A Few Words About A few words about...™ Kid Millions (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Kid Millions, the fifth of Mr. Cantor's six films for Samuel Goldwyn, this time directed by Roy Del Ruth, is another wonderful treat from The Warner Archive Collection.

Filmed in black & white, with a final sequence in a very early three-strip Technicolor, the film is a winner.

Eddie Cantor, a very young Ethel Merman and Ann Sothern, headline along with George Murphy and a cast of Goldwyn stalwarts. Another credit of importance. Cinematographer Ray June, who began behind the camera in 1915. He is best known for a number of Jean Harlow, M-G-M vehicles -- he spent many years at M-G-M. Among his later films, were Funny Face and The Court Jester.

Hopefully, no one will have PC problems with the film, as Mr. Cantor appears in blackface for a number.

I'm hopeful that if the first two Cantor / Goldwyn films sell in reasonable numbers, we'll see the rest of them.

As an aside, I'm always looking amongst the Goldwyn Girls for familiar faces, as quite a number of future stars spent some time there.

A classic film, and a quality presentation on DVD. The three-strip is a treat.

Support the Warner Archive Collection!

Image - 3.5

Audio - 5

Recommended.

RAH

 

[moviepas]

I have the Laserdiscs of the Goldwyn/Cantor films. I was hoping that the collection would have been consigned to Blu Ray.

I didn't get the box set of DVDs as I had 99% of the titles already in my DVD collection. I think Kid Millions was in that set. Kid Millions had been announced on DVD a few good years back now and I ordered it from Canada and I got invoiced and charged three times for it after the title was withdrawn from single release. The business there had gone out of business twice taking customers funds & points based on purchases for further credits with them. When they started the second time they said it was a new company under new management(not true) and points etc were not carried over including unsupplied orders. More bunk. Soon after they went again and the Canadian authorities were not interested. The situation angered a company on the other side of Canada who had the same corporate name and was getting unwarranted and unwanted flack over this. I got most of my money back thru my bank who got no response from Canada.

 

[ahollis]

The laserdisc are a treasure and I am happy that WAC has chosen to get these out. It's on order and will be glad to have this and Whoopee. My favorites are STRIKE ME PINK and PALMY DAYS. You can't go wrong with Eddie and Charlotte Greenwood. .

 

[Doug Bull]

I really like all of the Goldwyn Cantor films and while we're at it let's not forget 2 other marvellous Laserdiscs, The Kid From Spainand the risque Roman Scandals.Both would also be great on DVD.I have always adored Lyda Roberti. (The Kid from Spain)She was just oozing with personality, always so sexy and yet always so funny.The scene where she drops Cantor's car keys into her cleavage and then dares Cantor to retrieve them is a real comedy gem.Sad she died so young.Doug.

 

[Ken Volok]

One of my all time favorites!

 

[Mike*HTF]

Delightful film - I'm very much looking forward to this release.

 

[Doug Bull]

Maybe the other Cantor movies will appear in a box set like the Wheeler and Woolsey titles did.

The Technicolor sequence in "Kid Millions" looked gorgeous on the Laserdisc.
I hope the DVD looks as good if not better.

Robert Harris says it looks a treat, so that sounds good.

 

[JoHud]

I'm also looking forward to the rest (Palmy Days, The Kid From Spain, Roman Scandals, and Pretty In Pink). Those have been overlooked on DVD entirely despite getting full release VHS and laserdisc sets.

On an interesting note, this might be the first time the earlier Samuel Goldwyn Cantors and the later WB Cantors were available from the same home video label.

 

[revgen]

Just got Whoopee and Kid Millions in the mail today. For whatever the reason may be, WB was given a hard-telecined master from SG for Kid Millions. Usually, Warners does a good job of IVTC'ing their old analog masters, which they didn't do when WAC just started. This one slipped through the cracks. Most digital TV's do not recognize hard-telecined movies and just proceed to use a standard deinterlacer. JoHud mentioned that the video on this DVD appeared soft. I wouldn't be surprised if his TV was denterlacing the video and making it look worse. Thankfully, I have software on my PC that can recognize and do proper IVTC on hard-telecined video.

Hopefully, WAC keeps an eye on any hard-telecined masters given to them by SG and corrects them for future releases.