King
Of Kings
(1927, 1928/Flicker Alley Blu-ray Set)/Little
American
(1917/MVD/VCI Blu-ray w/DVD)/Pokes
& Jabbs: 12 Comedy Shorts
(1912 - 1917/Lubin/Vim/Jaxon/Split Reel Blu-ray)
Picture:
B-/B- & C+/B- Sound: B-/B- & C+/C+ Extras: B/B-/C
Films: B-
Now
for more silent classics and gems saved....
Cecil
B. DeMille's The
King Of Kings
(1927, 1928) is the silent epic, first version of the story of the
life, death and resurrection of Jesus (Henry Byron Warner) under this
title, a remarkable epic in its own right, even if you are an
atheist, its easy to appreciate how out of his way DeMille went to
make this film. Of course, he spices it up with sex and violence,
but it was a formula that served him well throughout his life and in
this genre in particular, peaking with his remake of his 1923 The
Ten Commandments
in 1954.
With
a huge cast of mostly unknowns today (Montagu Love shows up as a
Centurion,) the film goes all out for its time, including in its
budget, long before sound and full color, let alone in the digital
era. Now more than ever, you can see and appreciate how much hard
work had to go into this and why many things here hold up better than
anyone could have expected at the time. Still built to last,
corniness and all, it is one of the big films of the late 1920s. I
like the longer Roadshow cut better, though not so much that I think
it is better than the other, shorter cut.
The
Roadshow has more to offer worth seeing, but it goes on for so much
longer, that I barely justifies the longer cut, though you do see
more. Not my favorite genre, the silent King
Of Kings
is still one of its key entries and this Flicker Alley Blu-ray set
offers the best-ever way to see it.
Extras
include a Feature Length Audio
Commentary by Marc Wanamaker (Roadshow Version ONLY at 161 minutes
vs. 115 for General Release version) Explore the history and enduring
legacy of The
King of Kings
with historian Marc Wanamaker
Two
Versions for One Film
- A short featurette that explains the differences between both
included versions of The
King of Kings
The
Making of The
King of Kings
- Twenty minutes of behind the scenes footage from throughout the
production with commentary by Marc Wanamaker
The
King of Kings
Premieres in Germany - Silent footage from the film's premiere in
Germany
Negative
A / Negative B
- A short featurette exploring the filming process that led to
multiple negatives
Technicolor
- A look into the innovative process behind the film's color
sequences
Hand
Coloring Onto the Film
- A look at the painstaking process used to colorize individual
elements of various scenes
Pathe
Week on Broadway
- A promotional cartoon short from 1927 that officially announces
the release of The
King of Kings
Extensive
Galleries
- Behind the scenes stills, concept art, posters, and documentation
collected from archives all over the world
and
a Souvenir Booklet featuring an essay on the production by Robert S.
Birchard and notes on the restoration and alternate versions by
Serge Bromberg.
Cecil
B. DeMille's The
Little American
(1917) is not as epic as the later DeMille film above, but Mary
Pickford made it into another hit with DeMille (their second film
together) as she plays the title character (Angela Moore) who
survived being almost killed when a German U-Boat sinks the ship she
is in sea!
Then
she is trapped by the Germans in France and has to fight back. This
landed up being one of the first WWI dramas that Hollywood put out
and it went over well, a propaganda piece and melodrama that works
pretty well but has some highlights (along with Pickford in action)
beyond the messages the film offers. Running a tight 85 minutes, its
nice to see yet another Pickford gem survive and shows us once again
why she was such a huge star in her day. Definitely worth a look.
Extras
include a
feature length audio commentary track by Marc Wanamaker, author &
film historian
Liner
Notes/Pictorial Booklet by the Mary Pickford Foundation
Extensive
Photo Gallery by Tiffany L Clayton
and
A
Lodging for the Night,
an American Biograph short film released May 9th, 1912. Newly
mastered in HD with an original score by Adam Chavez.
Last
but not least
is a rare set of silent shorts from a short-lived studio that
released good work. Pokes
& Jabbs: 12 Comedy Shorts
(1912 - 1917) features remarkably well made, energetic, funny short
comedies from the Lubin Studios, later the Vim Studios and Jaxon
Studios. The titles refer to that actors playing the two characters
Pokes (Bobby Burns) and Jabbs (Walter Stull) making up a good comedy
team more people should know about.
The
main shorts here include:
A
Visit To Livelytown
(Lubin, 1912)
A
Pair Of Birds
(Vim, 1915)
Pressing
Business
(Vim, 1915)
Ups
& Downs
(Vim, 1915)
Behind
The Footlights
(Vim, 1916)
A
Dollar Down
(Vim, 1916)
Wait
A Minute
(Vim, 1916)
Strictly
Business
(Vim, 1916)
Hot
Dogs
(Vim, 1916)
The
Property Man
(Vim, 1916)
Jolly
Tars
(Jaxon, 1917)
Deviled
Crabs
(Jaxon, 1917)
I
will not go into details, as that might ruin some of the laughs, but
these are funny, have some great physical slapstick humor and deserve
to be known much, much, much better than they are. The supporting
actors are also funny, the duo have solid comic timing and I really
enjoyed seeing these. Anyone who likes comedy should try these out,
especially if they like Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Buster
Keaton and the like. This is one of the first Blu-ray releases by
the new Split Reel label and they are off to a great start.
Extras
include Bonus Shorts in a fragment of Ida's
Got A Husband
(Komic Studios, 1915,) then a fragment of Juggling
The Truth
and In
Clover
(complete, both Wizard, 1915).
Now
for playback performance. All three discs feature the films in 1080p
1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfers
that can naturally, show the age of the materials used, but these are
all far superior to all previous releases of the films where
applicable. Kings
was issued a bunch of times by Criterion in various formats, but this
new set succeeds those releases easily. The film was one of only
about two dozen films to use the old dye-transfer, two-strip
Technicolor when they cemented the films to create the color for
release prints. Too bad the cement would melt during projection, but
you get two sections of the format here, only used in small parts of
the overall film.
In
one part, it is an older print with that color and it looks good,
giving you an idea of how it worked, but in another remarkable
section (for The Resurrection of all things,) the original two-strip
negative was found for it and they were able to digital combine them
for what is now one of the best examples of the much older format.
Several black and white prints, especially for two different cuts
offered here, were used to reconstruct the film as best as possible,
so much of that looks good, more than a few sections are rough and
some portions are great.
The
Roadshow Version of Kings has its music in a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
5.1 lossless mix, while the General Release Version is here in PCM
2.0 Stereo and are fine, but one did not imp\ress me more than the
other.
The
PCM 2.0 Stereo on American
is just fine, while the anamorphically enhanced 1.33
X 1 black & white
image on the American
DVD uses pillar bookends for the image to keep the original framing
and can be soft for the older format, but is fine for what it is and
is a good backup, while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo soundtrack
is fairly good, but the lossless Blu-ray version is fuller. In both
versions, the restoration from years ago does nto have new image
stabilization like I wish it would have, but the image looks good
often just the same.
The
Pokes
shorts also can look decent, but like the DeMille films, they can
also have damage that cannot be fixed, but the choice of lossy Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo on them disappointed me a bit. Otherwise, very
entertaining.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
