Eric
Clapton: The 1970s Review
(Chrome Dreams/MVD DVD)/The
Eddy Duchin Story
(1956/Columbia/Sony/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Freestyle:
The Art Of Rhyme
(2004/MVD Visual DVD)/Lou
Reed Tribute (MVD DVD Set
with Sacred
Triangle/Velvet
Underground Under Review/Punk
Revolution NYC, Pt. 1)/The
Strawberry Statement
(1970/MGM)/What Price
Hollywood?
(1932/RKO/Warner Archive DVDs)/Wild
On The Beach (1965/Fox
Cinema Archive DVD)
Picture:
C+/B-/C/C+/C+/C+/C Sound: C+/B-/C+/C+/C/C/C+ Extras:
C/C+/B-/C/C-/D/C- Main Programs: B/C+/B-/B/C+ (B- for longer
European cut)/B/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Eddy Duchin Story
Blu-ray is limited to 3.000 copies, issued as a limited edition is
now only available from our friends at Twilight Time and can be
ordered from the link below., while The
Strawberry Statement
& What
Price Hollywood?
are only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series and can be ordered from their link below.
A
really nice set of music and heavily-music related titles have
arrived at once, so we've grouped them together so you can hear all
about them...
Eric
Clapton: The 1970s Review
(presented in an anamorphic 1.78 X 1 aspect ratio) runs 2 hours, 31
minutes and joins a nice long line of Clapton-related releases we
have covered over the years that you can find out more about at this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=clapton
This
one starts with Clapton trapped in Cream as the other members
increasingly start to collide, a problem that had him leaving The
Yardbirds to begin with. As it also covers his personal life,
addition issues, relationship twists and industry work, it manages to
get to his sadly single album as part of Derek & The Dominoes.
Layla was just issued as a new
all-audio Blu-ray version from Universal dubbed a Pure Music disc,
but is it no a 5.1 sound mix release like the terrific 5.1 SA-CD we
covered a few years ago at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2327/Derek+&+The+Dominoes+-+Layla+&+Other+Assort
After
that and some other highs and lows, the program deals with his
sometimes controversial rise as a solo artist, experiencing the same
critique that some other outright rockers were at the time for doing
laid back music, no matter how good or popular it was. Well done,
this includes some rare footage and is highly recommended.
Extras
include contributor biographies, and the Inside
The Layla Sessions
featurette, running just over 11 minutes.
George
Sidney's The
Eddy Duchin Story
(1956) is a big budget music biopic from a Columbia Pictures on the
rise with Tyrone Power in the title role of a pianist trying to get
work, respect and a better life with his piano-playing talents.
Things lookup when he starts to fall for a socialite (an early star
turn by Kim Novak) but no matter how much better the future looks,
something happens to set him back. A melodrama with some smarts,
James Whitmore has a nice early turn as his agent in a major
supporting role and this film holds up better than you might expect.
Sidney
(Annie
Get Your Gun,
the 1952 Show
Boat
remake, Bye
Bye Birdie,
Viva
Las Vegas)
had a knack for seamlessly melding music and drama, which he proves
here to most serious effect. This is a grand drama meant to be a big
event picture and though it is not discussed as much as it ought to
be, Sony and Twilight Time's Limited Edition Blu-ray more than does
justice to an involving love story that goes beyond mere man/woman
affairs.
Extras
include the Original Theatrical Trailer and an Isolated Music &
Sound Effects track that is not as bass-heavy as the film, but has
clarity and depth the film can lack in its mixing.
D.J.
Organic's Freestyle:
The Art Of Rhyme
(2004) has been reissued by MVD Visual on DVD, but we got to review
it's earlier DVD edition at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2257/Freestyle+-+The+Art+Of+Rhyme+(Palm+DVD
Rap
may have been in steady decline since this documentary arrived, but
it is holding in there due in part to a lack of new music genres or
any music excitement. That makes watching this one again most
interesting. Fans of the genre will want to put this in their
must-see list if they managed to miss it all these years.
Extras
are all repeated from the original DVD release include a few
trailers, a late night rhyme session, four deleted/additional scenes,
and a six-segment section of more freestyling and interviews. I said
that some of the latter should have stayed in the main feature and
stick with that all these years later.
With
his death, Music Video Distributors has issued a 3 DVD set in a box
dubbed the Lou
Reed Tribute
and includes The
Velvet Underground: Under Review,
Punk
Revolution NYC, Pt. 1
(with limited overlap) and The
Sacred Triangle,
which we reviewed at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10911/Brian+Eno+%E2%80%93+The+Man+Who+Fell+To
The
Velvet Underground: Under Review
(letterboxed 1.78 X 1) runs a strong 84 minutes and as for extras,
includes contributor biographies, a tough quiz on the band and
featurette Velvet
Reflections.
It is very thorough about the early years of the people who became
members of the band (not including Nico, who still gets enough of a
background, but deserves her own program) and we see how Andy Warhol
made them his house band and used his name power to get their
roughly-themed debut album signed to a major record label. An
all-time classic, The
Velvet Underground & Nico
(we recommend the Pure Audio all audio Blu-ray Universal just issued
in the U.S. to hear it at its best) was a dud and took a while to
even get released.
The
band left Warhol and Nico behind, developing into their own entity
and eventually, legends. Squeezing much into its short length, it
has limited overlap with the also impressive Punk
Revolution NYC, Pt. 1
(1.33 X 1) running a bit longer at 87 minutes and its extras also
include contributor biographies, but add a nice featurette: Anarchy
In The UK – The New Yorkers Cross The Atlantic.
It points to the VU as they are known as eventual Punk giants, but
also tells us about more obscure bands and makes us want to see the
Pt. 2.
A
fine box set worthy of Reed, it is worth getting as all three main
programs alone are worth having.
Stuart
Hagmann's The
Strawberry Statement
(1970) is here because of its relation to some of the other releases
here in era and in politics, but seeing the returns on Altman's
M*A*S*H
and their own Antonioni hit Blow
Up
(both reviewed elsewhere on this site) MGM backed this film and
Antonioni's Zabriskie
Point
expecting big returns, but despite their ambitions, neither performed
at the box office as was hoped. Point
has music by The Pink Floyd while Statement
manages to have protesters sing the Lennon-McCartney classic Give
Peace A Chance
in a key scene while also sporting the original hit versions of
Helpless
and Our
House
by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Long
Time Gone
by Crosby, Stills & Nash, The
Loner
and Down
By The River
by Neil Young and
The
Circle Game
penned by Joni Mitchell and sung by Buffy Sainte-Marie. If Mike
Nichols' The
Graduate
(1967) was the inspiration, the film is trying to take the music use
into a more serious political direction.
Not
that we have no comedy here. Bruce davidson is a college student
more interested in being jokey, getting his degree, being part of the
rowing team and chasing women than anything overtly political, but he
pretends to get involved more when he wants to sleep with a protester
(Kim Darby) and that eventually gets him involved in the more serious
goings on. Arriving around the time of the Kent State Massacre, the
film was timely and may not always work, but its attitude, sense of
freedom, energy in ideas and ability of being a time capsule without
being stale is remarkable, especially in the longer European Cut.
The edited version cuts out some agit-prop and takes away from the
story (and therefore humanity and character development) of the
leads, their friends and why they were protesting to begin with.
Bud
Cort, Bob Balaban, Murray MacLeod, Kristina Holland and David Dukes
plays some of the many student protesters, while James Coco plays a
grocer, Bert Remsen a police officer and historical figures show up
in archival footage with some impact. Robert Chartoff and Irwin
Winkler (Point Blank, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?,
Up The Sandbox, Raging Bull, the Rocky films)
made this one of their earliest and most ambitious film
co-productions ever and the film may not always have major impact,
but it is a key work everyone involved can be proud of and one that
deserves serious rediscovery. Its honesty, especially in the longer
version, is sometimes uncanny and as relevant as ever. If you have
never seen the film, this DVD set has both cuts of the film.
A
trailer is sadly the only extra.
George
Cukor's What
Price Hollywood?
(1932) is the first and only black and white version of the film he
would remake twice (in Technicolor!) as A
Star Is Born,
but this first version was made at RKO with Constance Bennett as the
star on the rise, Neil Hamilton as her sober husband, Lowell Sherman
as the big star who gives her her break as he becomes increasingly
alcoholic (that role would be the husband in the 3 remakes (see
elsewhere on this site) that have happened so far) in a slightly more
comical version of the tale that more than holds its own after 82+
years and counting.
Even
then, Cukor was a master filmmaker and storyteller, which more than
shows in scene after scene and he also knew how to handle talent,
juggle it and nurture it. There are some great twists here, some
fine pieces of dialogue, a few laughs and more in the kind of film
that helped put RKO on the map. This too is a gem everyone should
see.
There
are sadly no extras.
Finally
we have Maury
Dexter's Wild
On The Beach
(1965) trying to be hip by combining comedy and groovy music. The
only music act most will recognize is the first appearance on the big
screen of Sonny & Cher as themselves playing at a beach house,
though The Astronauts are a riot here with their song Speedy
Gonzales. That also gives you an idea of how slightly politically
incorrect this all is. The story (what there is of it) has a college
gal finding out guys are staying at the house she is about to
inherit, which could get them all in trouble with the gatekeepers of
the campus, so madness ensues until they can get things settled, but
a slight battle of the sexes is on the way.
Most
amusing about the film is that when it tires to be funny, it rarely
works, yet between that, many unintentionally funny moments and its
odd ideas about groovy music, there are more than enough howls and
chuckles to go out of your way to catch this one. Frankie Randall
and Sherry Jackson are the teen leads, while Cindy Malone (playing
herself apparently) singing Run Away From Him while a record
producer plans to hit on her is a camp classic all in itself.
A
trailer is the only extra on this web-only release from Fox Cinema
Archives.
Despite
being the second oldest release on the list production wise, the
1080p 2.55 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Eddy
may have a print that can show the age of the materials used, but
this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film
and being the only Blu-ray on this list is the best performer on the
list. Originally issued in 35mm
dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor version of the film, you can
see in many places how good it must have looked in such copies in
this usually solid transfer. Director of Photography Harry Stradling
Sr. (My
Fair Lady,
Funny
Girl,
Johnny
Guitar,
Hitchcock’s Suspicion,
Gypsy)
as usual uses the very widescreen frame to its fullest extent, pushed
the color to its limits without it ever looking overdone and makes
this one of the finest earlier uses of the wider CinemaScope frame.
Thanks to Blu-ray, you can see the full compositions and experience
their impact.
On
the other side, the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Freestyle and black & white 1.33 X 1 image on Beach
(which has a note that the image is formatted to old 1.33 X 1 analog
TV screens, but looks like a 1.33 X 1 shoot to me) that are just
softer than they ought to be (Freestyle looks a little softer
than the older DVD, but needs a Blu-ray release) though are watchable
enough. Beach has some nice shots at its best. That leaves
the rest of the documentary programs from Chrome Dreams with their
various aspect ratios falling in between with usually decent picture
quality along with the fine 1.33 X 1 black and white image on Price,
which has some amazing shots for its time.
As
for sound, Eddy
offers a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix that has
some of the traveling dialogue and sound effects the mix originally
designed for 4-track magnetic sound would have had more explicitly
had it been available for this release.
That
leaves the older dramatic films with lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono and
the newer documentary music releases with lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo. Unfortunately, the sound on both versions of Strawberry
and on Price
are lower in volume and more compressed than I would have liked.
You
can order
The
Eddy Duchin Story
limited edition Blu-ray while supplies last at this link:
www.screenarchives.com
… and
to order either of the Warner Archive DVDs The
Strawberry Statement
and What
Price Hollywood?
at this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases, go
to:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
