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Classic
Reviews Roundup #14 - January 2005
I've attempted to clear my shelves of pending screeners in order to
get ready for the 2005 releases. Hence, I offer a healthy serving of
27 disc reviews for your pleasure, ranging from a silent serial to B
western collections, major Hollywood Golden Age treasures, and
documentaries both old and new. As usual, the reviews are ordered by
year of the content's original release.
More Treasures from American
Film Archives (1894-1931)
(released on DVD by Image on September 7th, 2004)
Four years ago, one of the DVD box sets vying for best of the year
was Treasures from American Film Archives,
an ambitious four-disc and one book collection distributed by Image
that contained 50 films preserved by the likes of George Eastman
House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and the
UCLA Film and Television Archive among others. The selections
spanned the years 1893 to 1985 and included features from the silent
era, documentaries and newsreels, one-reel adventures and comedies,
experimental animation, home movies, and much more.
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The success of that release has now prompted a follow-up - More
Treasures from American Film Archives. There are 50
films once more plus six trailers, this time delivered on three
discs accompanied by a 186-page book of program notes. The time
period represented is 1893 to 1931 and there is a range of
content similar to the first set.
The highlights of this new set are many, from the features of
Ernst Lubitsch (Lady Windermere's Fan)
and Rin Tin Tin (Clash of the Wolves)
to a serial chapter from The Hazards
of Helen, glimpses of New York both in 1901-03 and
1931, early animation by Dave and Max Fleischer, and trailers
from lost features. Many of the lesser items still have
curiosity and historic value, although lesser repeat viewing
potential in some cases. The real value of the set is the fact
that it is making accessible material that would otherwise be
out of reach of the ordinary person. Aside from the
entertainment value, these sorts of collections provide a
wonderful insight into the past - how people worked and lived,
and what entertained them. The set's full content is as follows:
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Disc
One
Dickson Experimental Sound Film
(ca. 1894), Buffalo Bill's Wild West (Annie
Oakley [1894], Buffalo Dance
[1894], Bucking Broncho
[1894]), The Suburbanite
(1904), The Country Doctor
(1909), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
(1910), Early Advertising Films (Admiral
Cigarette [1897], Flash
Cleaner [ca. 1920], Buy an
Electric Refrigerator [1926], The
Stenographer's Friend [1910]), The
Invaders (1912), The Hazards
of Helen: Episode 26 - The Wild Engine (1915), Gretchen
the Greenhorn (1916), De-Light:
Making an Electric Light Bulb (1920), Skyscraper
Symphony (1929), Greeting by
George Bernard Shaw (1928)
Disc Two
The Streets of New York (What Happened on
Twenty-Third Street, New York City [1901], At
the Foot of the Flatiron [1903], New
York City "Ghetto' Fish Market [1903]), From
Leadville to Aspen: A Hold-Up in the Rockies (1906), The
"Teddy" Bears (1907), Children
Who Labor (1912), Early Colour Films (From Concerning
$1000 [1916], From Exhibition
Reel of Two Color Film [ca. 1929], The
Flute of Krishna [1926]), Surviving reel of Lotus
Blossom (1921), Gus Visser and
His Singing Duck (ca. 1925), Clash
of the Wolves (1925), International
Newsreel, Volume 8, Issue 97 (1926), Now
You're Talking (1927), There
It Is (1928), A Bronx Morning
(1931)
Disc Three
Rip Van Winkle (1896), Mr.
Edison at Work in His Chemical Laboratory (1897), Life
of An American Fireman (1903), Three films from the Westinghouse
Works series (1904), Falling
Leaves (1912), Hollywood Promotional Films (Exhibitors'
reel for Hands Up [1918], From
C-V News, Filming Greed in Death Valley
[1923], Movie Lovers Contest #4
[1926]), De Forest Phonofilms (A Few
Moments with Eddie Cantor [ca. 1923], President
Coolidge, Taken on the White House Grounds [1924]), Inklings,
Issue 12 (1925), Lady Windermere's Fan
(1925), Cockeyed: Gems from the Memory of
a Nutty Cameraman (ca. 1925), "The Prologue"
from The Passaic Textile Strike
(1926), Tramp, Tramp, Tramp
(1926), From Zora Neale Hurston's Fieldwork
Footage (1928), Trailers for Lost Films (In
the Days of Daniel Boone [1923], The
Silent Flyer [1926], The
American Venus [1926], The
Great Gatsby [1926], Beau
Sabreur [1928], The Patriot
[1928])
There are the inevitable signs of deterioration and age on much of
this material, but most items look quite amazing nonetheless. All
are apparently properly framed and include original tints and
colours where possible. The documentation with each item is amazing
including audio commentaries by critics, historians, or archivists
and written information on each item's content and accompanying
music (both as screen text and in the supporting book included in
the box set). Net proceeds from the sale of the sets will go to
support further film preservation. Highly recommended.
Judex (1916-1917)
(released on DVD by Flicker Alley on June 4th, 2004)
Those familiar with American sound serials are quite used to the
standard cliffhanger ending that concluded each chapter. This was
also characteristic of most American silent serials and the norm for
them by the early 1920s. The silent serial was not unique to
Hollywood, however. In France, director Louis Feuillade worked
extensively with the format in the second decade of the 20th
century. His first serial was Fantômas
(1913-1914), an enormously popular tale about a criminal mastermind
who is eventually brought to justice. Feuillade followed this up
with a second serial about rival criminal gangs in Paris entitled
Les Vampires (1915-1916). Even
at 10 chapters totaling some seven hours of playing time, it proved
to be another great success. Les Vampires
has some familiarity for modern North American audiences because of
its recent showings on TCM and availability on DVD through Image.
These French serials differed from their American counterparts in
that the individual chapters did not end with cliffhangers and
generally had much longer playing times. Feuillade's third serial
was Judex (1916-1917), a
12-chapter effort over five hours in length.
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The
Judex of the title is a mysterious caped avenger who attempts to
thwart the evil doings of a banker named Favraux. As he
systematically goes about defeating Favraux, Judex's efforts are
somewhat compromised by his interest in Favraux's daughter and
the interventions of a woman with romantic designs on Favraux,
Diana Monti, and her accomplices, the detective Cocantin and the
Licorice Kid. The story is a fascinating adventure, much better
paced than Les Vampires,
and will be a revelation to anyone not previously exposed to
Feuillade's work. One of course can point to Judex
as an inspiration for later superheroes, but the serial goes
much beyond such mere curiosity value. Its plot-line is
well-formulated and generates considerable ongoing interest if
not strong suspense. The main characters are well-drawn and
acted with some verve by Feuillade's stock company of players.
They include a gaunt-looking René Cresté as Judex,
Louis Leubas as Favraux, a vampish Musidora as Diana, and the
engaging Bout-de-Zan as the Licorice Kid. (Single names were not
uncommon for French actors on stage and screen.) The success of
Judex resulted in a sequel
entitled The New Mission of Judex
(1917).
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Judex
is the second DVD release from a fairly new company, Flicker Alley.
(Its previous one was a fine presentation of the fascinating 1928
film, The Garden of Eden.)
Judex is presented on two
discs and sports a nice tinted transfer. There are numerous speckles
and scratches, but the full frame image otherwise looks very bright
and detailed for the most part. There are occasional blooming of
whites and some instances of softness, but overall the impression is
of a product of unusually good image quality for a film of such a
vintage. The serial sports a new piano and orchestral musical score
by Robert Israel that fits the mood and origin of the material very
well. It offers a nice clean sound characterized by modest surround
effects. The disc supplements include an informative booklet essay
by film historian Jan-Christopher Horak and a good 18-minute
featurette in which composer Israel discusses the creation of his
new music score. Recommended.
The Viking/White Thunder
(1931/2002)
(released on DVD by Milestone on December 14th, 2004)
It's a real pleasure to report on a DVD release from Milestone that
packages a fascinating recent documentary on a little-remembered
event in early film-making and the original film that inspired it.
In the 1920s, Varick Frissell, the son of a well-off New York
family, became intrigued by Canada's near-north region of Labrador,
nearby Newfoundland, and the adjacent, ice-covered North Atlantic
waters. He found himself documenting many of the region's natural
wonders and the life of its peoples, and becoming involved with Dr.
Wilfred Grenfell, the famous physician who devoted so many years of
his life to Labrador. Frissell became very interested in the North
Atlantic seal hunt and the Newfoundlanders of whose life it was an
integral part and made it his life's goal to produce a film about
it. He managed to interest Paramount in a distribution deal that
allowed him to raise the necessary financing. In order to make his
film (to be called White Thunder)
a commercial success, Paramount insisted on a melodramatic
background story that would star Charles Starrett. Also prominently
featured would be real-life sealing-ship captain Bob Bartlett. In
1930, Frissell and the cast and crew carried out the principal
photography on location in Newfoundland and on the actual ice floes
using the sealing ship Viking as a base, but found it necessary to
return in early 1931 for additional footage. During that trip, an
explosion aboard the Viking resulted in the death of Frissell and
many others - one of Hollywood's worst film-making disasters.
Subsequently, Paramount released the completed film in 1931 as The
Viking with a prologue by Wilfred Grenfell. Seventy-one
years later, the events surrounding Frissell's early life and the
making of The Viking were
documented in a National Film Board of Canada production directed by
Victoria King and entitled White Thunder.
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This
is simply a fascinating package of material. It's best to begin
with White Thunder as it
provides a through documentation of how The
Viking came to be. Using original photographs,
letters, contemporary interviews, and footage shot by Frissell
contrasted with matching footage recently shot, Victoria King
has created a mesmerizing portrait of Frissell and his times.
The Frissell footage (some of which is that used in The
Viking) is almost unbelievable, particularly the
shots of the sealers crossing the ice floes that are in constant
motion in all directions. The imagery of St. John's, the capital
of Newfoundland, in the 1920s is also invaluable. The
documentary is so well done that it leaves you feeling that the
original film will be a letdown, particularly when it alludes to
the melodramatic subplot with which it was saddled. Fortunately
that does not prove to be the case. The
Viking turns out to be everything one could hope for.
Yes, there is a melodramatic subplot, but it is not the film's
focus. Rather, the film is dominated by Frissell's footage on
the ice floes, footage that continually amazes, not only for its
record of a natural phenomenon, but also for the depiction of
the sealers who put themselves at risk crossing the constantly
moving and unpredictable ice surfaces. From a modern
perspective, one may take issue with the objective, but there is
no denying the bravery of the men involved. It is in that light
that one should view the film.
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On
Milestone's DVD, the modern White Thunder
documentary looks predictably good. The new footage is crisp and
colourful, but even the vintage footage shows very good detail
despite significant age-related deterioration . The mono sound is
clear. The original The Viking
is in remarkably good shape. The expected age-related speckling,
scratches, and debris are present, but the image offers good detail,
reasonable sharpness, and only occasional lapses in contrast. The
mono sound has background hiss, but is quite adequate in clarity
with the sounds of the ice and ocean movement very impressive
indeed. Both films are presented full frame as originally shot. For
supplements, Milestone has included an astonishing if somewhat
repetitive 19 minutes of outtakes from The
Viking (all without sound), two short Varick Frissell
films (The Lure of Labrador
[1926] and Great Arctic Seal Hunt
[1928]) totaling 53 minutes and courtesy of the National Library and
Archives of Canada, still galleries, and a press kit accessible on
DVD-ROM. Highly recommended.
Freaks (1932)
(released on DVD by Warner Bros. on August 10th, 2004)
When director Tod Browning began his new contract with MGM in 1931,
he was offered Arsène Lupin
as his first project. It was a mystery story that was intended to
star John and Lionel Barrymore. Browning, however, was more
interested in making a film of the short story "Spurs" - a
tale of revenge set in a circus environment and focusing on a little
person as its key character. Browning saw that part as a natural fit
for Harry Earles, a little person who had made quite a hit in The
Unholy Three. MGM complied with Browning's wish because
of his previously successful films and the studio's desire to top
the degree of horror then on the screen in the likes of Universal's
Dracula. The script that was
concocted certainly met that criterion as the revenge story placed a
huge premium on circus sideshow freaks as they were then called
playing important supporting roles - so much so that the film was
eventually entitled Freaks.
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Freaks
tells the story of Hans, a little person who inherits money and
finds that Cleopatra, a full-sized woman he is interested in,
returns his interest. Spurning his fiancée Frieda, Hans
convinces Cleopatra to marry him but she agrees only because she
expects him to die shortly, leaving her with all his money. To
hasten that end, Cleopatra secretly conspires with her lover, a
strong man named Hercules, to poison Hans. At the wedding
reception, many of Hans' friends - mainly freaks - are present
and they offer a toast of acceptance to the new bride. She,
however, is revolted and rejects their toast in a very offensive
manner. The freaks plan a special revenge for Cleopatra and her
lover as a result, leading to a very macabre conclusion. The
completed film does tell a compelling story, but its release is
certainly one of the most bizarre to come out of Hollywood, even
given that it occurred in Pre-Code days. No punches were pulled
in the selection of real freaks to play the different roles and
seeing on the screen the likes of Johnny Eck, a "half-boy"
with no body below his rib cage or Prince Randian who was
armless and legless, not to mention assorted bearded ladies,
pinheads, and others is truly startling. Harry Earles and his
sister Daisy are very good as Hans and Frieda while the
full-sized players such as Olga Baclanova (Cleopatra) and
Wallace Ford (Phrodo, a sympathetic clown) are more than
adequate. But it is the freaks that raise the film above the
norm. The climactic sequences in the rain when the freaks take
their revenge constitute the highlight of the film. It is
interesting to note that the macabre ending was the studio's
idea, not that of Browning who had favoured more of a sad
conclusion.
