The
Garden Of Eden
(1928/Flicker Alley Blu-ray)/It's
A Wise Child
(1931/MGM/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Marlowe
(1969/MVD/Arrow Blu-ray*)/Sunset
(1988/Tri-Star**)/White
Palace
(1990/*both Universal/**both Sony/Alliance Blu-ray)
Picture:
B/B/B/B-/B- Sound: B/C+/C+/C+/B- Extras: B/C/C+/D/D
Films: B-/C+/C+/C/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The It's
A Wise Child
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 set of comedies, including one almost lost, another that could
have and the rest with mixed results...
Lewis
Milestone's The
Garden Of Eden
(1928) stars a big silent star of the late silent film era who made
plenty of hits, but because most of her films are lost, people do not
know about her or why she was a big deal. Corrine Griffith (no
relation to director D.W. Griffith) plays Toni, an opera singer who
wants to move on to the big time and be famous and successful with
her talents, but when she goes to Budapest for fame and fortune, she
finds exploitation and users who could care less what happens to her,
though they want to make money off of her physical beauty.
As
luck would have it, her wardrobe lady is actually a Baroness (what
luck!) who helps her get into high society by passing her off as her
daughter and she (Louise Dresser) helps her meet some of the best
people, but she falls for handsome young Richard (Charles Ray) and
that could be the biggest break of all!
A
beautifully shot, charming, amusing and pleasant film, I had heard of
it and did not know it was so lost and am thrilled it has been saved
as well as it has. You can immediately see why Griffith was a big
star moviegoers loved and were happy to pay to see over and over
again. The camera really likes her and she knows how to handle
herself on screen. Director Milestone also handles this all very
well and was one of the great journeyman directors of the time. Glad
this one got saved!
Also
in the cast are Lowell Sherman, Maude George, Edward Martindel and
uncredited turns by Emily
Fitzroy, Dot Farley, Eric Mayne, Freeman Wood and no less than
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. that add to the fun. Go out of your way for
this one and you'll be surprised!
Extras
in a very nice and solid slipcase packaging
includes a Feature Length Audio Commentary track by Harlow Robinson,
author of Lewis
Milestone: Life and Films,
offers an in-depth behind the scenes look at the production of The
Garden of Eden
and the incredible life of Milestone.
Restored
Color Sequence: Comprised of rare still images, this dream sequence
can be viewed on its own or placed within the larger feature via
seamless branching.
Syncopating
Sue
(1926): A restored fragment of director Richard Wallaces' lost
romantic comedy, starring Corinne Griffith. This new restoration
arrives courtesy of the San Francisco Film Preserve, in
collaboration with the National Film Archive - Audiovisual
Institute, Warsaw. Poland.
The
Inimitable Corinne Griffith: The Orchid Lady of the Screen:
A visual essay from historian David Pierce, narrated by Claire
Lockhart, that explores the life of The
Garden of Eden's
beguiling star.
Restoration
Demo: A short look at the painstaking process of scanning and
preserving the available elements, including two surviving 35mm
nitrate reels.
Image
Gallery featuring production stills and promotional material
Booklet
Insert featuring a new essay by Harlow Robinson, exploring the
making of The
Garden of Eden
and
an Optional Double-Sided Slipcover: Available either as a standard
release or, exclusively from www.flickeralley.com,
special limited edition double-sided slipcover that showcases
exclusive artwork.
Robert
Z. Leonard's It's
A Wise Child
(1931) has Marion Davies as a woman trying to avoid being stuck
marrying an older man and lies, saying she is pregnant when she is
not, but that still leads to many a fiasco and that's just for
starters. There are unexpectedly funny moments early on and they
keep popping up, filling out the tight 80 minutes well enough. I saw
this one eons ago and forgot some of this, but was glad to see it
again that pleased it held up so well.
Sidney
Blackmer, James Gleason, Polly Morgan, Marie Prevost, Lester Vail,
Hilda Vaughn, Emily Fitzroy, Robert McWade, Johnny Arthur, and Ben
Alexander are the kind of great actors and character actors you would
see at the time, but you do not hear about or see enough of now. I
liked how this kept its pacing and had energy that held up well, so
if you like old-fashioned comedies and want a few surprises, this
one's for you.
No
doubt Leonard was a great comedy director and Davies, the founder of
Cosmopolitan Pictures at MGM that co-produced this one, was also
known later as the mistress of William Randolph Hearst (she's so good
here, you can see why he fell for her) makes this a curio in itself,
but fortunately, the film has some laughs, is fun and amusing
throughout.
Extras
include the live action MGM shorts Crazy
Horse
and The
Rounder,
plus black and white animated Warner Bros. Bosko cartoons Bosko's
Fox Hunt
and Bosko's
Soda Fountain.
Paul
Bogart's Marlowe
(1969) was an interesting attempt to launch James Garner (Grand
Prix,
Maverick)
into a potential detective movie series, based on the Raymond
Chandler books (The
Little Sister
in this case) with an all-star cast and a pace that keeps it pretty
watchable. Garner holds back a bit and that helps too, but it just
did not do the business and this would be a one-off.
A
woman (the always great Sharon Farrell) hires the private eye to find
her missing brother, but as soon as he starts looking, he starts
discovering other odd things and she quickly becomes impatient with
him. In the meantime, he also starts getting odd threats (including
a two-scene Bruce Lee appearance where he is threatening the
detective as a new kind of heavy that is one of the film's many
highlights) and that also gives us the backstory of the world he
inhabits, including his uneasy relationship with Lt. French (Carroll
O'Connor in an amusing turn here that keeps the film from being
dated) in the midst of all the madness.
Unlike
the classic detective films Universal Television was about to start
making (Columbo,
McCloud,
McMillan
& Wife,
et al) they get to have more freedom with violence, language, adult
themes and some nudity, so it happens at the beginning of the
Hollywood New Wave and was pleased having not see it in eons that it
held up as well as it has. The character would find a more fantastic
and wild portrayal in Altman's The
Long Goodbye
(which Kino has issued on Blu-ray in the U.S., but Arrow issued in
the U.K., reviewed elsewhere on this site) goes even further in its
own impressive ways.
Thanks
here to a screenplay by the great Stirling Silliphant (In
The Heat Of the Night,
Village
Of The Damned,
The
Enforcer,
Circle
Of Iron)
well based on the book, the humor stays in realistic check and keeps
things balanced. In the hands of capable director Bogart, whose work
includes some serious classic TV (All
In The Family)
with some feature films in between (Torch
Song Trilogy,
Mr.
Ricco
and his big screen reunion with Garner, The
Skin Game,)
you get some serious professionals at work at the top of their game.
Cheers
also to the great supporting cast of very likable actors including
Rita Moreno, Gayle Hunnicut, Jackie Coogan, Kenneth Tobey, Paul
Stevens, Read Morgan, Corrine Camacho and William Daniels, its the
kind of film we do not see enough of and even when it hits off points
or does not always work, it is consistent. Now you can see for
yourself.
Extras
include
$100 A
Day (Plus Expenses),
a brand new appreciation by film historian Howard S. Berger
an
Original Theatrical Trailer
Image
Gallery
Reversible
sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by John
Pearson
and
a collectors' booklet containing new writing by critics Jeff Chang
and Priscilla Page.
Blake
Edwards' Sunset
(1988) is a comedy from a filmmaker usually associated with comedies,
if not always, but an interesting project that should have worked
more than it did. James Garner is Wyatt Earp, hired to help advise
on a film on his life with red hot box office Western movie star Tom
Mix (Bruce Willis) playing him. They do not meld well at first, but
an actual murder brings them together as they try to juggle and
finish the actual feature film project and we learn much about Earp
in the meantime.
