All
Neat In Black Stockings
(1969/Warner Archive DVD)/Bankstas
(2014 aka Bank$tas/Main
Street DVD)/Carol Burnett
Show: Together Again
(2013 compilation/Time Life/Star Vista DVD)/Gomer
Pyle USMC: The Complete Series
(1964 - 1969/CBS DVD Box Set)/The
RKO Brown & Carney Comedy Collection
(1943 - 1946/Warner Archive DVD Set)
Picture:
C+/C/C+/C+/C+ Sound: C/C+/C+/C+/C Extras: D/C-/C/C-/D
Main Programs: C+/C-/B-/B/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The All
Neat In Black Stockings
and The
RKO Brown & Carney Comedy Collection
DVDs are now only available from from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here's
a selection of new comedy releases to know about...
Christopher
Morahan's All
Neat In Black Stockings
(1969) is an amusing British comedy about a lout (Victor Henry) who
is a window washer, but is really out to seduce any young woman he
gets the hots for. Though not a great film, it is nicely shot, has a
nice pace to it, fun London locales, a few chuckles and Susan George
is the lead gal of many we see throughout its pleasant-enough 98
minutes.
Some
moments just do not work, but it reminded me of the many independent
British film productions that get lost in the shuffle and have become
releases in the U.K. via BFI's Flipside series, many of which we have
had the privilege to review on this site. If this is your kind of
counterculture comedy, you might want to give this one a look. It is
a good-looking film too.
There
are unfortunately no extras.
Jeff
Stephenson's Bank$tas
(2014) is a shockingly bad, would-be satire of economics, capitalism
and the finance world with two young goofs (Michael Seater & Joe
DiNicol) trying to break into the world quickly in the dumbest way,
which is supposed to be funny, but is not. Alan Thicke shows up as
an intertextual reference to his comedy past that we are supposed to
laugh at this, no matter how bad, while Laura Vandervoort is here as
the 'sexy gal with glasses and much more...' to break up the monotony
(and as insurance the leads are not lovers, we gather).
Add
bad Hip Hop gags and the viewer gets cashed out after the first few
minutes, then has to pay and pay and pay and pay... Self-amused is a
nice way to put this really, really bad investment world comedy that
is enough to put someone to sleep. Yawn!!!
Extras
include Karate by
Bank$tas,
a feature length audio commentary track by the director and co-star
Brandon Firla, Behind The Scenes with co-stars Michael Seater &
Joe DiNicol and separate on-camera pieces with the director and
Producer Robert Budreau.
Carol
Burnett Show: Together Again
is a single DVD this time from Star
Vista with three episodes that delivers three fun shows with guest
Gloria Swanson (9/29/73), Ruth Buzzi & Richard Crenna (12/15/73)
and Roddy McDowall & Ken Berry (1/8/78) simply remind one how
great the show could be without trying, attracting some of the
biggest talent in the business with some of the best writers and
comic talents around. We have reviewed several sets before, yet this
gives you just as much of an idea of how great the show was. Nice
single.
Extras
include an illustrated paper pullout with info on all the DVD's
content.
Gomer
Pyle USMC: The Complete Series
(1964 - 1969) collects all five seasons of the still-popular hit
comedy that
used to be on TV all the time, but is not seen nearly as much and you
really have to get on DVD to view. We reviewed three of the previous
five seasons in their original DVD set releases as these links show:
One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5040/Gomer+Pyle,+U.S.M.C
Three
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6287/Gomer+Pyle,+U.S.M.C
Five
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8013/Gomer+Pyle,+U.S.M.C
This
time out, we get to see Season Two (the show going to full
color and instantly finding a new zaniness) and Season Four
(which might be the peak of the show in some sense) by which time the
cast hit their stride. By the end of the decade, the show did
everything it could and the realities of the Vietnam fiasco started
to overcome the comedy here. It was nice while it lasted and its
great to bring all these shows into one set finally. If you've never
seen the show, get this set. If you like its comedy, you won't be
sorry.
Extras
in this clear plastic clamcase include audio intro by Nabors on some
episodes, audio commentary tracks by Nabors and Ronnie Schell on
certain episodes, a Jim
Nabors Hour
clip, the pilot for this show from The
Andy Griffith Show
and Nabors hilarious cameo in the 'Lucy
Gets Caught In The Draft'
episode of The
Lucy Show.
The
RKO Brown & Carney Comedy Collection
(1943 - 1946) has
the comedy duo of Wally Brown and Alan Carney trying to establish
themselves as a classic duo, but though they have some chemistry and
the four films here have a few amusing moments, the films attempt to
send up film genres like war films (Adventures
Of A Rookie,
Rookies
In Burma
w/Joan Barclay), Westerns (Girl
Rush
with singer Frances Langford) and even Horror & Detective films
(Genius
At Work
with no less than Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill and Anne Jeffries in the
best of the four films by default) never go enough with their
situations or understand their genres.
They
only run just over an hour each, so they were more like programmers
than feature-length productions, but they make for interesting curios
that I was glad to see, even when they don't work. RKO may have had
larger plans for the duo, but that never happened. Now you can see
for yourself.
There
are unfortunately no extras.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Neat
was shot in EastmanColor 35mm film and this print does a really good
job of showing that color range, though the standard definition of
the DVD format holds it back, you can see it is a new print that does
justice to the way it was meant to be seen. The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Bank$tas
was shot in HD, is easily the newest production here and happens to
be the softest, poorest looking production on the list, not even able
to compete with the 1.33 X 1 color videotaped transfers on the
Burnett
episodes. Those skits have been well-transferred as usual (starting
from 2-inch videotape on the earliest shows) and is in line with the
previous DVDs we've covered.
The
1.33 X 1 image on Pyle
repeats the quality of the DVDs from the sets we covered and I still
like the color shows a bit more than the first-season-only black and
white shows. These all look good from the original 35mm film
materials. If you are not going to wait for Blu-ray versions, you
should be very satisfied with the quality here as this was always a
well-shot show.
That
leaves the black and white 1.33 X 1 image on the four RKO
comedies that look surprisingly good for their age, even if some
sections can look a bit more aged than others. The fact that it
looks better than Bank$tas
says in part how well these were shot, likely on old monochrome
DuPont stocks.
In
the sound department, Bank$tas
is the only new production here, offered in lossy Dolby Digital 5.1,
sounding as good as anything here, but not as great as it could
throughout. The rest of the DVDs offer lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
sound, with Neat
and RKO
tying for the poorest performers. The 2 TV titles sound better than
you might expect and can compete with Bank$tas
for consistency.
To
order either of the Warner Archive DVDs, go to this link for them and
many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
