Fibber
McGee & Molly Double Feature: Here We Go Again
(1942)/Heavenly
Days (1944/RKO/Warner
Archive DVD)/Jewtopia
(2013/Cinedigm/Flatiron Blu-ray w/DVD)
Picture:
C+/B- & C Sound: C/B & C+ Extras: D/C- Films:
C+/C-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Fibber
McGee & Molly
DVD is only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are some comedies that show how hard comedy can be and how odd it can
get, all of which have their political incorrectness.
The
Fibber McGee & Molly Double Feature: Here We Go Again
(1942)/Heavenly
Days (1944) features two
feature film appearances by real life couple Jim and Marian Jordan as
the insanely successful radio couple of the massive hit radio comedy.
They made four feature films in character (three for RKO including
two here, one for Paramount) and they have as much charm on cameras
as they have on the microphone. Again
has them as supporting characters to Edgar Bergen with his famous
mannequin Charlie McCarthy, band leader Ray Noble shows up as does
the great Gale Gordon as a real so and so stealing money and an
invention from their friend Wallace Wimple (Bill Thompson, known as
the voice of the animated character Droopy for MGM) and the rascal
must be stopped.
Harold
Perry is here as The Great Gildersleeve and this does have some
amusing moments, including some odd animation and fine supporting
actors, plus Iron Eyes Cody and the terrific Sterling Holloway show
up in uncredited turns that are a plus, yet we get phony Hollywood
Injuns and that gets in
the way of an already short 77 minutes. Still, there are some good
laughs here and this is better than I expected. Allan Dwan directed
this one nicely enough.
Days
features the couple up front as Fibber is visited by a historical
figure (Jordan playing the fife player in a famous patriotic
painting) to go and show average Americans are great in what is
essentially as silly take-off of Capra's Mr.
Smith Goes To Washington
(1939) at only 71 minutes and is joined by Eugene Pallette and
Barbara Gale are among the supporting cast. Not as good as Again,
it is still amusingly goofy and worth a look. Howard Estabrook
directed.
There
are no extras, not even a few of the radio episodes of the hit show.
I
did not know what to expect from Bryan Fogel's Jewtopia
(2013) as the name alone sounds anti-semitic, but this was made by
Jewish Americans, et al, and attempts to be a comedy about a
non-Jewish guy (Ivan Sergei) falls for a Jewish gal (Jennifer Love
Hewitt) but understands he'll have to be Jewish to make this happen,
but he is not. He turns to his best friend (Joel David Moore) to
teach him
how to be Jewish! A hideous, offensive idea to begin with, is there
rally any way to make this very, very bad idea work? No.
Still,
they torturously try for 90 long, tired minutes and the exceptionally
hideous dialogue (written to be as idiotic as possible) is mess.
There is talent here actually trying to make this work like Kevin
Pollack, Jon Lovitz, Wendie Mallick, Nicolette Sheridan, Jamie-Lynn
Sigler, Peter Stormare, Rita Wilson and even Tom Arnold, but it turns
out to be doomed form the start and is one of the worst things I have
suffered through in the last few years, which says something.
A
trailer is the only extra for obvious reasons.
The
1.33 X 1 black and white image on the two Molly films are not
bad for their age and though the look and detail might be slightly
off, the prints just make up enough for it that they look better
overall than the softer-than-expected, anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X
1 image on the Jewtopia DVD. But its 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital
High Definition image Blu-ray transfer looks better than any of the
DVDs here, except that fine detail is a little off and the look has a
fakeish color scheme in both formats throughout.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Molly
shows its age and has some expected sonic limits, but it is a little
softer since it seem a little lighter or transferred at a lower
level, so be careful of volume switching or high levels. The DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1
lossless mix on Jewtopia
is dialogue (and allegedly joke) based for starters, but I was very
surprised by the full, rich, consistent, warm soundfield throughout.
Too bad it is a dud. The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on its DVD version looses more of the quality
than expected.
You
can order the Fibber
McGee & Molly
DVD by going to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive
releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
