The
Best Of Ed Sullivan (Star
Vista/Time Life DVD Set Compilation)/Sunbury
'72
+ Sunbury '73
(Umbrella Region Free/Zero PAL Import DVDs)/Whitney
(2014 Cable TV Movie/Lifetime/Lionsgate DVD)
Picture:
C+/C/C/C Sound: C+/C/C/C Extras: B-/C+/D/D Main Programs:
B/B/B-/D
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Sunbury
Import DVDs are now only available from our friends at Umbrella
Entertainment in Australia, can only play on DVD players that can
handle the PAL DVD and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are some mew music releases with all kinds of highs and lows...
The
Best Of Ed Sullivan
might seem like a music-only compilation reflecting the syndicated
shows of his catalog over the years, but it actually contains a
series of relatively more recent specials that kept getting high
ratings for a desperate CBS. The 6-DVD set includes Carol Burnett
hosting Unforgettable
Performances,
The Smothers Brothers hosting The
50th
Anniversary Special,
The
All-Star Comedy Special,
World's
Greatest Comedy Acts
and Amazing
Animal Acts.
The pre-Internet formatting might seem like it drags at times, but
this is a worthwhile set that gives you an idea of how great the show
was. If you want more than just a few clips or what you saw on TV
here and there, this set is a good place to start.
Extras
include two hours of new interviews with legends who were on the show
including Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, Flip Wilson, Milton Berle,
Jackie Mason, Smokie Robinson, Rich Little and many others, plus the
only surviving on-camera interview with Sullivan and his wife Sylvia.
Ray
Wagstaff's Sunbury
'72
and Peter Faiman's
Sunbury '73
are two major, exciting, landmark rock concerts that happened as part
of the worldwide counterculture movement, but this time, in
Australia. Though none of the acts really made it in the USA (aka
The States) and would be better known in the UK and definitely in New
Zealand, that takes nothing away from them. The big attraction both
times was Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, a band from the 1960s really
breaking out and rockin' out as the country's premiere rock band.
Shot
on color 16mm film like all Rockumentaries of the time, '72
is well edited, shot and captures the non-stop energy of the time in
a show worthy of the best shows the US and the UK ever had with
everyone having a really good time. Umbrella is reissuing this on
DVD, though it deserves a Blu-ray and restoration is necessary and
overdue for it. Chain, Warren Morgan, Max Merritt & The Meteors
(delivering a great cover of Try
A Little Tenderness
that is missing the audience reaction when they wrap up), Scra, Lobby
Laden & The Wild Cherries, Pirana, Michael Turner and Phil
Manning and someone doing a nice cover of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant
Song.
It's a great show deserving of discovery and serious rediscovery.
The Aztecs' cover of CC
Rider
mows over all over recordings, live and studio of the overplayed
classic by making it their own. This runs a too-short 97 minutes.
For
'73,
a switch was made to professional PAL videotape, though it was early
reel-to-reel tape and in black and white. Though the excitement is
captured and we get the fun of seeing a then state of the art TV
video studio, hosted by Ken Sparkes. The Aztecs are joined this time
by Mississippi, Ross Ryan (with a cover of Don McLean's American
Pie),
Greg Quill & Country Road, Broderick Smith & Carson and
(introduced by a young Paul Hogan) classic vocalist Johnny O'Keefe.
This runs 45 minutes, but is enough of a Rockumentary, even if shot
on old video and does a good job of capturing the show. Like the
last show, I just wish this one ran longer.
Extras
on '72
include text on the history of the festival, six bonus songs by The
Aztecs in black and white including CC
Rider
and Heartbeat
Hotel
on videotape, another four songs by the band on 16mm film off of a
black and white TV (it is monophonic, but the credits say there is a
8-track recording of this show; where is it?), a clip of the band
talking about dealing with VD on the road, a special random mode to
enjoy the concert songs and 3 trailers for other Umbrella releases,
while '73 has no extras.
Finally
we have a TV movie so bad, many are still in shock. Actress Angela
Bassett tries her hand at directing with Whitney
(2014), an extremely idiotic, inaccurate, silly, stupid attempt at a
biopic of the late singer with a script from Bizarro world that I
still
cannot believe it was made... until I see it was from the nitwits at
the Lifetime Network! In 88 horrific minutes, we see Whitney Houston
(Yaya DaCosta) meet New Edition member-gone-solo Bobby Brown (Arlen
Escarpeta) meet and shockingly fall for each other immediately.
Unlike real life, Houston is naïve-nice and Brown seems more like he
is ready for the cast of the original What's
Happening!!
than the troubled performer he is, always has been and always will
be. So unnaturally nice here, you'd think Brown 100% funded this
mess.
Then
there are few of Houston's hits (poor Deborah Cox tries singing those
few with disastrous results), we hardly see any other big names
despite the success of both and mother Cissy Houston, then the tale
is cleaned of the well-documented drugs and drinking the real life
couple became known for. Music history means nothing (film history
gets a few lines for what Houston did) and the weakest link of all is
the hideous, angry (and arguably homophobic) portrayal of Arista
Records President and Houston advocate Clive Davis.
Instead
of being the music genius and all-time producing success he was, he
is played here as an opportunistic jerk (as if he just arrived in the
music business!), master manipulator, goof and in a bigoted turn,
semi-white nationalist who was trying to keep Houston 'white' so she
could sell more records. The script hints at this early with one of
his first lines of dialogue (yes, I caught that one!) and every time
Davis shows up, he just want Houston to work more, make more money,
be a money machine and treat everything else as secondary. If Davis
was not a public figure, this would be a defamation-of-character
lawsuit, but anyone with a brain will be defamed watching this mess.
As
a result of its stance, layout, ideology and structure, the telefilm
is suggesting that fame, pressure and her marriage did not kill
Houston, but that Davis is the one who eventually pushed her over the
edge, disrespecting Bobby and thinking of all of his African American
music artists as a joke in the worst kind of race baiting I have ever
seen in a TV movie. Translation, Houston being forced to do 'white
music' cost her her 'soul' making Davis a 'devil' as if all of
Houston's songs were lite and had no soul content. Debates about the
various songs are a separate essay, as debatable as the music of
Diana Ross, Shirley Bassey or cousin Dionne Warwick, whose classic,
groundbreaking Bacharach/David classic were 'too white' for African
American audiences and vice versa. It is ugly, angry and highly
intellectually dishonest race bating and as for Miss Bassett, who
played Tina Turner, is she actually implying Turner's hits has more
Soul content or were 'more Black' than Houston's? Totally asinine
logic, historically inaccurate and musically illiterate to boot!!!
There
are thankfully no extras.
The
1.33 X 1 image on Sullivan ranges from old black and white
tape and kinescopes to color videotape and is just fine for older
transfers for the respective original years of the TV specials, but
look for some flaws and aliasing errors, which is also the case for
the all monochrome Sunbury '73, which is softer and on the
clean side. Sunbury '72 was shot on 16mm color film (possibly
Kodak, plus maybe Agfa and/or Ilford?) in a print that is scratchy
and has mixed color.
That
leaves the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Whitney
actually softer than expected and despite being at least 40 years
newer than the rest of the entries here, is poor throughout.
As
for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the Sullivan
(with barely stereo newer material in some specials) and both Sunbury
DVDs are not great by today's standards, but the Sunbury
releases are a generation down, so be careful of high levels and
volume switching. So you would think the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on
Whitney would be the sonic champ here, but it is so compressed and
weak that the soundstage is a mess and at too low a volume.
Why
did they even bother?
To
order either of the
Sunbury
Umbrella import DVD, go to this link for them and many other hard to
find releases at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo