Lucille Ball Collection from Warner (1 Viewer)

[DaveK]

Any reviews for the boxset yet???

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I am working my way through it. Other than slight edge ringing that is not pervasive, I could not imagine "Mame" looking much better, and it is indeed in DD 1.0 as reported above. "Dance Girl Dance" is a bit grainy, but otherwise nicely rendered as is par for the course with a lot of DVDs of vintage RKO stuff. I hope to have the whole set reviewed by the end of the week. In the meantime, ask any questions you want answered before you purchase it and I will try to answer (I will take a look at "DuBarry..." and comment on your registration question later tonight).

Regards,

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

"DuBarry..." looks pretty good for the first couple of reels with only slight misregistration, but around the third reel or so it goes kablooey and characters start looking like they have green headbands under their hairlines. It gets better later, and I will offer more comprehensive comments once I have seen the whole thing.

Regards,

 

[Erik_H]

About the "Mame" DVD---Warner has edited out a shot that I recall from the theatrical version (and also from previous video versions). Early in the film, there's a scene set in an avant-garde school in which Mame's nephew has been enrolled. When the conservative banker responsible for the nephew's welfare visits the school (accompanied by the character played by Bea Arthur) there's a shot of the school classroom, including a shot of a man seated at a piano (shown from the back) with little or no clothes. That shot is missing from the DVD version.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

There's a shot just like that when Mame first drops Patrick off at the "School of Life". The later scene with Mr. Babcock is played purely with sound effects and the reactions on McGiver and Arthur's faces. It seems designed that way to make it funnier. I have attached a screencap of the earlier scene that looks like what you described.

Regards,

 

[DaveK]

Because I'm a big Lucy fan, I would've bought the box set anyway...lol
I received it today. I've never seen Dubarry look so good, not even on TCM.
I thought it went through the Ultra Resolution process; not even Best Foot Forward looks as good and both movies were released the same year.

Here is a before and after pic of the opening title. The before pic is a phone cam shot of TCM's print and the after shot is the DVD print.

Before:

After:

I noticed the green headbands also; during the "check your hat" scene. Is that a film or a transfer problem. That has never happened before, but that scene always had registration issues at least prior to the DVD release.

Also, a large portion of the France segment, as well as the 1st scene with Red and Zero Mostel had severe registration issues....until now. It looks magnificant.

The opening blew my mind, because you knew what color the sets and costumes were, before I had to guess whether something was blue or purple or green.

I wish they did a short documentary since there is alot of stuff that can be discussed. How the play was toned down for the screen and most of the Cole Porter score was scrapped; how Ann Sothern turned down the role because she was pregnant, how this was Lucy's first movie at MGM and her first sporting her trademark red hair. Warner's dropped the ball I think with this.


Not much to go by, but trust me...Dubarry alone is worth the buying the boxset.

 

[KellyVO]

Wow that picture looks great!


Yeah even a featurette would have been ok. I wish Warner would have more featurettes on their dvds. I was disappointed that there were none on the rest of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies like in the first set but I guess the documentary made up for that.

 

[Josh_P]

This Lucille Ball Collection has a great collection of films, but it really does lack good bonus features. There was a short documentary/featurette created on the Making of "Mame", and aired right before the movie's primetime TV debut in the late '70s; it ran about 20 minutes. This documentary has not been seen since, and would have made a great bonus feature for the "Mame" DVD. The featurette that did make the cut on the "Mame" DVD is sadly nothing more than an extended theatrical trailer.

I just wish some more extras were included, as there is so much available -- deleted scenes, Lucy promoting the film on "Merv Griffin" (1973), the "Merv Griffin" episode at the premiere of "Mame" (1974), Lucy promoting the film on "Phil Donahue" (1974), the actual behind-the-scenes featurette (if it does exist), excerpts from the script of scenes that were never filmed, production photo stills, production notes, audio commentaries and/or interviews with the surviving cast and crew, etc., etc.

 

[stevenHa]

Am I correct that Mame is not anamorphic - is this a small letterboxed image ?

 

[Corey]

Don't complain too much. We're not allowed to bash WHV. Anything else would be blasphemy.

 

[Corey]

If she hadn't done either role, Lucy would've most likely made her MGM debut as herself in Thousands Cheer which was released in January 1944.

 

[KellyVO]

I always heard the Mame trailer had some deleted scenes in it. I always wondered if it was true and if it was wouldn't Warner include them as extras, unless something happened to them?

 

[Josh_P]

That is true; a short clip from a deleted dance sequence was included in the trailer.

If you've ever read a copy of the "Mame" script, you will notice there are a few sequences that were actually filmed, but not included in the final cut of the movie, particularly during the "Open a New Window" sequence. A few stills taken during the filming of these deleted scenes were included in pressbooks for "Mame." Here are a few deleted scenes off the top of my head -- Mame and Patrick scuba diving, Mame and Patrick riding bicycles, Mame teaching Patrick how to mix a Martini, Mame teaching Patrick how to play "Chopsticks" on the piano. Some deleted dialogue from the scene in which everyone declares, "Mame, the huntress!!" was shown on Lucille Ball's appearance on an early episode of "The Phil Donahue Show", promoting "Mame" in 1974. I'm not sure how many of these deleted scenes still do exist, but even one only would have been a welcome bonus feature on the DVD.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

No. According to IMDb, the DVD is anamorphic, and Warner would never release a movie this late in the game in anything other than anamorphic, unless it was one of those J6P triple feature sets.

 

[KellyVO]

Yeah it would have been nice if they were included. I wish the dvd had more extras but I will get around to buying it sometime.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Mame is presented at its 2.35:1 theatrical ratio and enhanced for 16:9 televisions. Sound is DD 1.0 mono at 192kbps. Disc is RSDL dual-layer.

Regards,

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Please disregard the above. I subsequently discovered a loose component cable in my second string set-up. When I later watched the whole film on my projector via an upscaled HDMI connection, this became obvious. The phrase "...only slight misregistration" applies to the whole transfer, which is, as a whole, very nice.

Also, due to a faux pas involving leaving my notes in my office, I will not have the full review posted until monday.

Regards,

 

[Greg_M]

I noticed Patrick takes out a pad and writes down the word "Bastard" while in Mames bathroom, but I don't recall a scene prior to that where Mame tells him to write down the words he doesn't know, maybe it was cut

 

[Greg_M]

by the way, all copies of "Mame" sold out on day one, the other Lucys titles were still in stock.

 

[Thomas T]

re: "but I don't recall a scene prior where to that where Mame tells him to write down the words he doesn't know, maybe it was cut"

You must have dozed off, Greg. The scene is there. Specifically 15 minutes, 50 seconds into the film.