With
Willis well-established on TV's Moonlighting
(Die
Hard
came out the same year, but that was not what he was known for yet)
and Garner legendary in The
Rockford Files
and Maverick,
there is not enough synergy with the duo, in the screenplay by
Edwards himself or how it is directed, though it arrives the same
year the first Young
Guns
stars to slowly revive the Western after its 8-year coma.
It
has nice moments here and there, with some good money on the screen,
yet it is a miss despite all their best efforts. Did Willis have the
wrong tone here? Was there a better one? Cheers to the wide-ranging
supporting cast that also includes Kathleen Quinlan, Mariel
Hemingway, Jennifer Edwards, Patricia Hodge, Richard Bradford, Dermot
Mulroney, Liz Torres, M. Emmet Walsh, Joe Dallesandro and Malcolm
McDowell. Worth a look for the most curious, but only expect so
much.
There
are no extras.
Louis
Mandoki's White
Palace
(1990) is a comedy/drama with Susan Sarandon as an older working
woman waitress who gets the attention of younger advertising
executive James Spader who lost his wife at a very young age too
soon. When they meet, the attraction is instant and they start to
get involved, but the age difference, uncertainly on both ends and
some socio-economic division starts to cause waves.
The
leads are great, they have some odd chemistry and the film has some
good moments, but the script needed to go further and try more
things, so when I saw it upon its original release, I was a little
disappointed. I liked them, but expected more and even supporting
help from Kathy Bates, Jason Alexander, Corey Parker, Eileen Brennan,
Steven Hill, Renee Taylor and Mitzi McCall only helps so much as
welcome as it all is. Thus, it is a curio worth checking out if you
are interested, but expect a mixed experience.
There
are no extras.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white
digital High Definition image transfer on Garden
Of Eden
can show the age of the materials used as expected, including two
backup prints and the surviving nitrate reels, but this looks amazing
much of the time with few down moments that could not be avoided.
One of only seven silent films it feature 'improved' two-strip
Technicolor
(the film did not melt apart in the projector because they eliminated
the cement that held the strips together from 1921 to 1927!,) only a
fragment of that sequence survived, so it is reconstructed by using
surviving stills and colorizing them as close to the surviving prints
as possible, frames of which are also used towards the end. That
will have to do until and if the actual sequence is ever unearthed.
The
DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes of
the new score composed and performed by Stephen Horne and Frank
Bockius are nice, impressive and some of the best silent movie
rescoring I have heard in a good while, so you win with both mixes
and they both sound fine.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on It's
A Wise Child
can also
show the age of the materials used at times, but this is in even
better condition, though the female lead is shot in diffusion often.
It looks much better than when I saw it eons ago and has some fine
shots throughout. The DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix cannot help but show its age,
but it is pretty well restored here and sounds as good as it ever
likely will. Nice.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Marlowe
was actually issued in dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor 35mm
prints and this 4K scan of the original camera negative can give you
an idea of how good this looks and the color was shot to be and look.
The editing is a plus too. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono
lossless mix is going to show its age, but its fine for its time and
sounds as good as we guess it ever will.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Sunset
is from a slightly older HD master that still has good color and does
justice to the scope cinematography by the legendary Anthony B.
Richmond, B.S.C. (the Nicholas Roeg veteran who also lensed Stardust,
The Beatles Let
It Be,
Glastonbury
Fare,
The
Kids Are Alright,
Legally
Blonde,
The
Greek Tycoon,
The
Sandlot,
the original Candyman)
delivers the visual goods in a way that helps make up for the films
shortcomings. Wish the film lived up to it, while the DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix has Dolby Pro Logic
surrounds and was a Dolby A-type analog theatrical release, but this
sounds a generation down or two. Why, who knows, but it is weaker
than it should be.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on White
Palace
rarely shows the age of the materials used, but the HD master is
older and though it looks good, it could look a little better, but
the DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix also has Dolby Pro Logic
surrounds and also was a Dolby A-type analog theatrical release, it
sounds a little better than Sunset,
yet still could sound better.
To
order thee
It's
A Wise Child
Warner Archive 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
-
Nicholas Sheffo
