An
American In Paris
(2018/Liberator*)/Don't Go
Gentle: A Film About The Idles
(2021*)/Englebert
Humperdinck: Totally Amazing
(2005 with CD/Cleopatra*)/42nd
Street
(2019/Liberator/*all live/MVD Blu-rays)/It
Happened At The World's Fair
(1963/MGM**)/Soul Of The
Midnight Special (1973 -
1980/two-volume Time Life DVD Set)/Take
Me Out To The Ballgame
(1949/MGM**)/The Ziegfeld
Follies (1946/MGM/**all
Warner Archive Blu-rays)
Picture:
B-/B-/C+/B-/B/C+/B+/B Sound: B-/B-/C+ & B/B-/C+/C+/C+/B-
Extras: D/C/C/D/C-/B/C/B- Main Programs: C+/C+/C+/B-/C+/B+/B-/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The It
Happened At The World's Fair,
Take
Me Out To The Ballgame
and The
Ziegfeld Follies
Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and all can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for a wide variety of musical and music programming...
We
start with a live London stage production of the classic Gene Kelly
MGM musical An
American In Paris
(2018) with Robert Fairchild stepping in as the GI Kelly played in
his Technicolor version, falling for a dancer (Leanna Cope) in a
respectable and capable restaging of the film. Unfortunately, they
have taken off a bit more than they can handle and this lacks the
magic and finesse of the film. Still, you could doo worse (see
below) and fans should check it out.
There
are no extras.
Mark
Archer's Punk Rock documentary Don't
Go Gentle: A Film About The Idles
(2021) only runs 75 minutes, but packs as much in about the band and
the Punk scene at the time as it can. Though you have seen some of
this if you have seen other Punk Rock releases on video, but this is
more on the British scene and we have seen less of that than the
U.S., so that is a plus for this program(me).
It
covers the rise and fall of the band thoroughly, but also manages to
be a portrait of both the scene and record industry at the time,
independent and otherwise. I liked this enough to recommend to fans
of such music, but as much as some parts were even very enjoyable, it
just did not stick with me. Maybe it needed to be longer.
Extras
include ten bonus clips adding to the story told on the main feature.
Englebert
Humperdinck: Totally Amazing
(2005) is an old concert of the surprisingly popular vocalist singing
standard, MOD and adult contemporary tunes from a now 16-year-old
concert where he displays some good singing (not always up to what I
expected, but not bad) and a slid audience singing the likes of
S'Wonderful,
A Man
Without Love,
After
The Loving,
Too
Young,
You
Make My Pants Want To Get Up And Dance,
Release
Me (and Let Me Love Again),
My Way
and more. It is not a long concert, but a good summation of his work
in the latter part of his career (his first big hit was back in 1967)
and his showmanship.
For
non-fans, it will be a surprise he was a success at all, but yes, hew
had very healthy charting, his own TV show at one time and album
sales that were not bad in the U.S. and often stronger overseas.
Even Benny Hill spoofed him as Inglenook Hampendick!
A
decent crash course on the man past any samples on the net, it is
worth a look for those interested.
Extras
include the Compact Disc version, Bonus Track Columns
of Gray
and an on-camera interview with Humperdinck where he has some great
stories to tell and is sharper than some might think.
Next
is a more recent live action stage version of the musical classic
42nd
Street
(2019) that I had mixed feelings about. It is an uneven version of
the massive 1933 hit Warner Bros. feature film and here's our
coverage of that version, restored on Blu-ray by Warner Archive at
this link for the story and plot, et all...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14533/42nd+Street+(1933/Warner+Archive+Blu-ray
Running
133 minutes, this version has mixed energy, performances that do not
always gel and I felt some of the directing after the opening was a
little off and the show goes very slowly downhill from there. You
could do worse and the Theatre Royal Drury Line, London production
does not go cheap here, but it just did not work for me (the singing
numbers are the best) with An
American In Paris
faring better. The result is for diehard fans only.
There
are no extras.
Norman
Taurog's It
Happened At The World's Fair
(1963) is yet another restored 'Elvis Musical' where Elvis Presley
sings songs during a film, where it needs them, we remember them or
it produces a hit record or not. Made just before Viva
Las Vegas
(1964, reviewed elsewhere on this site) includes Elvis romancing a
pre-Batgirl Yvonne Craig, Joan O'Brien and a pre-2001:
A Space Odyssey
Gary Lockwood as his best friend. The other star it the title locale
(love the older technology demos and prototype car) at the 1962
Seattle World's Fair.
I
won't give away what little plot is here (though a young Kurt Russell
shows up and is not the only child almost stealing the show at times)
but the film has a decent enough pace and energy to be one of the
better mid-Elvis Musical releases. Nice to see it restored!
Extras
sadly only include an Original Theatrical Trailer.
We
have covered the first 5-DVD volume set of The
Soul Of The Midnight Special,
but now have the second volume and all 10 DVDs (1973 - 1980) to
enjoy, now available for all to see. You can read more about the
first half of the set at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15806/Dolly:+The+Ultimate+Collection+(1967+-+2019/D
The
addition gems we get this time are from Chic (Good
Times,
My
Forbidden Lover,
Le
Freak,
Everybody
Dance),
Gladys Knight & the Pips (I've
Got to Use My Imagination),
Aretha Franklin (Something
He Can Feel),
Ray, Goodman & Brown (Special
Lady,
My
Prayer),
Diana Ross (Love
Hangover),
Brick (Dazz),
The Commodores (Just
to Be Close to You,
Brick
House,
Three
Times A Lady)
Donna Summer (I
Feel Love,
Last
Dance),
The Pointer Sisters (Fire),
Billy Preston (Nothing
From Nothing),
Peaches & Herb (Shake
Your Groove Thing,
Reunited),
Evelyn 'Champagne' King (Shame)
and many others.
Putting
this second set over though is a September, 1974 Marvin
Gaye concert, shot live on tape and running just over an hour. One
of the greatest singers, writers and performers of all time, we get
classics like the Theme
from Trouble Man, Inner
City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),
Come Get This,
Keep Gettin' It On,
Distant Lover,
Let's Get It On,
Jan,
What's Going On
and a medley of other classic hits of his. More relevant
and more priceless than ever, it is another all too rare record of
one of the greatest music geniuses of all time and the best possible
way to round out this remarkable set.
Extras
repeat those of the first set and the second set adds interviews with
Thelma Houston, Loy Rawls, Earl Young of The Trammps, Teddy
Pendergrass, Robert 'Kool' Bell of Kool and the Gang, an extended,
remarkable piece with Quincy Jones and Producer Burt Sugarman. A
nicely illustrated booklet on both volumes is also included between
the two DVD cases.
Busby
Berkeley's Take
Me Out To The Ballgame
(1949) has Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as Vaudeville performers who
take summers off to play on a baseball team. Working better than
expected (and that I remembered) shows the duo definitely had
chemistry (pun intended) off the bat!
They
also have to find time for women (Esther Williams and Betty Garrett
play the love interests with wit and personality) and Edward Arnold
supplies some smarmy wit of his won in a film that deserves some sort
of rediscovery and new appreciation for working as well as it does.
It has also aged well and the script is by Kelly and Stanley Donen,
so this is one worth going out of your way for. What a pleasant
surprise!
Extras
include an Original Theatrical Trailer, Technicolor MGM cartoon The
Mouse and The Mermaid with Tom & Jerry and two deleted
musical numbers: ''Baby Doll'' and ''Boys and Girls like
You and Me''.
Finally,
we have The
Ziegfeld Follies
(1946) with multiple musical number vignettes by various director and
writers, with some great classic performances, two of the standouts
of which are by Lena Horne and Judy Garland. The idea was to
recreate what the stage version of the shows 'the Great Ziegfeld'
produced live years before and the results are mostly pretty
impressive. Fred Astaire shows up in no less than four segments,
Esther Williams takes a swim, Fanny Brice, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball,
William Frawley, Cyd Charisse, William Powell, Keenan Wynn, Virginia
O'Brien and Gene Kelly also turn up.
Vincente
Minelli is listed as the main director, which is fine, but a huge
amount of money and segments that did not make it (whether they were
finished on film or not) came and went until they came up with the
film here, which runs a just-right 117 minutes. More of it works
than not and it is definitely recommended.
Extras
include audio outtakes and rarities, an Original Theatrical Trailer,
vintage Crime Does Not Pay live-action short The Luckiest
Guy In The World, Ziegfeld Follies: An Embarrassment of Riches
featurette and two animated cartoon shorts: The Hick Chick
and Solid Serenade.
Now
for playback performance. The odd thing is that the older the
production, the better it tends to look in the case of these
productions. The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Ball
Game
and Follies
can sometimes show the age of the materials used, but this is far
superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film and have
been thoroughly restored by Warner Bros. to their original 35mm,
dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor glory, looking amazing. Then you have Ball
Game
an even biggest surprise just being all the more stunning and another
jaw-dropping gem with jaw-dropping moment after demo moment for your
regular HDTV or new 4K set. The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on World's Fair
is actually in MetroColor (originating on Eastman Kodak 35mm color
negative) and was shot with real anamorphic Panavision lenses. It
too can sometimes in spots can show the age of the materials used,
but this too is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of
the film and will stun Elvis fans who have had a great run of luck
lately with all of his hit films getting such top notch restoration
treatment.
All
three films offer
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes, but Follies
is also offered in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless sound
because MGM recorded multiple tracks by default to get the best
analog mono sound at the time in the business. Thus the tracks are
often there to create authentic stereo it is a great plus.
The
remaining four Blu-rays offer 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfers with Paris and 42nd
Street slightly older HD shoots with some motion blur and detail
limits, but decent color, Humperdinck an upscale of a low-def
show that is a very mixed bag and Gentle (as expected for
anything on Punk Rock music) a wild mix of rough old analog video,
degraded video, barely surviving film where applicable and new
digital interview footage.
Paris
and 42nd Street offer two soundtracks
in PCM 2.0 Stereo and slightly better DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, but neither have stunning
soundfields, yet the music sounds decent. Gentle
ironically offers the same audio options, but it is more uneven.
Humperdinck
is the oddest of all, with Cleopatra not getting the message that
lossy music codecs are NOT what music and blu-ray fans want, so
instead of lossless sound bringing out the best in the music, we get
a tired, weak, lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 that does the singer and his
band no favors. Making matters worse, the PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo on
the CD sounds much better and as good as any disc on the list here.
What a missed opportunity... again!
That
leaves the 1.33 X 1 analog, NTSC color footage on all 10 Soul
DVDs looks as good as can be expected for a production its age and
shockingly sports some good color the Humperdinck and the live
Blu-ray musicals lack! The second set is as solid as the first set
and all the Midnight Special DVDs we've seen over the years and
reviewed on this site. Analog videotape flaws can including video
noise, video banding, telecine flicker, tape scratching, cross color,
faded color and tape damage at times, but they are minimal. The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound on all the episodes are fine for
their age, but you'll always wish for stereo at least, but the plus
here is that most of the music acts recorded their songs live, so its
worth the extra effort to tolerate the age of the sound. Wish this
were in a lossless form.
To
order It
Happened At The World's Fair,
Take
Me Out To The Ballgame
and/or The
Ziegfeld Follies
Warner Archive Blu-rays, go to this link for them and many more great
web-exclusive
releases at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20
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Nicholas Sheffo