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Warner
Bros.' DVD release of Freaks
is an unlikely, but very welcome decision. The full frame image is
in very decent shape. It's quite clean and clear with reasonable
shadow detail and a modest amount of grain present. Some speckles
and scratches exist, but never really intrude. There is some
softness to the image from time to time, but on the whole, this is a
very nice effort given the film's vintage. The mono sound is
workable although hiss is noticeable. English, French, and Spanish
subtitles are provided. Supplements include an audio commentary by
Browning biographer David Skal. It's one of the most informative and
entertaining commentaries I've heard. Other supplements are a very
good making-of documentary Freaks:
Sideshow Cinema, three alternate endings, and a special
text message prologue intended to alert audiences as to the nature
of what they were about to see. Highly recommended.
Broadway Bill (1934)
Riding High (1950)
(released on DVD by Paramount on August 31st, 2004)
Anyone with a passing interest in classic film is well aware of
Frank Capra's It Happened One Night
and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,
both made at Columbia in the mid-1930s. Rather less familiar is a
picture he made between those two in 1934 entitled Broadway
Bill. After the success of It
Happened One Night (one of only two films to win the top
five Academy Awards), Capra was greatly concerned about being able
to top that effort. He eventually settled on a story about a
racehorse that becomes ill, but then recovers to take on the
favorite in an important race. The story was pretty predictable in
its happy ending as first intended, but Capra added a twist that he
hoped would satisfy filmgoers who would have high expectations based
on Capra's previous work. The film didn't recreate the magic of It
Happened One Night, partly because its male lead Warner
Baxter lacked the engaging personality and screen presence of Clark
Gable and partly due to the more predictable script despite Capra's
attempt to introduce the unexpected. Nor did female lead Myrna Loy
generate sparks with Warner Baxter the way Claudette Colbert did
with Gable. Despite all that, from virtually any other director,
Broadway Bill would have been
judged a resounding success because it was quite an entertaining
comedy and featured a supporting cast brimming with talented
familiar faces (Walter Connolly, Clarence Muse, Raymond Walburn,
Lynne Overman, Margaret Hamilton, and Charles Lane, for example).
From Capra, however, it was a step back before his return to form
with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
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In
the spring of 1948, Capra joined Paramount Pictures after the
failure of Liberty Films- Capra's attempt at independent production.
He had much difficulty settling on a script partly because Paramount
had decreed a $2 million ceiling on any given film's production and
didn't believe Capra could deliver any of his suggested scripts and
casts for that sum of money. In frustration, he pitched the idea of
making a musical version of Broadway Bill
with Bing Crosby in the lead role. Paramount finally agreed and
rights to the story and the original film were purchased from
Columbia. The new version would be called Riding
High. Capra then proceeded to cut corners as much as
possible, reusing the horse race footage from the original, but
going even further by reusing much of the other original footage of
supporting players. He even rehired the same players to play their
original characters so that the old and new footage would fit
together. Assuming one were willing to accept this rewarming of old
material, the use of Bing Crosby doomed the picture. Crosby was no
longer quite the draw he had been and his breezy style just managed
to grate in this film. He gives a performance that suggests an air
of superiority over the other characters in the film, yet it's not
warranted by anything his character conveys. If anything, you'd
rather see him lose than anything else, and that's not what the
film's story intended. Nor do any of Crosby's songs help the
situation. All are thoroughly forgettable, as is Colleen Gray as the
female lead. Those on the lookout for cameo performances will be
happy, however. Oliver Hardy appears solo in a short sequence at the
racetrack.
Broadway Bill had been out of
circulation for many years until rediscovered in the Paramount
vaults in the early 1990s. It had resided there untouched since
being bought from Columbia for Capra's 1950 remake. Now Paramount
has made both versions available on DVD in separate releases. Both
are full frame as originally shot. Broadway
Bill is the lesser-looking of the two. Its image is
rather soft and there are numerous scratches and speckles. It's
quite watchable, but not at all close to the quality of many of the
black and white classic releases I've seen. The source material is
likely not first generation as the negative was reportedly robbed
for use in the remake. Riding High
looks sharper and offers better image detail although black levels
could be deeper. Scratches and speckles are much less apparent. Both
discs offer mono sound and English sub-titles. Riding
High is relatively clear, but Broadway
Bill has noticeable hiss and brief instances of muffled
sound. The only supplement is a short introduction by Frank Capra
Jr. on the Broadway Bill disc.
It offers little insight. Broadway Bill
is recommended, but Riding High
is for Capra completists only.
Legong: Dance of the Virgins
(1935)
(released on DVD by Milestone on December 7th, 2004)
As an outgrowth from the early interest in documentary film that
existed in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Hollywood actress
Constance Bennett financed the production of two films directed by
her husband Henry de la Falaise. Both were shot in two-colour (red
and green) Technicolor and were among the last silent productions
commercially released. The first was Legong:
Dance of the Virgins which was shot in Bali in 1933 and
released in 1935, and the second was Kliou,
the Killer shot in Vietnam in 1934 and released in 1937.
Both used native casts in simple dramatic stories that highlighted
local customs and rituals.
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Legong:
Dance of the Virgins, the focus of a new DVD release
by Milestone, was restored by the UCLA Film and Television
Archive using British, Canadian, and American prints, each of
which contained differing footage as a result on local
censorship decisions. The 56-minute film is a simple tragedy
about the fate of a young Balinese woman, Poutou, whose love for
a young man is spurned by him in favour of Poutou's sister. The
main focus of the film is a performance of the Legong, the dance
of the virgins at the sacred temple, with a secondary emphasis
on the innocence of the Balinese people embodied by the open
nakedness of the Balinese women. De la Falaise photographs his
story simply and directly, imparting a sympathetic air to the
tale that makes its outcome and the images surrounding it linger
in the mind. The use of colour heightens the grandeur of the
ritualistic dance and emphasizes the tropical splendor of Bali.
A simple story told with some sensitivity, but one that does
not, I suspect, have great repeat potential unless one has an
abiding interest in Balinese spectacle untouched by
commercialization. The image presentation on the disc is very
good. The colour is subdued, but for two-colour Technicolor,
effective with minimal distraction due to the age-related
deterioration evident. The original mono sound track is pleasing
and for my taste preferable to an optional new stereo score by
Richard Marriott and I Made Subandi (performed by members of
Gamelan Sekar Jaya and the Club Foot Orchestra), no matter how
indicative of traditional local themes it may be.
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Kliou
the Killer was believed to be lost, but a 16mm black and
white version was located and has been included on the disc as a
supplement. This is a lesser effort than Legong
in that it offers more framing plot at the expense of true native
content. The story focuses on the Vietnamese Moi people and their
problems with their nemesis, the tiger. The image is quite
watchable, but does suffer from contrast and shadow detail problems
at times. Other supplements on the disc are a more conventional 1952
documentary on Bali entitled Gods of Bali,
a video interview with the composers of the new score for Legong,
and DVD-ROM features including a press kit for the film as well as
an article written by ethnomusicologist Katherine Hagedorn and film
historian Peter Bloom.
This is a well-produced disc by Milestone, but one that will
probably only appeal to a very limited audience.
Crackerjack (1938)
(released on DVD by Shanachie on May 11th, 2004)
Released a couple of years after the easing in 1936 of the 1926
Cinematograph Films Act that resulted in the so-called quota quickie
films in Britain in the 1930s, Crackerjack
has many of the earmarks of the lesser of such films including a
derivative plot that can't have seemed too fresh even 66 years ago
and modest production values at best.
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The film stars Tom Walls, a popular British character actor of
the time, as a modern-day Robin-Hood-like thief who steals from
the rich and gives to the needy. Nicknamed "Crackerjack",
the thief's identity is a mystery to those in London society
(though viewers will wonder why everyone's so blind as to whom
he really is). Then Crackerjack finds out that a gang of crooks
is committing crimes and framing him for them, forcing him to
devise a scheme to outwit the gang and prove his innocence to
the police. A young Lilli Palmer co-stars as Crackerjack's
girlfriend. This is strictly B-grade material and at 80 minutes,
a full quarter hour too long. Tom Walls is a bit too full of
himself as Crackerjack to put up with for so long. Only Lilli
Palmer's fresh liveliness provides any reason to keep watching.
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The
film has been released on DVD by Shanachie as part of its British
Cinema Collection and is probably the poorest of what is otherwise
an interesting set of releases. (Look for the likes of Unpublished
Story [reviewed elsewhere in this column] and Across
the Bridge as some of the titles worth seeking out.) The
full frame image is quite workable although somewhat soft and
characterized by the usual speckles and scratches. Moderate grain is
also in evidence. The mono sound is adequate, with some minor hiss
present. There are no supplements.
Gunga Din (1939)
(released on DVD by Warner Bros. on December 7th, 2004)
The late 1930s saw the release of three of the all-time-best
adventure films - The Prisoner of Zenda,
The Adventures of Robin Hood,
and Gunga Din. With this new
release of Gunga Din, only
The Prisoner of Zenda is still
missing in action, DVD-wise. Inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem,
Gunga Din tells the story of
three sergeants (Cutter, Ballantine, and MacChesney) serving in the
British Army in India during the reign of Queen Victoria. The three
are a boisterous group, frequently getting into trouble in their
off-hours and find themselves so engaged when they are ordered to
investigate a missing patrol and an outpost that can no longer be
contacted. They find the outpost under the control of the Thugges, a
group of fanatics intent on driving the British from India, but
manage to emerge triumphant. Upon their return to their home fort,
the three threaten to break up as Ballantine decides to leave the
army and marry, while Cutter becomes obsessed with finding hidden
treasure. Gunga Din, a native water carrier, guides Cutter to a
supposed temple of gold, but it turns out to be the main base of the
Thugges. Ballantine and MacChesney are summoned to help, but
eventually all three sergeants find themselves imprisoned by the
Thugges and it is up to Gunga Din, who has always dreamt of becoming
a soldier, to save the day.
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Gunga
Din was under consideration for filming by RKO for
several years, first with Howard Hawks as director. When Hawks
went over budget shooting Bringing Up
Baby, he was replaced on the Gunga
Din project by George Stevens who had a good track
record of keeping within his budgets at RKO. Production began in
late June 1938 on location in Lone Pine, California with
shooting not wrapping up until almost four months later. Even
with Stevens' previous history of budgetary adherence, costs
this time mounted to over $2 million, making the picture one of
RKO's most expensive up to then. Despite that, the film was a
moneymaker for the company because of its great popularity with
the film-going public.
The film's three leads were ideally cast, utilizing three actors
well versed in doing such broad material with a twinkle in their
eyes - Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
All seem to be having a jolly good time as they participate in
the film's boys-own heroics. As for Gunga Din, Sam Jaffe
certainly was made up well to look the part and he successfully
projects both nerve and a puppy-like devotion to the soldiers
that eventually makes his final actions seem realistic. A wealth
of familiar character actors rounds out the cast (Edouardo
Ciannelli, Montagu Love, Robert Coote, Abner Biberman, and Cecil
Kellaway). Joan Fontaine has a routine supporting role as
Ballantine's bride-to-be.
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Director
Stevens' film compositions show off Lone Pine to advantage and he
orchestrates the film's blend of action and humour with great skill.
The former dominates the film resulting in plenty of impressive
battle scenes and excitement while the latter adds just enough of a
change of pace to make for a very pleasing package. The completed
film is almost two hours in length, although older viewers may have
seen a shorter version (of about 95 minutes) circulating on
television. It was created for use on a re-release double bill by
Howard Hughes when he took control of RKO in the late 1940s.
Warner Bros.' release of Gunga Din
on DVD is part of its celebration of the 100th anniversary of George
Stevens' birth. It's presented in its original full frame ratio and
is a pretty good-looking effort. The source material betrays various
imperfections, but the transfer yields a decently detailed image
with deep blacks and a nice gray scale. Moderate grain is present.
The mono sound is typical of its era and it does the job on the DVD,
if without any great distinction. Occasional hiss is present, but
generally doesn't distract. English, French, and Spanish subtitles
are provided. Warners has included a nice package of supplements.
Film historian Rudy Behlmer provides his usual thorough and
entertaining audio commentary while a new making-of documentary,
somewhat repetitive of the information on the commentary, utilizes
new and old interviews and home movies shot by Stevens as its basis.
There are also an amiable 1939 black and white Porky Pig cartoon -
The Film Fan, and original and
reissue theatrical trailers. Highly recommended. |
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