Christopher
Strong
(1933/RKO*)/In
Love And War
(1996/New Line*)/The
Last Picture Show 4K
(1971/Sony/Columbia/Criterion 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)/Rapa
Nui
(1994/*all Warner Archive Blu-rays)/Return
To Dust
(2022/Film Movement DVD)/The
Scarlet Letter
(1934/Film Masters Blu-ray)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: B/B-/B/B-/C/B- Sound:
B-/B/B-/B/C+/B- Extras: C/C-/B+/C-/C/B Films:
B-/C+/A-/C+/C+/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Christopher
Strong,
In Love And War
and Rapa
Nui
Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
As
another awards
season begins for all of us, with all the Hollywood strikes now
apparently over, here comes a group of mostly older dramas save,
restored and to reconsider...
Dorothy
Arzner's Christopher
Strong
(1933) is
a remarkable early sound film with an amazing early performance by
Katharine Hepburn as a socialite who also happens to be a really
skilled airplane pilot and flies bi-planes (et, al) all the time.
Colin Clive (Dr. Frankenstein in the hit landmark Frankenstein
from Universal in the same time period) is the title character, a
well-to-do society guy she meets by accident (he is racing his
motorcycle while she races her Bugatti (!) and they sort of wreck)
getting involved in a silly scavenger hunt from a bet at a high
society party.
They
land up falling hard for each other, we get several connected
subpliots and RKO
really puts the dog on with some amazing sets and one of the best
wardrobes of any film at the time. Director Arzner was the only
major female director the time (soon to be followed by Ida Lupino,
also at RKO) and the result is an involving drama with great, likable
characters who are accessible (not easy, as this was released during
The Great Depression) with a really smart screenplay backed by a
great supporting cast in what was Hepburn's first of many lead roles.
I
had not seen the film for a good while and even forgot how impressive
it was, very little of it aging badly or poorly, which says something
for a film being issued in this restored edition on its 90th
Anniversary. It is also a special portrait of a rising U.S. pre-WWII
and can go a few rounds with any similar classy production from any
other studio in the world at the time. David O. Selznick produced
and I highly recommend this one to all serious film fans.
Extras
include two live action shorts (Plane
Nuts
and Tomalio)
and the cartoon Buddy's
Beer Garden.
Sir
Richard Attenborough's In
Love And War
(1996) is the late, great actor/director's attempt to pull off
another biopic as he had with Gandhi
and Chaplin,
focusing on the early war years of a young Ernest Hemingway (Chris
O'Donnell, better here than he got credit for) gets injured during
his time serving in WWI when he meets a nurse (Sandra Bullock, who
get top billing over him) whom he stars to fall for.
The
film is trying to show the events that inspired Hemingway's
masterpiece novel A
Farewell To Arms
and that part makes sense, but this sometimes becomes too
sentimental, though we also get some epic battles, so it is not a
confined melodrama that runs on and on in that direction. New Line,
when they were still independent, had Oscar awards hope for this film
despite it not going through their Fine Line division.
The
leads are convincing enough and the rest of the cast are fine, as is
the production design, costumes and the line. It is successful in
feeling and looking like the period it is in and has a decent budget,
all the more convincing in the pre-digital era, making it one of the
latter and last of such films. It is for that reason it was overdue
for a reissue and this disc is not bad.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra, but maybe it could
have used a few more extras?
Peter
Bogdanovich's The
Last Picture Show 4K
(1971) is
seeing its second release in 4K, so important a film it is, but this
time, it is Criterion issuing it, even if it is only the longer
Director's Cut that I thought worked even better than the already
remarkable theatrical edition. Criterion has been giving this
classic the deluxe treatment since their 12-LaserDisc box set of the
film back in the analog home video era. Now, we get what is is
pretty much the best edition of it or any film in 4K or otherwise out
there, making it one of the biggest and best releases of the year.
It
includes their older Blu-ray version that they included in the
outstanding America
Lost & Found: The BBS Story
box set we covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10817/America+Lost+&+Found:+The+BBS+Story+(Head/
Looking
at the film yet again, as I do every few years, I get and see new
things out of it all the time, like any true classic and especially
now glutted by mostly sloppy, digital video shoots, its monochromatic
cinematography is as beautiful and stunning as ever, so clean, clear
and crisp, yet with its own rare, special one-of-a-kind style, it
remains one of the best-looking films ever made and offers its own
private world, character study and privileged look into the private
lives of all of its extremely well developed and realized characters.
That Bogdanovich pulled this off so early in his career, you can see
why he became such a big deal at the time, and even with issues later
in his career, he never stopped trying to make another great film
(The
Cat's Meow
is the closest he came to it) and remains one of the great filmmakers
to this day.
Then
you have the often young cast, who just turn out remarkable
performance after remarkable performance and seeing Cybill
Shepherd, Jeff Bridges and Randy Quaid has a bittersweet quality that
speaks to the greatness of acting, star power and pure cinema in this
one of so many brilliant works that re-remind us of the Hollywood
period of 1965 to 1982 being the last serious Golden Age of cinema.
Now that Sony/Columbia has further taken grade-A care of the film, it
can more than speak for itself with its greatness starting at frame
one and never quitting until the very end.
If
you have somehow never seen this film, it is a must see and
definitely see it NOW!!!
Extras
exceed all previous editions and include yet another
high quality, nicely illustrated booklet on the film including
informative text, an excellent essay by film critic Graham Fuller and
excerpts from an interview with Bogdanovich about Texasville,
with a new introduction by Bogdanovich biographer Peter Tonguette,
while the discs add Texasville
(1990), the sequel to The
Last Picture Show,
presented in both the original theatrical version and a
black-and-white version [with mixed results] of Peter Bogdanovich's
director's cut, produced in collaboration with cinematographer
Nicholas von Sternberg
• Two
audio commentaries, featuring Bogdanovich and actors Cybill Shepherd,
Randy Quaid, Cloris Leachman, and Frank Marshall
• Three
documentaries about the making of the film
• Q&A
with Bogdanovich from 2009
• Screen
tests and location footage
• Introduction
to Texasville
featuring Bogdanovich, Shepherd, and actor Jeff Bridges
• Excerpts
from a 1972 television interview with filmmaker Francois Truffaut
about the New Hollywood
• and
Trailers.
Kevin
Reynolds' Rapa
Nui
(1994) is an ambitious, Kevin Costner-produced film that has the
actor/producer trying to add on and recapture what made his
blockbuster Dances
With Wolves
a success, with Jason Scott Lee and Esai Morales as best friends,
whose friendship goes sour when they fall for the same woman
(Sandrine Holt) as what we now also know as easter island is being
built.
Things
get worse when a civil war starts to develop there and they continue
to track on opposite sides. With a large supporting cast, this
pre-digital production has appreciated well enough, though it is also
bogged down a bit with some melodrama and predictability that never
helped it, but the leads are very good here and it is well shot.
Ultimately, it is worth a look for those interested and reminds me
yet again how underrated Scott, Morales and Holt are. Had this been
a bigger hit, they would have really benefitted. Reynolds, whose
worked with Costner a few times, handles this as well as possible.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.
Li
Ruijun's Return
To Dust
(2022) has a couple (Wu Renlin, Hai Qing) pushed unwillingly into
being married and live on a farm owned by Ma (Renlin) that has only
been so successful if that. When they start working it again, they
luck out and the crops succeed wildly, then they start to get along
and have a relationship that is unexpectedly decent. However, just
when they think it is all maybe going to work out, new instances and
occurrences start to chip away at it all.
This
is not bad, but a long 134 minutes and the film is slow-moving, as
you might expect for the location and themes, but it does pull off
some character development and character study to its credit.
Unfortunately, it can also have more than a few off, flat moments and
be a bit predictable in parts, so the results are often mixed.
Still, this is very ambitious and those interested with patience
might want to give it a look.
Extras
include Trailers and a short film, Luo
Runxiao's Hair Tie, Ego Homework Books
(15 minutes long, from China) about a young woman who has to give a
speech, but has misgivings already when she runs into someone from
her past.
Robert
G. Vagnola's The
Scarlet Letter
(1934) is an early sound film and one of the better adaptions of the
Nathaniel Hawthorne classic novel about a woman publicly scorned and
humiliated for just being a woman under circumstances that are
absolutely no ones business, but the tale has its political and moral
arguments to make and does that all well. Coleen Moore plays poor
Esther Prynne, trapped in a world of ignorance and pain, one that
helped inspire aspects of Margaret Atwood's modern classic A
Handmaid's Tale.
I
was impressed with how dense and convincing the atmosphere and
situations were, a real triumph for any film of the period, playing
17th
Century Massachusetts as nightmarish and sad, with no way out and
where any progress seems to come with plenty or regress. This is, of
course, as intended, but we are sadly also reminded of how times have
not changed, especially in the last few years. Moore carries the
film well and the supporting cast is very convincing, including Alan
Hale, William Farnum, Hardie Albright, Cora Sue Collins and Virginia
Howell. At only 71 minutes, this does an amazing job at adapting the
book and its spirit. Glad it got saved!
Extras
include a quality,
nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and
an essay by Professor and author Jason A. Ney, who (per the press
release) joins us for an in-depth look at this historic film, joined
by special guest, Cora Sue Collins; written essay by Ney; Ballyhoo
Motion Pictures presents "A
Sin of Passion: Hawthorne in Film,"
featuring a new interview with author, Justin Humphreys; original
production, "Salem
and the Scarlet Letter,"
with archival footage provided by producer Sam Sherman of Salem,
Mass., narrated by John Carradine; and a new interview with Sherman,
"Revealing
the Scarlet Letter."
Now
for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, Dolby
Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition
image on Last
Picture Show 4K
is scanned from the original camera negative and is absolutely
stunning, has tons of great demo shots and is one of the best black
and white transfers on any disc in home video history. Some shots
might not be as stunning as others, but like Hitchcock's Psycho
4K,
it is practically like watching an actual film print. This outdoes
the then-impressive Criterion Blu-ray included and repeated here that
was from a 35mm master positive print. That was a revelation in its
time, but had some slight flaws and many of them have been corrected,
fixed and smoothed over without you being able to see the difference.
Sony issued the film in 4K in a 4K Classics
set before, but we do not have that version to compare. With that
said, it might have looked about the same, but I doubt it looked
better than this!
The
PCM 1.0 Mono is just a little better on the 4K edition than the
regular Blu-ray, but this is a quiet film, yet the use of music and
dialogue meld so well with the ideas of silence and ambient sound
that it is smarter and more complex than it might first seem,
especially in an era of overly loud films with 12-tracks, endless
digital tricks and all kinds of subwoofer sound.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfers on Christopher
Strong
and Scarlet
Letter can
show the age of the materials used, but Strong
looks better after some great work, turning out to be one of the
better survivors of the extensive work all the RKO feature films have
needed. Rear projection is obvious, but so much of this looks so
good and being the characters are rich and of means, the film looks
it from the sets to the clothes, cars, situations and much more.
Both also offer DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless sound off of the best surviving
monophonic sound elements and the results and sound as good as they
likely ever will.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on both In
Love And War
and Rapa
Nui
were both shot in real 35mm anamorphic Panavision and take advantage
of the format, but are both a little softer than they should be.
This suggests older but still decent HD masters, though War
has some of its softness coming from its style choices at times.
Color is good in both cases, but could be a bit better and daylight
could look slightly better in both cases in many shots. Both also
offer DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes that fare better and pretty well
for their age and early digital sound releases. Whether they could
benefit from DTS: X and/or Dolby Atmos upgrades could work for either
film, but they sound about as good as they can otherwise.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.55 X 1 image on Return
To Dust
has an unusual aspect ratio, but it is softer than I would have liked
and could have looked better, while the two soundtracks, lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, are a little better
with each having their strengths and weaknesses. Wonder if this
could benefit from an HD presentation.
To
order the Christopher
Strong,
In Love And War
and/or Rapa
Nui
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
-
Nicholas Sheffo
