Opry
Video Classics (aka
Volume 2/Red
Label/Time Life 8-DVD Box Set)/Prince
Of Players (1955/Fox
Cinema Archive DVD)/Silk
Stockings (1957/MGM)/The
Unsinkable Molly Brown
(1964/MGM/Warner Archive Blu-rays)
Picture:
C+/C-/B-/B Sound: C+/C+/B/B- Extras: C-/D/C+/C Main
Programs: B/C+/B-/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Prince
Of Players
Fox DVD is now only available online and can be ordered from the
sidebar, while the Silk
Stockings
and Unsinkable
Molly Brown
Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are more music and stage entertainment releases coming your way....
Opry
Video Classics
with a red label, versus blue for the 2008 box set, is actually the
second such set that Time Life has issued. You can tell by reading
the labels of this 8-DVD box set's
separate discs: Songs
That Topped the Charts 2, Legends 2, Love Songs 2, Pioneers 2, Queens
of Country 2, Hall of Fame 2, Kings of Country
and Jukebox
Memories.
The press materials rightly claim that this set 'features rare Opry
performances filmed at the Ryman Auditorium, the Grand Ole Opry House
and at WSM-TV in Nashville' and that 'this is the first time the
majority of these live vintage concerts has been available on any
format, either VHS or DVD.' So how good is it?
Very.
Even if you don't like Country/Western music, the history and
periods alone captured and preserved here is a window into a part of
music and America that is becoming more distant. Dolly Parton is the
only major artist in the set active and successful in a big way still
after all these years, but a few of the greats here are still with us
and performing. This set offers greats like Johnny Cash, Tammy
Wynette, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings, The Statler
Brothers, George Jones, Charley Pride, Lynn Anderson, Crystal Gayle,
Porter Wagner, Chet Atkins, Earl Shruggs, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells,
Tom T. Hall, Hank Snow, Tex Ritter, Faron Young and more.
I
also like the joy, energy and community we experience, no matter
where the clip comes from, showing a peak in the genre that has never
been matched. Though I was not a fan of all the songs, some are just
amazing classics and its great any
video of the original artists performing them survived.
The
same slip of paper with brief notes on the clips are the only extras
in all DVD cases.
Philip
Dunne's Prince
Of Players
(1955) is
a backstage melodrama with historical twists telling how one family
changed America and the world without realizing it. After early
scenes establishing their fractured family and problematic father, a
young man named Edwin Booth (played as an adult by no less than
Richard Burton) eventually becomes a major actor when the occupation
was considered disreputable. Not helping is that his brother John
(ironically played by John Derek) lands up being the man who
assassinated President Lincoln!
As
if their family was not toxic, dysfunctional or troubled enough, this
runs 99 minutes and feels much longer despite money on the screen and
a supporting cast that includes Raymond Massey, Charles Bickford.
Maggie McNamara, Elizabeth Sellars, Ian Keith and many uncredited
players like Olan Soule. The Bernard Herrmann music score is a plus,
of course.
Fox
Cinema Archive has issued this on DVD and at least this is in print,
if not a great copy. The ending stops way short of telling us that
Edwin Booth established the first white collar union ever in Actor's
Equity and his home remains a private club devoted to he, other
actors and those arts today.
There
are unfortunately no extras.
Robert
Mamoulian's Silk
Stockings
(1957) started
out as a stage musical that was a hit, but to make it a feature film
it had to compete with one of the greatest romantic comedies of all
time and the film it would be a remake of, Ernest
Lubitsch's masterwork Ninotchka
(1939). Fred Astaire (in his last major musical lead for a very long
time) would play Steve (played by Melvin Douglas in the previous hit)
and Great Garbo's role of the strict, emotionless Soviet official
would be taken on by the great Cyd Charisse in her favorite role and
one of the best of her career. Set in Paris, Ninotchka arrives to
retrieve three male 'comrades' who are to go back to the USSR
immediately, but Steve has been trying to help them out and when he
sees her, he has a whole new reason for getting involved in
international politics and government!
Unlike
the previous film (set just before WWII arrived), this would be a
Cold War-era spoof, satire and send-up of everything stiff,
conformist, grey and boring about the USSR, leaving not stone
unturned on mocking the Soviet Union's 'standards' and way of life.
Much imitated since (The
Correct Way To Kill
(1967) episode of The
Avengers U.K.
spy TV series (reviewed elsewhere on this site) is one of the best at
capturing what both films did in this respect), it goes almost
overboard, but then some great songs keep kicking in like Josephine
(Janis Ian, a real hoot throughout this film, spoofing stuffy
history), Satin
& Silk,
Without
You,
Red
Blues,
Siberia,
Stereophonic
Sound
(a classic send-up of big-screen 1950s filmmaking) and The
Ritz Rock and Roll
(Astaire's last big Hollywood number ending the film, mocking early
Rock music and the assumedly vapid side of American pop culture) has
the film going beyond its boundaries and like The
Band Wagon,
makes for another MGM musical saying farewell to the genre. A
must-see film worth your time, finally arriving on Blu-ray.
Charles
Walters' The
Unsinkable Molly Brown
(1964) was
a hit in its time and became a curio a few decades ago when Cameron's
Titanic
(1997) became a massive international blockbuster. This earlier film
has Debbie Reynolds going all out in a musical biopic about the title
character's early beginnings in the outback as a poor woman with a
fighting spirit, one that lands up helping her when she strikes it
rich, finds romance, deals with high society and then lands up almost
getting killed when she plays big money to take the maiden voyage of
that unsinkable ship called the Titanic!
The
iceberg sunk the ship, but it could not sink her, thus she then
enters a second era of wealth thanks to her popularity. Joined by
Harve Presnell, Hermione Baddeley, Ed Begley and Jack Kruschen among
others, it goes all the way in telling its story, but I was not as
big a fan of many of the music numbers (Meredith Willson created the
music and I have mixed feelings about his work) but Reynolds shows
once again why she was one of the biggest movie stars of the time,
post Fisher/Taylor sympathy or not. MGM put the money on the screen
yet again and Warner
Archive has finally issued this hit on Blu-ray as well. It was
outdone by Warner's release of My
Fair Lady
the same year at the box office and the Oscars, but not for lack of
trying. It is worth a good look, but have patience.
Both
of these sold-separately Warner Archive musical Blu-rays offer
Original
Theatrical Trailers as extras, with Silk
adding two musical film shorts (Paree,
Paree
and The
Poet & Peasant Overture)
and Charisse herself hosting Cole
Porter In Hollywood: Satin & Silk,
while Molly
adds The
Story Of A Dress
Behind The Scenes documentary.
Despite
some sources claiming a 16 X 9 presentation, all performances from
the Opry
set are in 1.33 X 1 black & white on the older clips (from 2-inch
analog videotape) and color on the ones that followed (from 2-inch
analog videotape, then analog videotape). We get analog videotape
flaws including a little video noise, video banding, telecine
flicker, tape scratching, cross color in later clips, faded color in
spots and tape damage, but these look far better than you would
expect otherwise because they have been remastered well. The old
black and white looks more 'live' than you might expect too.
Unfortunately,
Players
has its opening and closing in letterboxed 2.55 X 1 and the rest in
lame pan & scan, butchering the older CinemaScope aspect ration,
looking awful often and needs a widescreen upgrade ASAP. I was
disappointed.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Silk
was hot in the older CinemaScope format, has more grain than I would
have liked despite being remastered (the MetroColor is part of the
reason), can show the age of the materials used and has a few other
minor flaws, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous
releases of the film I've seen over the years and some scenes stand
out nicely. Musical numbers do not always seem as grainy.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Molly
might show the age of the materials used sometimes, but this is far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film and the best
presentation on the list, shot in anamorphic Panavision and with
better color overall which was also MetroColor.
Both
Silk
and Molly
offer DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes off of their
original 4-track magnetic sound with traveling dialogue and sound
effects, sounding better than they ever have with warmth, depth and
fidelity revealed from the original soundmaster never heard in public
before, but Molly
somehow manages to be even more amazing, almost defying its age at
times. Guess Ted Turner taking care of the archive back in the day
paid off yet again.
Both
DVDs have lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, but the separation on Opry
is basic re-separation at best, though just fine. The original shows
were monophonic until the 1980s. Players
was also originally issued in 4-track magnetic sound with traveling
dialogue and sound effects, which you can hear here at times in this
mixdown. It'll do.
To
order either of the Warner Archive Blu-rays, Silk
Stockings
and Unsinkable
Molly Brown,
go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases
at:
https://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo