Goodbye
Paradise (1983*)/The
Heiress (1949/*both
Umbrella PAL Import DVDs)/Merrill's
Marauders (1962/Warner
Archive Blu-ray
w/DVD)/President's Lady
(1953**)/Wild In The
Country (1961/**both
Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-rays)
Picture:
C+/C+/B/B/B Sound: C-/C/C+/B-/B- Extras: C-/C-/C-/C+/C
Films: C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
President's Lady
and Wild
In The Country
Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Twilight Time and
limited to only 3,000 copies, Goodbye
Paradise
and The
Heiress
PAL import DVD are now available from out friends at Umbrella
Entertainment in Australia, can only play on DVD, 4K and Blu-ray
players that can handle the PAL DVD format, while the Merrill's
Marauders
Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.
Next
up are a set of classic releases being issued in specialized ways...
We
start with a comical late Neo-Noir of the time, Carl Schultz's
Goodbye
Paradise
(1983) with Ray Barrett (who narrates extensively) as a former police
officer who quits to write a book exposing what has been going wrong
with his part of Down Under to expose the dark side of sunny days,
surfing, sex, fun, money-making tourism and the like. Of course,
some people want to end his new career before it begins, but his life
is a wreck and as the publisher he has a contract with starts to
doubt the book getting finished, an old friend asks him to find a
missing woman who is the daughter of a politician.
So
we're off to a trip to the dark side of a nice place to visit, but
one that you might not want to move to, unless you have something
remarkable going on. We've seen this kind of thing in a few Michael
Caine films and Altman's The
Long Goodbye
(1973, reviewed elsewhere on this site) though this film gets cheeky
(expect unexpected nudity) in ways those films did not and that is
why it qualifies as an Oz-Ploitation film. Some moments do work, but
the film overall has a been-there-done-than feel also reminiscent of
Woody Allen's Play
It Again Sam
and a few later Robert Mitchum, films revisiting Noir territory.
It
is worth a look for what works and deserves to be in print, a film
lost no more.
William
Wyler's The
Heiress
(1949) was a big hit melodrama in its time with Olivia de Havilland
as the title character, hoping to find love with Montgomery Cliff,
but her father (Sir Ralph Richardson will cut her out of the family
fortune if they do because he dies not trust him. Is he correct? Is
it true love? Does the young man just want her money?
Base
don a Henry James novel, this runs 116 minutes and is well made, but
it gets soapy more often than I would have liked and has aged oddly
through the years. De Havilland sells the film and is always someone
to watch, but much of this is also obvious and is ultimately for fans
only. It is worth a look, but be prepared for as long sit.
Samuel
Fuller's Merrill's
Marauders
(1962) is an early war film he made that h e did not have final cut
on and tells the story of the last 500 miles the 5307th
unit had to go to stop a vital Axis battle point to sway the results
of WWII the Allies way. We see some of the training and meet each of
the men before they have to trek out and deal with this 'based on a
true story' film that I bought much of, even if the actual film does
not work as well. Especially if Fuller had received final cut on it.
The
cast is impressive and includes Jeff Chandler, Andrew Duggan, Ty
Hardin, Will Hutchins, Peter Brown and Claude Akins in a film that
has some cliches, but overcomes others thanks to Fuller's more gritty
approach and the fact that post-WWII filmmaking was becoming slowly
more realistic. Though the film is not as remembered as much as many
of its contemporaries of the time, it was meant to be a big big
screen near-epic and has one too many missteps in this studio cut.
Still,
it is a Fuller film and an ambitious studio production at that,
Warner going big at a time when Westerns, War films and Sword &
Sandals films were still very common and very popular. It will
remind you at times of the later war films like it, even better ones,
but is worth a look for those interested and this cut landed up being
98 minutes. Wonder if Fuller had a longer, better cut in mind?
Henry
Levin's The
President's Lady
(1953) has war in the background as Charlton Heston plays Andrew
Jackson, a later president who was also a lawyer, 'indian hunter' and
could throw a few fisticuffs when the occasion permitted. He's good
here, if sometimes unintentionally funny, falling for a woman (Susan
Hayward) who is about to be divorced. This affect their reputations
and how people deal with them in even the most subtle ways, but this
is more melodrama than character study and has a more book-like
narrative than anything else.
Heston
and the other actors look a bit younger here (when he is not wearing
age make-up) as you'll say to yourself a few times 'look how young
they were' and no doubt this did not hurt his rising star or
Hayward's continued appeal. The supporting cast is also impressive,
headed by John McIntyre, Carl Betz and Charles Dingle, so it is worth
seeing once to appreciate what they made here and how much of it
actually holds up better than many films of its kind (a period piece)
and is a welcome arrival on Blu-ray. Just remember this is a limited
edition.
Finally,
we get to The King... of Rock N Roll. Phillip Dunne's Wild
In The Country
(1961) is another melodrama Elvis Presley made at Fox, where he had
more success than many remember and we remind you all that only one
movie star can claim that every film he made made money. Yes, only
Elvis.
Finally
arriving on Blu-ray, Elvis is a restless country boy who wants more
out of life, is torn between two women (Millie Perkins, Tuesday Weld
and Hope Lange, who plays his psychiatrist!) with competition all
over (john Ireland and Gary Lockwood are the father and son gunning
for him) while it turns out our hero (who sings four songs, added at
the last minute, but that does not make this a musical) may just have
special writing talents.
It
gets ridiculous at times, but it makes for interesting viewing with
Elvis in his young, vibrant prime, always made sad by his early
death. Only the seventh out of 31 films he would act in, it would be
his last drama before he was trapped in his 'Elvis Musicals' cycle
that nearly destroyed his reputation and career before his stunning
late 1960s comeback.
Helping
make the film work when it does is an impressive supporting cast that
also included Rafer Johnson, William Mims, Raymond Greenleaf,
uncredited turns by Linden Chiles, Alan Napier (later Alfred on the
1960s Batman
TV show), Jason Robards Sr., Harry Shannon and also credited and not
a main love interest that is an interesting surprise: Christina
Crawford!
If
you wondered why Fox never did an Elvis Blu-ray set, it is because
they never got the films out in a general set and one of the previous
films was also a Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray like this one,
so here are links to two other Fox/Elvis films on Blu-ray we covered
if you are interested:
Flaming
Star
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13174/Corky+(1972/MGM/Warner+Archive+DVD)/Field+O
Love
Me Tender
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12280/Love+Me+Tender+(1956/Fox+Blu-ray)/War+Flowe
The
visual playback in all five cases are really good for their
respective formats with few flaws. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High
Definition image on Marauders
is a new restoration that looks decent and can show its age in spots
as expected. The case correctly states that the film was issued in
dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor, which happened when it was
issued in 35mm film prints. However, the text, poster art and (in a
rare miss for Warner Archive) the explanatory text on the back of the
case fails to state that the film was originally shot in the
large-frame Technirama format. That means it was meant to be a big
A-level production and major release, the format still being used
often. Why they missed this is odd, but that is why this reduction
transfer looks as good as it does without the distortion CinemaScope
lenses would deliver and even less than other squeeze lenses like the
superior Panavision lenses that were replacing CinemaScope in the
industry at the time.
The
color is not always top rate or as good as Technicolor can be, even
though this is a war film and is not going to be as vibrant or
wide-ranging as a genre like the musical or a travelogue. In that,
who knows what materials survived and did or did not fade way, but
this is as good as you will see this film unless you somehow have an
old 35mm, maybe 16mm or (somehow?) Technirama print of the film in
mint shape.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Wife is nice, sharp and consistently good
throughout, reminding us of how good Fox's labs (DeLuxe actually)
developed and printed monochrome film. Some of the detail and depth
is really impressive here and you can see the money they put into
this one. It looks like a new HD master.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Wild
can also show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior
a transfer to all previous releases of the film and was developed via
Color by DeLuxe, so it might not be as great as Technicolor was then,
but competitive with most other color formats of the time (a bit
behind MetroColor) and fans of both
Elvis and the film will be happy that it turned out so well, but
expect distortion as it was shot in the older CinemaScope format.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Paradise looks good
with decent color and was shot by Director of Photography John Seale,
now a big name in the business, creating a consistent look for the
narrative in one of his early works. Not bad.
That
leaves the 1.33 X 1 black & white image on Heiress,
showing how good Paramount's black and white was, though Universal
owns the film since Paramount sold all their movies up to around the
time this film was released to TV, which Universal now possesses.
This looks to be a solid HD master from a few years ago and has
little to complain about. Both DVDs have
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound, but it is too low on both,
especially Paradise,
so be careful of high playback volumes and volume switching in both
cases.
All
three Blu-rays have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 lossless mixes, with
Lady
monophonic and sounding much clearer and better than expected.
Marauders
was originally a 4-track magnetic sound with traveling dialogue and
sound effects, so this is a mixdown and sounds a bit limited and a
bit compressed at times. Thus, the 4-track soundmaster must be
misplaced, missing or sadly lost, which is the case with Wild,
but the 2.0 Stereo here sounds better.
As
for extras, all five releases offer Original Theatrical Trailers,
Heiress adds a Turner Classic Movies intro by host Robert
Osborne, both Twilight Time releases add nicely illustrated booklet
on the film including informative text and essays by Mike Finnegan
and both discs also feature Isolated Music Scores. Lady also
adds a vintage radio drama version of the film on Hollywood Radio
Theater, later known as Lux Radio Theater.
To
order The
President's Lady
and Wild
In The Country
limited edition Blu-rays, buy them while supplies last at these
links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
To
order either of the
Umbrella PAL import Goodbye
Paradise
and The
Heiress
DVDs, go to this link for them and other hard-to-get releases:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
and
to order the Merrill's Marauders Warner Archive Blu-rays, go
to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo