Bob
Hope Salutes The Troops
(1963 - 1995/Time Life DVD Set)/Divorce:
The Complete First Season
(2016/HBO Blu-ray Set)/A
Girl In Every Port
(1952/RKO/Warner Archive DVD)/How
To Steal A Million
(1966/Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Ladies
Of The Jury
(1932/RKO/Warner Archive DVD)/The
Rounders (1964/MGM/Warner
Archive Blu-ray)
Picture:
C/B-/C/B/C/B Sound: C+/B/C/B-/C/C+ Extras: C+/C/D/B-/D/C-
Main Programs: B-/C+/C/B-/B-/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The How
To Steal A Million
Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, is
limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies last,
while The
Rounders
Blu-ray, plus the A
Girl In Every Port
and Ladies
Of The Jury
DVDs are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.
Here's
a new, very wide-ranging set of comedies for you to know about...
Bob
Hope Salutes The Troops
(1963 - 1995) is a new set from Time Life that differs from other
Hope releases on the subject with this new DVD set. The Pointer
Sisters, Marie Osmond and Ann Jillian join Hope in the Middle East in
1991 show, Ann-Margret, Rosie Greer and the Golddiggers join him for
a 1969 USO Christmas run, Hope's wife Dolores, Frances Langford and
Patti Thomas are in a show about his WWII tour from 1995, Janis
Paige, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jill St. John and Anita Bryant (minus
any homophobia or orange juice) assist in a 1965 Christmas tour, a
1963 Christmas tour brings out no less than Lana Turner, Les Brown,
Bryant & Paige, a 1972 Christmas tour offers the underrated
Suzanne Charny, Don Ho, Brown and Jill St. John again (!) and
finally, a 1971 Christmas special has Lola Falana, Redd Foxx, Fran
Jeffries, Brown and several of these have beauty pageant contest
winners.
Politics
aside, these shows across this 3-DVD set are well made, edited and
know how to show off the highlights of what became a special
institution thanks to Hope going out there and delivering year after
year. I'm more often impressed than not with what we get and these
sets are worth releasing as the archive obviously has more where this
is coming from. Not bad at all.
Divorce:
The Complete First Season
(2016) is the new HBO series with Sarah Jessica Parker trying to have
a new hit TV show with a difference, more serious in tone than her
previous comic works and with an assist from Director Jesse Peretz,
the music video maker who helmed some of the best episodes of HBO's
hit Girls.
Backed by the likes of Thomas Hayden Church and Molly Shannon among
others, the show definitely has its moments and you can experience it
at its best via this new Blu-ray set.
However,
the 10 episodes here are a mixed bag with some good moments and more
than a few down, flat ones. I have to wonder if the show will thus
pick up next season (doing well enough to get renewed) or just drone
on in this direction. Fans of Parker will be particularly happy to
see her back, but I this could have even been better if the makers
took some more time.
Chester
Erskine's A
Girl In Every Port
(1952) has Groucho Marx without any of his brothers at RKO in a
would-be comedy that would turn out to be his last lead role in any
film, though he then made amusing, even strange cameos in other films
for the rest of his career. Paired with William Bendix, this should
have been a winner on them alone, but the screenplay (by the
director) is very stale and even Groucho's delivery is lacking, but
even he could only di so much with what he is handed here as they
play Navy guys in trouble and trying to get in trouble with women
like Marie Wilson and Fat Wray.
Warner
Archive has issued the film on DVD for fans and completists, but it
fell flat, but Groucho at least had You
Bet Your Life
going for him, so all was not lost. Joel McCrea, Don DeFore and Gene
Lockhart also turn up, but this never gets better after the first
reel establishes the problems this one has.
William
Wyler's How
To Steal A Million
(1966) has the pairing of Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in a witty
heist film, one that has a following and did decent business and one
we reviewed on DVD years ago at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1896/How+To+Steal+A+Million
I
want to preface things bu saying I was not expecting another Charade
or Arabesque,
or anything else, or even for Wyler to be Hitchcock or Stanley Donen,
but I always thought the film was a little too lite despite its
ability to look good and be pleasant. Wyler's daughter identifies
the film as 'fluff' (high class at that) on the disc's audio
commentary and she is correct, but I thought that despite the fact
that the leads have the expected chemistry, the film does not deliver
to the fullest extent it could have and Mr. Wyler (whose films as
recent as 1955's Desperate
Hours
still holds up as strong and smart) may have played it too lite here.
Thus,
this perpetual curio has been issued as a Twilight Time Limited
Edition Blu-ray via Fox, showing that the approach did limit its
audience in the long term to some extent. Still, it is a good,
fun-enough tale of art fraud and the stars look great. Everyone
should see this one at least once.
Lowell
Sherman's Ladies
Of The Jury
(1932) is my personal favorite on the list with Edna May Oliver as a
woman sequestered to be on a jury for a murder trial and turns out to
be the one who refuses to believe the accused is guilty. A really
hilarious comedy that was more groundbreaking, influential and
innovative than it may be remembered for, she is a hoot (as she
always was) and the film (despite being a short 64 minutes) gets
better and better as it moves along and also has some mystery and
suspense to it just the same.
Warner
Archive has released this little RKO gem (and minor classic?) on DVD
with an early turn by Ken Murray, soon on his way to comedy
immortality (especially as a huge radio comedy star) and the rest of
the cast (mostly unknown or sadly forgotten) are great here at every
turn in what is almost a forerunner of the Screwball Comedy. Way
ahead of its time, this one is worth going out of your way for.
Burt
Kennedy's The
Rounders
(1964) is a lite comedy of a semi-sitcom sort (they got to do jokes
here they could not do on TV yet due to censorship) and the result
was a bigger hit than the quality of the film might allow, but this
style of humor also helped Cary Grant have a big hit with the
much-bashed Operation
Petticoat
around the same time. This one casts Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford as
old cowpokes trying to heard some tough steers. The comedy makes
those animals characters in themselves (in the Mr.
Ed
era) and the results are as mixed.
Warner
Archive has decided to issue this MGM hit on a restored Blu-ray and
no doubt it is fine enough that you won't miss any jokes due to poor
playback. The leads have some chemistry and we get turns by Chill
Willis and Sue Ane Langdon that help, but the script is just not that
good and with so many more Western comedies that were better after,
it only holds up so much. The result is a curio Western fans and
fans of the stars should at least check out, but the rest of you
should only expect so much.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Divorce
has all some bad footage with detail issues and shaky camera work
with some motion blur, but some of this might actually be the style
of the show. Hard to tell, but it should not be like that.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Million
and Rounders
are both full color 35mm shoots using real anamorphic Panavision
lenses. They can both can show the age of the materials used, but
these are mostly superior a transfer to all previous releases of the
films. Million
has some color that is a bit off (note the opening paintings in the
credits are flat until the cut, when the real color kicks in for a
few seconds) and has color by DeLuxe. Rounders
has MetroColor
and it is a better presentation of that format, even more so than I
expected.
The
1.33 X 1 image on the Hope
set has film footage off of older videotape that has stability issues
and even shimmers, while the actual analog videotape footage offers
flaws including video noise, video banding, telecine flicker, tape
scratching, cross color, faded color and tape damage. This is
watchable otherwise, but the material need some restoration work in
the future and the filmed materials (the majority of what we see
here) could be fixed up for HD release.
The
1.33 X 1 black & white image on Port
and Jury
are from well-shot 35mm films, but they can be soft and have print
damage kore than one would like. Jury
more so being older, yet I like the look of that film in particular.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Divorce
is the best sounding release here being the only new one, but is well
mixed and presented as you would expect from HBO, so this is its
highlight, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix
on Million
places a solid second place sonically and better than the 1.0 Mono
track also supplied, but the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono
lossless mix on Rounders
is more compressed and aged-sounding than I expected. Wonder if this
is the best it can sound?`
The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on all three DVD releases are obviously
going to show their age, but the Hope
audio fares better than the two RKO films, which are a little rougher
and sometimes harder to hear, so be careful of high playback volumes
and volume switching.
Extras
are not included on every release here, but Million
has a nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative
text and yet another excellent, underrated essay by the great film
scholar Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc adds a feature length
audio commentary track by Eli Wallach & Catherine Wyler (Director
William Wyler's daughter), an Isolated Music Score, Audrey
Hepburn: The Fairest Lady
featurette and an Original Theatrical Trailer, the latter of which is
also the only extra on Rounders.
That leaves us with Divorce
offering Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds audio commentary
on select episodes.
To
order the How
To Steal A Million Blu-ray
limited edition Blu-ray, buy it and many more great exclusives while
supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
...and
to order The
Rounders
Blu-ray, Girl
In Every Port
DVD and Ladies
Of The Jury
DVD, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive
releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
