Abbott & Costello – The Funniest Routines DVD
Set (Colgate Comedy Hour
Compilation) + Little Rascals In Color –
Volume 2 (Monochrome & Colorized Set)+ The Tony Curtis Double Feature (Houdini/Those Daring Young
Men In Their Jaunting Jalopies) +
The Vincent Price Double Feature (House
On Haunted Hill/Last Man On Earth/Legend
Films DVDs)
Picture:
C/C/C+/C+ Sound: C+ (Costello: C) Extras: C/C+/C-/C+ Main Programs: B-/C+ Films: C+/C+/B-/B-
I expect
2011 to be a great year for buried treasures on DVD and Legend Films is already
proving me correct with four new releases, which include previous material we
have covered, but not necessarily from them, so we get interesting variations
on the following releases.
Abbott & Costello – The
Funniest Routines
is another of many non-feature film DVDs we have covered form one of the
greatest comedy teams ever, but this time, we get select skits from their live
performances on The Colgate Comedy Hour
which shows them in the same prime form as their feature films and TV
series. The latest look at their filmed
TV series is at this link, with further links to other releases of that
material:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10745/Abbott+&+Costello+Show+%E2%80
What I
liked about this set is how each skit was identified with new color text over
the image before each classic skit began.
Fans and those interested will like that approach and the skits are
funny. The 1.33 X 1 image on Costello is from old kinescopes
(possibly saved on 16mm film) and they are good for their age, while the Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono is also a little weak and aged, but these are good for the
source, especially as compared to so many kinescope releases on DVD we’ve seen.
Extras
includes colorized versions of the duo doing Who’s On First at the Hollywood Canteen, a trailer for Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein,
several commercials they did for EZ Pop Popcorn and another good one they did
for Campbell’s Soup. I wish they were
all also in black & white, but these are the only versions.
The Little Rascals In Color –
Volume 2 boasts
the shorts are in color, but it is Colorized versions that look terrible. However, all 10 main shorts are also included
in their original Monochrome/Black & White versions with more detail and
depth. Those titles include:
1) Dogs Is Dogs
2) Glove Tap
3) Male & Female
4) Rushin’ Ballet
5) Bear Facts
6) Sprucin’ Up
7) The Pooch
8) For Pete’s Sake
9) Bored Of Education
10) Pups Is Pups
All are
pre-MGM shorts. Our Gang Follies Of 1938 is a short included in the bonus section
that is the only other one with sound from the same period, while three other
shorts are all silent (1923) and are either Dippy Doo-Dads silent animal shorts
(Be Honest! is the only one here) or
Pathe’/Hal Roach silents (Dogs Of War
actually spoofs WWI, High Society
sends up class division). These are
decent discs and until Blu-rays roll around of their antics, the black and
whiter footage here will be as key as the sets we recently covered at these
links:
Warner
Archive/MGM Our Gang Collection
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8991/The+Our+Gang+Collection+(aka+The
Genius Little Rascals – Complete Collection
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7707/The+Little+Rascals+%E2%80%93+The
The 1.33
X 1 image is not bad in the black & white footage, but the colorized
footage is ugly, dull and silly. The
silent bonus shorts are much rougher, but nice to see and they have new music I
was not interested in. The sound shorts
are in good Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.
The Tony Curtis Double Feature is a nice, convenient reissue of
two films from Legend we have already covered, so here they are with their
respective links:
Houdini
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7242/Houdini+(1953/Legend+DVD/Paramoun
Those Daring Young Men In Their
Jaunting Jalopies
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7274/Legend+Films+DVDs+(Baby+It%E2%8
Finally,
we get The Vincent Price Double Feature
with two titles we have covered before, but not in Legend’s editions. They are:
House On Haunted Hill (Acme/VCI vs. Key/20th
Century Fox DVD versions) with the Acme disc including Last Man On Earth in a double feature disc:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3360/The+House+on+Haunted+Hill+(Acme/
plus Last Man On Earth in its MGM DVD
edition with The Omega Man remake:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6388/The+Omega+Man+(HD-DVD/Warner)
At 1.33 X
1, the black & white version of Hill
(which you can only access as an extra in the extras section!!!) is the best
version we have seen on DVD to date and will be the one to recommend until
someone does a Blu-ray edition. The
colorized version is lame and the worst version we have seen to date and that
says something. As for Earth, the Acme/VCI edition seems the
widest and most accurate transfer, showing more of the CinemaScope frame than
the MGM DVD, but the MGM has a few detail advantages. Some could argue that it is cheating by
losing some of the image on the sides slightly.
The Legend version (which is anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1) looks
more like the MGM frame and is just fine, but the MGM narrowly is better. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on both show their
age and are also just fine, though the MGM has the best sound for Earth.
Extras on
Earth include Price hosting a
Western-themed episode of It Happened In
Hollywood, while Hill adds a
look at its original pressbook and a feature length audio commentary track by
Mike Nelson (of Mystery Science Theater
3000, among others). Both have
trailers for these films and a few other Horror offerings from Legend, but
colorized.
- Nicholas Sheffo
