Accidentally
Preserved: Volume 5
with Lorraine
Of The Lions
(1925*), Love
At First Flight
(1928), Hoofbeats
Of Vengeance
(1928*) and The
Fourth Commandment
(1927*/Undercrank Blu-ray)/The
Boob
(1926/MGM)/Why
Be Good?
(1929/First National/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/The
Cat and The Canary
(1927/*Universal/MVD/Eureka! Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/B/B- Sound: C+/B-/B* Extras: D/D/B Films: C+/C+ &
B-/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Boob/Why Be Good?
Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for a group of silent films that show how great these films are,
could be and are...
We
start with the Undercrank
label's great series of silent movie Blu-rays with a new double set,
Accidentally
Preserved: Volume 5
featuring four films almost totally lost, originally shot on 35mm
film, but all of those copies and originals are gone (all shot and
made on highly flammable nitrate film,) so we have four more films
presented in surviving form as best they can be from 2K scans in
conjunction with the Library of Congress. The films this time are...
Edward
Sedgwick's Lorraine
Of The Lions
(1925, 76 minutes surviving from a 16mm reversal print) reuniting
Patsy Ruth Miller and Norman Kenny from the 1923 Hunchback
Of Notre Dame
in a nature comedy where she is spoofing Tarzan, but as a female.
We've seen this often over the years, no matter the gender of the
lead, but it reminds us of how hugely successful the Edgar Rice
Burroughs books were immediately and that we still know the character
and his basic story over a century later means you'll get the jokes
here too. Not bad.
Eddie
Cline's Love
At First Flight
(1928, in a light sepia-tinted 16mm Kodascope reduction print, with
the 2-strip Technicolor sequence in cheaper, inferior Dunning Color;
see more below) is a self-distributed Mack Sennett comedy that has
some fun moments and a few chuckles. I liked this, thought it was
worthy of comedy of the time and they have a fun cat in there too.
The fascination with and love of airplane flight at the time really
shines here.
Henry
MacRae's Hoofbeats
Of Vengeance
(1928, in a 16mm light sepia and blue for night tints reduction
print) with Rex, King Of The Wild Horses, is amusing and for western
fans or even animal lovers goes with the cycle of animal adventure
films of the time that included Warner's Rin Tin Tin and into the
sound era with the likes of Lassie. Its fine for those interested,
but was made when the ideas were still fresh.
And
Emory Johnson's The
Fourth Commandment
(1927 in a multi-tinted 16mm reduction print) is a sappy melodrama
pushing the religious angle more than you would see today and maybe
hoping to evoke a connection with any Biblical epic one could think
of at the time. They could have overdone it even more, but it was
more than enough for me. All but Flight
were made by Universal.
There
are sadly no extras, but its nice these films survived just the same
and you can find more great restored silent classics by Undercrank
elsewhere on this site.
Warner
Archive has delivered a restored double feature with William A.
Wellman's The
Boob
(1926, MGM) lightly sending up the Old West and gangsters, but with
several stereotype in tow. It contrast city wealth with country
limitations, but not in any bold or challenging way, though in some
amusing ways. Joan Crawford shows up in an early role that helped
her to become the legend and big box office she would become and
there is some money and effort in the film. Only Wellman's ninth
film, he went on to direct over eighty feature films including the
1937 A
Star Is Born,
Wings
(1927,) Public
Enemy,
Safe
In Hell
(now also on Blu-ray; both 1931,) Beau
Geste
(1939,) Roxie
Hart,
The
Ox-Bow Incident
(both 1942) and Blood
Alley
(1955) making him a very successful journeyman director. You can see
some of that energy here.
William
A. Seitzer's Why
Be Good?
(1929) is the big surprise here, a film I have seen clips of before
and may have seen in full eons ago, with the incredible actress and
star Colleen Moore as a shopgirl who sees a guy (Neil Hamilton, later
Commissioner Gordon on the 1960s Adam West Batman
TV series) she really likes, not knowing he is the son of the owner
of the department store she works for. Can a beautiful poor gal and
rich guy meet, fall in love and find happiness?
Ironically
made just as The Great Depression was on the way, both have
overprotective fathers who react in different ways and the film can
have some really bold, tough moments, but it also has some great
comedy, some interesting romance and the leads have real chemistry.
Moore was one of the most beautiful actresses of her time and as hard
as this might be to believe, Hamilton was shockingly debonaire and
often so in his original run of lead roles in his time. So much so
that he could have played Bruce Wayne in a Batman film. One of the
last great films of the 1920s, to have it survive, be preserved and
issued in such pristine form is a real pleasure to see and treat to
view. Warner Bros. had bought First National Pictures about this
time with some of their massive Jazz
Singer
profits and this made them a major studio permanently.
A
big, ambitious production, it is one of my favorite silent films and
I cannot recommend it enough!
Director
Seitzer later married Laura La Plante (for a time) from Leni's The
Cat and The Canary
(see below,) directing her in a few films and became a major comedy
director working with the likes of Laurel & Hardy, The Marx
Brothers, Abbott & Costello, Carmen Miranda and even Fred Astaire
& Ginger Rogers. After watching this film, you'll see exactly
why!
There
are sadly no extras, but I hope this is just the beginning of such
releases from Warner Archive.
And
that leaves us with Paul Leni's The
Cat and The Canary
(1927,) the biggest classic here, one of the original haunted house
and lone-woman-in-the-house movies with the amazing Laura La Plante
as Annabelle West, part of a group invited to a mansion of a rich,
deceased man who gathers a group of people together to reveal who
gets what. She goes into shock when she finds out she is getting all
the money, but with one catch. If she gets to sick, physically
and/or mentally afterwards, she loses every penny and the money will
go to whomever is next on the list.
All
of them stay at the house as bad things start happening, especially
to her and by coincidence, a mad killer is on the loose. Far fetched
as that may seem, it does not hurt the film much, as the visuals and
the pace just keep on going. At the time, this was exciting, even
groundbreaking filmmaking that led to many a horror and mystery film
as director Leni really pushes the camera, editing and technology of
the time.
Those
expecting an outright horror film should know that this has some
comedy in it, but it is contextual and not slapstick, so Abbott &
Costello meeting various monsters is not what is going on here.
There is not explicit comic relief character, but the mystery is well
done, based on the original John Willard stage play that later
inspired Agatha Christie, her U.S. counterpart, the underrated Mary
Roberts Reinhart (The
Bat),
James Whale's The
Old Dark House
(1932, with Gloria Stewart (of Cameron's Titanic,)
Melvin Douglas, Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff) and La Plante
would reunite for a similar film with Leni a year after Canary
in The
Last Warning.
Even the Neil Simon comic play and movie (1976) of Murder
By Death
partly references this classic, not to mention other endless
cartoons, radio dramas, movies and TV shows that did the same.
So
if you are a serious fan of horror, mysteries and suspense, this Cat
and The Canary
is a must see!
Extras
are nice, many and include (per the press release):
Limited
Edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Graham Humphreys
1080p
HD presentation on Blu-ray from a 4K digital restoration of the
original negatives supplied by the Museum of Modern Art
DTS-HD
MA 5.1 score by Robert Israel; compiled, synchronized and edited by
Gillian B. Anderson, based on music cue sheets compiled and issued
for the original 1927 release
Brand
new audio commentary by author Stephen Jones and author / critic Kim
Newman
Brand
new audio commentary by Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby
Mysteries
Mean Dark Corners:
brand new video essay by David Cairns & Fiona Watson
Pamela
Hutchinson on The
Cat and the Canary:
brand new interview with writer and film critic Pamela Hutchinson
Phuong
Le on The
Cat and the Canary:
brand new interview with film critic Phuong Le
A
Very Eccentric Man & Yeah, a Cat!:
extracts from John Willard's original play
Lucky
Strike:
Paul Leni gives a full-throated endorsement to the product that got
him through filming The
Cat and the Canary
and
a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Richard
Combs, Craig Ian Mann, and Imogen Sara Smith.
Sadly,
many other versions of the story have been lost, but you can also
read about the decent 1978 remake with Honor Blackman (Goldfinger,
The
Avengers)
at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1585/Cat+&+The+Canary+(1978/Uncut/First+Run
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white
digital High Definition image transfer can show the age of the
materials used, but these look as good as they can for their age and
Cat
is tinted in various colors throughout, while Lions
is a brown sepia tint all the way and the rest of the Preserved
films in sepia and blue tints and maybe a few more on Commandment.
Flight
originally had some two-strip Technicolor before the company
perfected color with their three-strip process. More specifically,
they are two separate strips printed on a blank 35mm nitrate film to
give you the final color result, just after eliminating cement from
the format which was melting and left the prints falling apart.
Universal rarely used this version of the color format,but that would
soon change as sound arrived. The Warner Archive films look the best
in pristine black and white throughout, benefitting and lucking out
by being preserved early and surviving since.
As
for sound, the four films on Preserved
have lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo scores by Jon C. Mirsalis that
are decent and sound good, but also limited by the older, compressed
codec. Wish they were lossless. The Warner Archive double feature
has its music presented in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 lossless
mixes that feature a Arthur Barrow stereo music score for Boob
and the original monophonic Vitaphone soundtrack with music and sound
effects for Why
Be Good?
That both play just fine. Cat
has a score
by Robert Israel that is fine, but some might find the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix a little overpowering and
too new or new-sounding. Still, it is not bad and ambitious just the
same. You can play it lower and that might work better for you.
To
order
the
Warner Archive The
Boob/Why Be Good?
Blu-ray, go to this link for it 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
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Nicholas Sheffo