.
Then
we get George Fitzmaurice's Strangers
May Kiss
(1931) from MGM with Norma Shearer in her glory as a modern woman not
interested in marriage, falls for Neil Hamilton (a big leading man in
the day, now know for his later work as Commissioner Gordon on the
1960s Batman
series) though she also has a young Robert Montgomery interested in
her. The drama has not aged much at all, but the ideas of
alternatives to marriage would have never passed the code, so this
film would have never been made otherwise. Glad it was. See it!
Many
are used to seeing Paul Muni in the original Scarface
(1932), including its revival interest thanks to the Brian De
Palma/Al Pacino remake, but Mervin LeRoy's Hi,
Nellie
(1934) shows his comical and romanic leading man side as a newspaper
editor who clashes so much with his owner that he is demoted and by
contract forced to do the ladies' advice column, thus the film's
title. However, he starts to catch wind of a serious murder crime
case and risks his job and life to follow it. Glenda Farrell, Ned
Speaks and Robert Barrat are among the great supporting cast and we
get another film you should definitely see.
Last
but not least is Alfred E. Green's Dark
Hazzard
(1934) with Edward G. Robinson terrific as a man who loves to gamble
and can get on a roll for it, but tries to stop and settle down in a
stable marriage when easy money comes calling in the form of dog
racing. He loves his wife and they have a child, but he also loves
an all-black fur racing dog that happens to be the name of the film,
yet cannot afford to buy him. The title also refers to his gambling
problems.
This
is also as funny as it is serious, sometimes unintentionally so and
the supporting cast is top rate here including Glenda Farrell (again
and welcome!), Robert Barrat (also solid again), Genevieve Tobin,
Gordon Westcott and Hobart Cavanaugh. Even a few Looney Tunes
cartoons sent this one up, so see it just to see if you can make the
connection.
Trailers
appear on some of the film's respective discs, but there are no other
extras.
Lenny
Abrahamson's Frank
(2013) is a comedy about a would-be band (think Art Of Noise meets
The Replacements, et al, with zero direction) who picks up a lone
keyboardist (Domhnall Gleeson) who is no success on his won, but
happens to be there when their keyboardist tries to drown himself to
death. Their lead singer (Michael Fassbinder) has the gimmick of
wearing an oversized plastic character head that he talks, eats,
drinks and sings through, as all the band members are not too happy
with the new recruit. This includes the lone female musician (Maggie
Gyllenhaal) who is particularly hostile, all of which gets worse when
they go to a cabin in the middle of nowhere to record a new album.
Some
moments work, but the script is on the inconsistent side, with many
jokes not working and the directing is as spotty and predictable.
Everyone is making a mumblecore film, though Gyllenhaal seems to
realize this is a Rock Music film and is acting in that film instead,
stealing every scene she is in, which is many. The result is this
does not add up like it should and even Fassbinder can make his role
only work so well against all this. Worth a look for the interested,
but a little disappointing considering they were partly on the right
track.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary track with Director
Abrahamson,
lead Gleeson & Composer Stephen Rennicks, AXS-TV piece to promote
the film, four
Behind The Scenes/Making Of featurettes and Deleted Scenes.
Happy
Days: The
Sixth Season
(1978 - 1979) may not be the disaster some would call it as the show
continued with high ratings, but the show had dully developed by the
time the Jump The Shark silliness of the previous season (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) happened. The cast still had its energy and
chemistry in tact, but the show was already beginning to repeat
itself. Still, everyone seems to be having fun, along with the
studio audience, even if some viewers (like those who liked the early
seasons more) were not as pleased.
The money is still in the show too and look is consistent, but the
show was really peaking round this time, whether fans and the makers
realized it or not. Now you can see for yourself.
A
5th
Anniversary Mork
Returns
show has been added and that is more amusing than expected from 1979,
but what it really turns out to be is one of those occasional cheat
shows where (pre-home video) they shows bits of dozens of episodes to
hype the series. In this case, it was for two hits.
Kestrin
Pantera's Let's
Ruin It With Babies
(2014) starts out flatly, but then started to surprise me with some
good scenes that landed up popping up throughout this comedy about a
couple who decides they could have some unique success by building a
karaoke party machine on wheels via a big Winnebago-type vehicle and
make money on the venture. However, the boyfriend is soon absent and
too far away, then the maiden voyage starts running into various
technical and personal issues.
I
like the character study moments best and the unknowns here are
really trying, so we get some nice moments. Running 80 minutes, this
quits while its ahead, but manages to get more out of its time than
many similar recent releases, so you might want to give this one a
look.
A
trailer is the only extra.
Woody
Allen's Magic
In The Moonlight
(2014) is another one of the director's intellectual romantic
comedies
that has its moments, but does not always work despite an amazing
cast. This time, starting in Berlin 1928, a magician dressed as an
Asian stereotype (Colin Firth) is moving along well with his
commercial success when a young, pretty woman (Emma Stone) turns up
claiming (with the assistance of her mother, played perfectly by
Marcia Gay Harden) that she has actual psychic powers and they intent
to prove this to the skeptical magician out of his pseudo-exotic
clothes.
A
young rich kid (Hamish Linklater) likes her so much he starts
serenading her (not always well) as she has come to visit his family
to help his widowed mother (Jacki Weaver) communicate with her late
husband in a séance. Eileen Atkins plays Firth's mother and the
actors are all up to this, as is the production design and locales,
but it did not stay with me and is not one of the longtime filmmakers
better outright comedies. Fans and those wanting a few laughs out of
a rare smart comedy will want to see it once, but others are likely
to be disappointed.
Extras
include two featurettes: Behind
The Magic
and On
The Red Carpet: Los Angeles Film Premiere.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Frank
is not an extraordinary shoot, but it is the best playback performer
on the list with some nice shots and others that are not as good.
The 1.33 X 1 image on the four black and white films from the
Forbidden
DVD set may show the age of the materials used, but they look really
good for their age and more since they were taken care of, though
there are missing frames and print damage. Still, they look really
good for the format and that makes them all more watchable.
The
full color 1.33 X 1 image on Days
come from great prints (35mm) of all the episodes, even if the shows
can be a little soft here and there. They all look superior to
previous transfers of these episodes, making even the lesser ones
more watchable. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Ruin
is not as consistently shot, but looks as good to my surprise.
So
ironically, the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Magic
that is shot by the brilliant Director of Photography Darius Khondji,
ACS, AFGC, (Alien:
Resurrection,
Evita,
Se7en)
that uses the very widescreen frame to a very full extent and has as
much style as anything here is the softest presentation on the list
because of the format transfer. I know this would look as good as
anything here on Blu-ray and Khondji has worked with Allen before in
another one of Allen's rare uses of scope filmmaking (Anything
Else),
as well as a few others (Midnight
In Paris,
To
Rome With Love)
and are working together for their next feature film.
As
for sound, Frank
has some very impressive sonic moments with its DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 5.1 lossless mix, some
of the best for a comedy of its type, even when the sound goes back
to being normal. Often well mixed and presented, it takes great
advantage of the multi-channel possibilities many similar films do
not. The rest of the releases have
lossy Dolby Digital mixes and land up tying for second place from the
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the Forbidden
films and Days
episodes (all better than you might expect for their age) to stereo
and practically stereo sound on the feature films.
To
order Forbidden
Hollywood
Warner Archive DVD set, go to this link for it, previous volumes
still in print (most reviewed elsewhere on this site) and many more
great web-exclusive releases at:
https://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo