Animal
Kingdom: The Complete First Season
(2016/Warner Blu-ray Set)/Ride
The High Country
(1962/MGM)/36 Hours
(1964/MGM/both Warner Archive Blu-rays)/The
World's Most Beautiful Swindlers
(1964/Gaumont/Olive Blu-ray)/The
Mysterious Airman (1928
serial/Weiss Brothers Artcraft/Sprocket Vault DVD)
Picture:
B/B/B/B/C+ Sound: B/C+/B-/C/C+ Extras: C/B-/C-/C-/B- Main
Programs: C+/B-/C+/C+/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Ride
The High Country
and 36
Hours
Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the links below.
Here
are thrillers with varying degrees of crime, mystery and even murder
to know about...
Animal
Kingdom: The Complete First Season
(2016) is a Hollywood TV series remake of the hit Australian feature
film crime family film that earned Jacki Weaver an Academy Award
nomination, which I reviewed at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10698/Animal+Kingdom+(2010/Sony+Blu-ray/Region+A
Warner
Bros. has taken over the potential franchise from Sony, has landed
Ellen Barkin in the lead role as the creepy mother whose too close to
her sons for everyone's own good and set it in the too-obvious West
Coast. A young man lands up with this ultimate dysfunctional crime
family when his birth mother dies of a drug overdose, but the big
house with all kinds of food, money and toys obviously is going to
come with a big price.
The
problem with the series is it forgets The
Sopranos
happened, tries way too hard, has too many obvious turns and cliches,
plus a knack for getting too hip (Barkin's nickname is Smurf, the
animated version of which Warner owns) and by the end of the 10
episodes, you've seen too much of this before in older, better shows.
Maybe it might improve in its next season, but if not, this is one
kingdom they'd better put up for sale.
Sam
Peckinpah's Ride
The High Country
(1962) is the famed director's first full-fledged feature film where
he started to have control of his work and certainly a favorite
Western, one that even a non-fan of the genre like myself would tell
you overcomes some cliches. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea (older
than his energetic Musical days) have to cover a gold shipment, one
that will help them and what's left of their future. However, The
West as they know it is starting to disappear, so they may have more
to work out here than a mere hot opportunity job. Mariette Hartley
shows up as the token gal badly treated en route to being married!
MGM
was moving more towards such dramas versus their escapist Musicals
and there are some good moments here as noted. Though there are also
many dated and flat, flawed moments throughout, other moments seem
like the beginning of the last leg of the modern Western (read
Professional era that included Peckinpah's brilliant Wild
Bunch)
that would spell the last years of the genre in its original form
ending in 1980. George Bassman's score and the attempt for the film
to look more modern are a plus.
George
Seaton's 36
Hours
(1964) is an interesting attempt to create a psychological thriller
with some suspense, yet try to tell some of the stories of some of
the principals involved. Happening during what would be the final
days of WWII, the Nazis are trying to figure out the Allies plans and
kidnap a soldier (James Garner) to trick him into telling them the
truth by setting up a fake 'American' hospital, convince him he's
been in a car accident for more days than they've had him (when his
secrets would be worthless to reveal allegedly) and use this to turn
things around and win the war.
Eva
Marie Saint is the woman in the middle of all this and at first, this
works, but the screenplay by the Director starts to run into
credibility issues and the Nazi's portrayal loses some credibility as
the story takes too many twists and turns for its own good. Worth
seeing for what does work, but some of this even becomes very
unintentionally amusing and the end is ultimately unsatisfying. Rod
Taylor also stars.
The
anthology film The
World's Most Beautiful Swindlers
(1964) originally offered 5 tales of con artistry in various
locations around the globe including Claude Chabrol's "L'Homme
qui vendit la Tour Eiffel"
(with Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Pierre Cassel in France), Jean-Luc
Godard's "Le
Grand escroc"
(with Jean Seberg and Charles Denner in Marrakech), Ugo Gregoretti's
"La
Feuille du Route"
(set in Italy), Hiromichi Horikawa's "Les
Cinq Bienfaiteurs de Fumiko"
(set in Japan with Mie Hama from the Bond film You
Only Live Twice)
and Roman Polanski's "La
Riviere de Diamants",
but Polanski had his Nederlands segment dropped for some reason and
this new Olive Blu-ray of the Gaumont Studio release is the shorter
cut.
Not
having seen these for a long time, I wondered what my reaction would
be to the characters trying to pull off something beneficial and
seeing if it would backfire or not. Though this is the best I've
ever seen this and I like the talent involved, it remains a mixed
bag, odder still via Polanski's absent segment. Still, it is worth a
look for what does work and at least a one-time must-see for serious
film fans. Just don't go into it with high expectations despite the
big names.
Last
but definitely not least is the pleasant surprise of Henry Revier's
The
Mysterious Airman,
a silent 1928 adventure serial that was aimed more at adults than the
child audience they would start to be aimed at by the mid-1930s as
sound arrived. An airplane manufacturer has invented key technology
that will make flying easier than ever, but a mysterious Pilot X who
can really fly an plane with exceptional skill, is out to steal their
technology and destroy the company if he can. Why, the serial's
title cards keep asking?
This
independent production was produced by the Weiss Brothers Artcraft
Pictures and they do give it their all from some fun twists, great
action, unintentionally funny acting, visual effects that can be a
howler despite not being much worse than most of the bad CGI digital
visual effects we are subjected to weekly and a fun cast up to the
spirit of the work here to make this fun and energetic. NOTE that
the first reel of one of the last chapters is missing because the
film print they had degraded too badly, but that does not hurt the
presentation too much.
The
airplane footage is impressive even by today's standards as well as
how good this often looks throughout. Cheers to Sprocket Vault for
saving this little gem and getting out on a DVD, and with extras yet.
I did not know any of the actors, but they even have chemistry as
this reminds us how much fun silent filmmaking could really be. Go
out of your way for this one!
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Kingdom
is not bad for a HDTV shoot, if lacking some of the richness and
depth of its feature film version, choosing some cliched editing and
shots more often than it should. Otherwise, it is professional,
competent and consistent, yet it could have been more.
The
remaining Blu-rays are all shot on 35mm film in real anamorphic scope
formats, all here in 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image
transfer presentations. Ride
(in MetroColor and older CinemaScope) is our only color presentation
and with the oldest lenses has the most soft spots and flaws, but
that is the way it was shot and turned out. I doubt it could look
much better than it does here and has been restored as much as
possible. The other two films are in real black & white, with
Hours
shot in Panavision
and the segments of Swindlers
shot in the underrated Franscope format some filmmakers often
preferred at the time (no less than Raoul Coutard and Tonino Delli
Colli are among the DPs here), including Godard who participated
here. Like Ride, they have their moments where they can show the age
of the materials used (some shots a tad too dark, others slightly
lighter than they should be), but these transfers too are far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film we've seen
on home video. And as always, there is something special about a
black and white scope film.
That
leaves us with the 1.33
X 1 monochrome image on Airman
is bookended in an anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 frame via an HD transfer from the only surviving
35mm nitrate print of the serial, which is sometimes black and white,
but often tinted. I have to say the tinting looks really good, some
of the best I have ever seen on a silent film, plus the reels have
survived in remarkable shape with impressive detail more than you
might expect. This could have demo moments on a Blu-ray release, but
will surprise on DVD just the same.
As
for sound, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Animal
is going to sound the best being the
only new recording here, well mixed and presented as it is, but the
rest of the Blu-ray films are here in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0
Mono lossless mixes that vary. Ride
has the best sound, though one would wish it were stereo, Hours
is second best, though not as clear as you might expect a film that
age to be (Ride
and Hours
sounded better sonically on their limited edition soundtracks we
reviewed elsewhere on this site a while ago, though Ride
is out of print) and Swindlers is more compressed than expected
(maybe because of dubbing and or that this is a print missing the
Polanski segment, making it second-generation somehow) so be careful
of volume switching and high playback levels on this one.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Airman is simple, but
well-played and recorded piano music, much newer than the film being
viewed, but its not bad sonically or artistically. I just wish an
alternate track with more off-kilter music was also included.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices on Kingdom,
while the Blu-ray adds six Making Of featurettes and Deleted Scenes.
Hours
and Swindlers
offer Original Theatrical Trailers, while Ride
offers a feature length audio commentary track by film and Peckinpah
experts Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons & David Weddle,
plus featurette A
Justified Life: Sam Peckinpah & the High Country.
Airman
also has an audio commentary track across all its chapters by the
informative Richard M. Roberts (beware of spoilers!),Original Lobby
Card/Poster Gallery, New York Censor Board file and the 1928 silent
short Flying Cadets, which runs just over a half-hour.
To
order either of the Warner Archive Blu-rays, go to this link for them
and many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo