Ripley’s Believe It Or Not (1930 – 1932 theatrical shorts/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Shorts: B
For those
millions who have heard of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, few have
heard of the man behind their creation let alone seen him on film. Nevertheless, there really was a Robert L.
Ripley and he remains the creator of one of the most successful special
interest/documentary franchises of all time.
In print, on film and then on TV, he introduced the hard to believe, odd
and amusing items and concepts. This
made it perfect for film and Ripley’s
Believe It Or Not became a series of movie shorts.
Warner
Bros. was the company that picked them up with Ripley as its star and via their
Vitaphone series, produced 24 short in the 1930 – 1932 period in the early days
of sound. Despite (and even because they
are) being 80 years old, they hold up extraordinarily well and are very
entertaining. Ripley is well spoken fun
and an American original, having fun with the items to show the audience and
any usually anonymous guests that show up.
If you liked the Jack Palance or Dean Cain TV series, you’ll really
enjoy this collection.
The 1.33
X 1 black and white image throughout comes from very clean prints, the
transfers look really good and Video Black is impressive for the format. The Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono is also very good
for its age and might even come from Vitaphone sound discs versus optical mono
Warner soon switched to while keeping the Vitaphone name. The combination is impressive of its
age. There are no extras.
You can
order this and other Archive releases at this link:
www.warnerarchive.com
-
Nicholas Sheffo
