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THE EPITAPH VOL. 82 - VINTAGE WARNER BROS. EDITION!
THE FLASH: THE ORIGINAL SERIES (1990) - THE MAN I LOVE (1947) - THE SHINING HOUR (1938) - MR. AND MRS. SMITH (1941) - DEXTER'S LABORATORY:
THE COMPLETE SERIES (1996-2003)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 1088 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Cast: John Wesley Shipp, Amanda Pays
Series. The series was pretty much a villain of the week type show, but for it;s time it's pretty darn entertaining, we were not inundated with superhero programming in 1990, so this was ahead of it's time in that respect. As the series continued we had some pretty cool villains pop-ups, including Mark Hamill (Star Wars) as the maniacal murderer The Trickster, 70's heartthrob David Cassidy (The Partridge Family) as Mirror Master, Michael Champion (Beverly Hills Cop) as Mr. Freeze knock-off Captain Cold, Anthony Starke (The George Carlin Show) as the Ghost. There was also some fun recurring roles with familiar faces, like Alex Désert (TV's Becker) as Barry Allen's co-worker, Jason Bernard (TV's Herman's Head) as former 1950 vigilante named
Nightshade, good ol; Dick Miller (Gremlins) as one of Barry;s informant's, and M. Emmet Walsh (Blood Simple) as Barry's father. Other notable but smaller roles include horror icon Jeffrey Combs and Bryan Cranston as mob bosses!
The show was pretty action-packed and had some pretty cool set design for the era. The Flash's ultra-speed sequences might be the show's weakest effect, but again, for the era I was pleased as punch when I was watching this as a teen in 1990, especially the freeze-effects the Castain Cold episode, that was awesome. All 22-episodes have been restored from film elements by Warner Archive, spread across six Blu-ray disc, framed in the original 137:1 fullscreen TV aspect ratio. They look wonderful, there;s a naturally thin layer of film grain, details rendered crisply, black levels are deep, and the garish comic-style lighting is radiant. We also get uncompressed English DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio with optional English subtitles. The track is clean and well-balanced, no issues. Absolutely nbo extras on this one, which is a bummer, but just having this series on Blu-ray looking and sounding as good as it does, is the only extras I need.
Special Features:
- None
Buy it:
Moviezyng - use code: MOVIEDEAL at checkout to get 5% off your entire order!
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Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 96 Minutes 37 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dial-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Andrea King
In the noir-tinged Raoul Walsh (They Drive By Night) melodrama The Man I Love (1947) sexy torch singer Petey Brown (Ida Lupino, The Big Knife) leaves The Big Apple for Long Beach, CA to visit her sisters and brother for Christmas. While there she gets a job as a singer at a seedy nightclub owned by sleazy small-time-hood Nicky Toresca (Robert Alda, The Devil's Hand) where her sister Sally (Andrea King, Red Planet Mars) is employed, finding herself caught-up in sordid affairs of not just her own, but her siblings as well; we gets mobsters, adulterous spouses, war-traumatized vets. The flick is briskly paced, chock full of salacious melodrama, has a noir tinged vibe and a terrific soundtrack chock full of American jazz standard. This new Warner Archive Blu-ray presentation looks fantastic and restores 6 minutes cut from the film and unseen for nearly seven decades, not since it was first shown during its original theatrical release. Extras include a pair of WB cartoons from the era the film was released, and the Trailer.
Special Features:
- Classic WB cartoons "Rabbit Transit" (8:15) and "Crowing Pains" (6:50)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2:16)
Buy it:
Moviezyng - use code: MOVIEDEAL at checkout to get 5% off your entire order!
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Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 76 Minutes 49 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dial-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: B&W 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Frank Borzage
Cast: Joan Crawford, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Young
Romantic melodrama The Shining Hour (1938) stars Joan Crawford (Straight-Jacket) playing a New York singer Olivia who marries a wealthy farmer Henry (Melvyn Douglas, Ghost Story), leaving the big city and moving to his farm in rural Wisconsin. There she finds that she is mutually drawn to her new husband's handsome brother David (Robert Young, The Canterville Ghost). Out of respect they keep their distance as both are married, and he to the quite wonderful Judy (Margaret Sullavan, The Mortal Storm), but David and Henry's domineering older sister Hannah (Fay Bainter, State Fair) is not naive and can detect the simmering love triangle, not holding back her contempt Olivia, leading to a frenzied and emotional finale that climaxes with someone setting a house on fire and Crawford's Olivia risking life and limb to battle flames to rescue Sullavan from certain death. It's a tasty bit of melodrama with quite a finale, Crawford and the rest of the cast are terrific. The Warner Archive Blu-ray looks phenomenal, as for extras we get a vintage MGM radio program 'Good News of 1939' with scenes from the film, a Trailer, and a trio of classic period correct cartoons from the vaults.
Special Features:
- Audio only vintage M-G-M radio program GOOD NEWS OF 1939 with scenes from THE SHINING HOUR (23:00)
- Classic cartoons: "Love and Curse" (8:27), "Porky's Five and Ten" (7:05 and "The Sneezing Weasel" (6:43)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2:58)
Buy it:
Moviezyng - use code: MOVIEDEAL at checkout to get 5% off your entire order!
Physical Media Land - use code: MOVIEDEAL at checkout to get 5% off your entire order!
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 95 Minutes 21 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond
When one thinks of screwball comedies a name that probably wouldn't pop-up right away would be suspense master Alfred Hitchcock, but he truly was a master of all things cinema, and in 1941 he directed the screwball romantic comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith that teamed-up up screwball queen Carol Lombard (Supernatural) with Robert Montgomery (The Mystery of Mr. X) and husband and wife David and Ann Smith. The couple have been married three years and are notorious for their arguments and reconciliations. After one such reconciliation Ann queries him over breakfast "If you had it to do all over again, would you have married me?", to which he rather honestly and totally foolheartedly replies that while he is happy how things turned out if he would do it over again he would not, he would have chosen to have more freedoms, which does not sit well with her. Rather preposterously the same day while at work David is visited at his law office by Harry Deever (Charles Halton, 3 Godfathers), an Idaho county official, who informs him that due to a jurisdictional mishap regarding a errant state boundary line, that his three-year marriage is no longer valid. It turns out that Deever is an old family friend of Ann;s and pays her a visit that same day, telling her of the mishap, and when David returns home that she she assumes that he will tell her of the error and suggest they get married again. He invites her to dinner at a place they used to frequent when they were dating, and she assumes a proposal is coming, however, when he offers none she gets upset. She ends up kicking her out if their apartment and things quickly get out of hand, eventually David's law partner Jeff (Gene Raymond, I'd Rather Be Rich) agrees to intercede on his behalf and he arranges to meet with Ann with the intention of having David stop by unannounced with hopes he can get their marriage back on track, but instead when Dave arrives he finds that Jeff has not only agreed to legally represent her, but asks her out on a date. The divide between the Smith's deepen, and Ann starts dating Jeff, things eventually resolve at a ski lodge on a mountaintop, and much rom-com shenanigan ensue. Lombard and Montgomery are absolutely delightful, the Hitchcock direction is tight, and Gene Raymond makes for a fantastic third-wheel complicating matters, a scene of him and Lombard;s characters stuck atop a carnival ride for hours during a torrential downpour is delightful, followed-by her getting him drunk on liquor afterwards. The film has been gorgeously restored to it's monochromatic glory by Warner Archive, looking and sounding wonderful. We also get what I would consider to be a rather large array of extras by the usual Warner Archive standards. Extras comes by way of the 16-min "Mr. Hitchcock Meets the Smiths" featurette with Peter Bogdanovich (Targets), Richard Franklin (Psycho II) Hitchcock's daughter, Patricia, and TCM host Robert Osborne talking about the terrific screwball comedy. We also get a pair of Classic Cartoons by way of the 8-min "Holiday Highlights" and the 8-min "Stage Fright"; the rather lavish 2-Strip Technicolor short "Cinderella's Feller" that runs about 19-min, plus Two Audio-only radio broadcasts; the 1-hour Lux Radio Theater broadcast with Carole Lombard and Bob Hope and a 30-min Screen Guild Players broadcast with Errol Flynn and Lana Turner, plus the Original Theatrical Trailer. KIt feels weird to call a Hitchcock film a gem, but this was a new one for me, and it is absolutely an unexpected screwball gem from the master of suspense.
Special Features:
- Featurette: "Mr. Hitchcock Meets the Smiths" (16:08)
- Classic Cartoons: "Holiday Highlights" (7:35) & "Stage Fright" (7:35)
- Cinderella's Feller (19:34)
- Two Audio-only radio broadcasts: Lux Radio Theater broadcast with Carole Lombard and Bob Hope (59:46) and Screen Guild Players broadcast with Errol Flynn and Lana Turner (29:34)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (0:47)
Buy it:
Moviezyng - use code: MOVIEDEAL at checkout to get 5% off your entire order!
Physical Media Land - use code: MOVIEDEAL at checkout to get 5% off your entire order!
THE COMPLETE SERIES (1996-2003)
12-Disc DVD Set
Label: WBDHE
Region Code: 1
Rating: PG
Duration: 1791 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital with Optional English, Latin America Spanish Subtitles
Video: Fullscreen (1.37:1) (SD)
Voice Cast: Christine Cavanaugh, Kath Soucie, Jeff Bennett, Kat Cressida, Candi Milo
All 78-eposides of the Cartoon Network animated TV series Dexter's Laboratory, which created by Genndy Tartakovsky (Primal) finally get a complete series DVD set, including the special episode Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip, are brought together on this 12-disc DVD set. Like Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack this is one of the few kids toons in the late 90's that appealed to both my kids and myself. The ongoing tale of boy-genius Dexter, the half-Einstein, half-third grader who hangs out in his secret laboratory creating the most amazing inventions, but finds himself constantly pestered by his fanciful and often annoying sister Dee Dee. His chief rival is the other boy-genius Mandark from constantly trying to one-up him. Sadly no Blu-ray upgrade for the beloved series but the DVDs look solid for SD, the wonderfully animated retro-whimsical series features vibrant colors, thick black animation lines, but there are some compression artifacts, but nothing ruinous. The 12-disc DVD set arrives in one of those cheap, oversized Epik Pak keepcases with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. At least the first-pressing of this set includes a slipcover with a die-cut feature with Dex's eyeglasses that's pretty cool. Inside there's a simple-2-page Episode Guide for all six seasons.
