The Last Ride (2010/Fox Blu-ray)/Let Freedom
Ring (1939/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Paul
McCartney & Wings: Rockshow (1979/Eagle Blu-ray)/Stand Up and Fight (1939/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture: B-/C+/B-/C+ Sound: B-/C+/B/C+ Extras: C-/C-/C+/C- Films: C/C/B-/C
PLEASE NOTE: Let Freedom Ring and Stand
Up and Fight are only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Our
latest round of music-oriented releases includes some unusual entries and one
long overdue…
I waited
for Harry Thomason’s The Last Ride
(2010) for a while, a slightly fictionalized tale of the last days of the great
Hank Williams, played very well by Henry Thomas (yet, the lead of Spielberg’s E.T.) playing the role more
convincingly than he has received credit for doing. However, this has many issues including not
being able to capture the period effectively enough, not having enough
character study of Williams and unlike the also semi-fictional A Portrait Of James Dean (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) does not capture the essence of the man or era enough
to make any points.
Thus,
despite Thomas’ fine work and a nice turn by Kaley Cuoco from The Big Bang Theory, I was disappointed
made worse by all the missed opportunities I saw throughout. Fans will still want to see it for
themselves, but it does not do enough to introduce the music legend to a new
generation.
A brief
behind-the-scenes look at its making is the only extra.
The next
two films are much older, both 1939 and from MGM, a studio known for its
musicals. As well, they are not totally
Musicals of at all, also have Cowboys in their narrative and were ambitious
attempts by the studio to do something different.
Jack
Conway’s Let Freedom Ring has a
screenplay by no less than Ben Hecht with a singing, alcoholic, city lawyer
played by Nelson Eddy coming into town to help his old parents and the poorer
townspeople from being burned out of their rightly-owned property by a greedy
baron (Edward Arnold in the boo-hiss villain role) running 87 minutes, but
having even less time top tell its story because Eddy breaks out in song more
than a few times, so you get essentially a Gunsmoke-episode
length drama with some comedy, plus added music.
It is a
novel idea and an attempt to expand Eddy as a star and box office draw, but it
backfires because the makers try to do too much and not much of it good
including questioning (besides obviously how bad it is) this land being
stolen. The Western had just become a
full-fledged genre at this point, so this has more B-movie roots than it may
appear, including the music and comedy added to make up for what might be seen
as limits to the Western. That makes it
a unique film, but not a great one.
A trailer
is the only extra.
W.S. Van
Dyke II’s Stand Up and Fight (1939)
also has singing coming in during odd times, but not as much at Ring, yet it is also an odd mix of
comedy and drama as a young Robert Taylor keeps taking on a ready-to-be-brutal
Wallace Berry set in Maryland,
circa 1844. This too has to do with
shady, illegal land grabs, but this time, it is so a train can come through and
Berry is
determined to have his way no matter what.
The great
crime noir writer James M. Cain co-wrote the screenplay, but there are no
pre-Noir elements here (Noir cinema debuted in 1941) and little of this is
dark, but it is another mix of various element that do not totally gel as
expected. This too will be a curio
because of its leads, co-writer and director (who later helmed The Thin Man for MGM among others) so
it too should be in print, but it too was not very memorable. Still, it is also ambitious and those curious
should catch this one too.
A trailer
is the only extra.
Last and
best is a concertfilm that is not really a Rockumentary and was the kind of
release that marked the beginning of the end of that cycle. Filmed during their 1976 tour, Paul McCartney & Wings: Rockshow
(1979) captures his second hugely successful band in their prime featuring 30
songs here in expanded cut here (139 minutes versus 105) as he breaks his
moratorium to sing Beatles classics (Lady
Madonna, The Long & Winding Road,
Yesterday) and many of the
then-current band’s hits like the title song, Jet, Silly Love Songs, Maybe I’m Amazed, My Love, Listen To What The
Man Said, Let ‘Em In, Band On the Run and the title song to
the James Bond film Live And Let Die.
A great
show with fine performances of the hits, I still wish it were longer and there
are a few songs I would have liked to have heard (including seeing the
McCartney’s do their Uncle Albert (Admiral Halsey) chart-topping duet), but I
give the band credit for not relying on Beatles hits and he had written so many
post-Beatles hits even by this point that it is great it was all filmed
(McCartney is the actual director) and the film is a fine document of what the
band achieved musically and in showmanship.
Though
she gets bashed often for no good reason, I like Linda, was once again happy to
see her and it is sad to see her doing so well here. She deserves more respect than she gets.
Extras in
this solid DigiPak release (the cover with this review is just to indicate this
is a Blu-ray) has a nicely illustrated booklet on the film including a very informative
essay by music scholar Paul Giambaccini, while the Blu-ray disc adds A Very
Lovely Party, a nice behind-the-scenes compilation of the tour and big stars
who showed up throughout in HD from some priceless film footage. Wish there was more, but it is still a fine
release and a must-see for all serious film and music fans.
The 1080p
1.78 X 1 AVC @ 35 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer on Ride is a little limited from its
stylized shoot, but is not bad, but a more naturalistic choice (or choices)
would have made it more watchable. The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Rockshow was shot on 35mm film and despite age issues, et al, plays
just as well.
It is
obvious the film needed to be restored and for some, amounted to a lost film,
confirmed by the work done here. Much of
it is shot in the dark and we get grain, but the restoration comes from more
than just the original camera negative as stated because other footage looks
second-generation including dark footage that has slight color noise when it
should be just plain dark. So no matter
the source, the resulting clean-up and preservation can show the age of the
materials used, but is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the
film with the best color and definition reproduction you will see outside of a rare,
good film print. Under the
circumstances, some shots are not always as good as others.
Director
of Photography Jack Priestley, A.S.C., (Across
110th Street, The Midnight
Man, The First Deadly Sin) had
his share of assistants, but he creates a seamless, consistent look for the
film along with legendary editor Bill Rowe and Chris Thomas recorded the music,
so this is a top-notch production visually to the point that mo music film of
the time looks like it.
The 1.33
X 1 black and white image on the two Warner Archive DVDs definitely show the
age of their 35mm print sources and we do get some soft shots in both, but gray
scale is good for the format and they are watchable enough.
The DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Ride
is towards the front speakers and being dialogue-based is no excuse when you
have a music narrative going on. It can
be warm and is well recorded enough, but is a little disappointing.
On the
other hand, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Rockshow may not have the richest .1
LFE track, but as I just noted, this is a well-recorded and mixed film and the
clarity here (and in the fine but more limited PCM 2.0 Stereo presentation)
sound fine for their age. For Wings fans
who have the DTS CDs for Band On The Run
and Venus & Mars (long out of
print and very valuable if you can find them), those DTS 5.1 mixes have better
base, but the Blu-ray DTS-MA can more than match their clarity or the DTS off
of any other McCartney/Wings Blu-ray or DVD.
The film was originally issued ion Dolby’s old A-type analog noise
reduction system for 35mm release, so these new presentations will be a
revelation for all.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the two Warner Archive DVDs show their age, including
when music kicks in, but they are clean and clear enough and distortion is
limited considering the lossy sources.
To order Let Freedom Ring and Stand Up and Fight, go to this link for
it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
