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Movie:		4.0
Picture:		8.0
Sound:		4.0
Extras:		9.0
Score:		6.0

Director(s):	William Wellman
Writer(s):	Various
Starring:	Various
Genre:	Comedy • Drama • Romance
Release Date:	March 24, 2009

List Price:	49.98
Amazon:

The Forbidden Hollywood Collection: Volume 3 contains six movies, two documentaries and irresponsible levels of racism in an awesome purple box. Let's dig in.

Movies:

Other Men's Women is a very loose story of a lover's triangle, often venturing out into weird, pointless side-stories. In the first ten minutes of this James Cagney / Mary Astor vehicle, a diner waitress is threatened with a ketchup bottle, another is hit on with rampant disregard for common decency and then stood up after being promised wedding vows. When she storms off, her would-be hubby stands on the train tracks calling out to her and swearing her worth like she was a common baseball card, and not a fine young working girl serving eggs Benedict and white toast to train conductors. Contained herein is a veritable cinematic troth of delightfully sexist characters and dialogues. In one early sequence, a pretty young thing is cutting her boo's head in the garden, when he decides she's not doing a very good job and "Jokingly" slaps her around a bit, making contact with her face and gut quite a few times, but it's all in good fun. The good people at Warner wouldn't want to send any crude messages to their devoted patrons. No sir.

Direct quote:

Dame: I thought of something.

Heel: Impossible.

This movie rules.

The Purchase Price is Barbara Stanwyck and Lyle Talbot picture about rich folks moving out to the country. Opens with a lovely set piece, though unlike Other Men's Women, I found myself incredibly bored from the very beginning. Other Men's Women was entertaining in 2009 because it featured rugged dudes demeaning women and none of the characters were stuck up or dry. Even the bad acting was all right because it all seemed fluid, but The Purchase Price is just classy and lovely and dull right from the get-go.

At around this point, I was told to tone down how much I was writing about the films, lest this review become a mammoth undertaking for both me, and the reader. So, with that in mind, Frisco Jenny is a highly dramatic film with much more believable stunt work and action than anything so far in the set. The San Francisco earthquake literally brings the house down early on, and the courtroom drama some time later, while shot rather simplistically, has a great aesthetic quality to it. Of the first three films, Frisco Jenny is what I'd suggest for pure minute-for-minute quality.

Midnight Mary is a staunch, uninteresting, almost uptight film. Not fun or interesting to watch. That's really all I can say.

Heroes For Sale is a cold, bitter tale of the Great Depression. Funny how I have less to say about a movie with a real point and the tiniest bit of social relevance than I do about one with flagrant, irredeemable sexism. But, I suppose, that's how I roll.

Wild Boys of the Road is a story of some kids who get into trouble. The ending was notably sabotaged by the studio and reshot. I hate that.

Picture:

Other Men's Women: An extremely high contrast transfer that looks incredibly good for a standard DVD release of an extremely unimportant film from 1931. Unfortunately, the great transfer brings out a lot of imperfections in the original print, highlighting obvious light sources and flickering.

The Purchase Price: About the same as Other Men's Women, but overall a little bit duller and grainier. Suits the film in its second half, but not in its first.

Frisco Jenny: A stunningly gorgeous transfer brings out the richness in everything from clothing to wood textures. High contrast, with great color separation. Deep blacks and bright whites. Beautiful.

Midnight Mary: What happened here? Right from the start this transfer is grainier and darker than the others. The picture is downright bland when compared to the other films in the set. Compared to Frisco Jenny it's a downright travesty.

Heroes For Sale: A somewhat crackly image which is perhaps too bright at some spots, and too dark at others. Also, clarity dips from being able to see a drop of water to a very soft focus, which I do not believe was the original intention. It's not as bad as Midnight Mary, but doesn't touch Other Men's Women or Frisco Jenny.

Sound:

English audio, English and French subtitles.

Mediocre quality for the films makes the vast majority of the fast-talking deep-toned dialogue totally incomprehensible, though I suspect this could be ingrained in the original audio masters.

Bonus Features

Cartoon shorts:

You Don't Know What You're Doin'! A beautifully restored Merrie Melodies cartoon with a friggin' disclaimer at the head of it, basically saying Warner Bros. isn't racist, at least not anymore. The cartoon itself is a fun and lighthearted musical romp. In it, a big, strong white character gets farted on with car exhaust, turning him pitch black from head to toe, and he screams and screams and screams. I'm not kidding. Not content with selling racist notions to innocent children, Warner Bros continues on with a repeated in-show advertisement for asbestos. Nothing goes with hatred like a heapin' helpin' of cancer, kids!

Moonligjht For Two - Another Merrie Melodies short, and another racism disclaimer. Equally nice to look at, and equally horrifying to watch, this one features a band of obvious black stereotypes portrayed as, quite literally, monkeys, mules, and the devil himself, playing the fiddle and enjoying a merry hoedown. There's also a mildly pedophiliac dog thing that dances with what appears to be a 4 year old girl.  And then the shit hits the fan: A pitch-black colored wolf barges in with a shotgun and starts firing away on the white-colored dog. They fight for a minute and a half and it ends on the black wolf being burned and running out the door while the white dog and a furnace shake hands triumphantly. For real.

Bosco's Parlor Pranks - A downright torturous, annoying short, in color. Not funny at all, not even for the wrong reasons. The first cartoon in the set I haven't enjoyed in some fashion.

Sittin' On a Backyard Fence - Funny thing about these old ‘30s cartoons - If they're not overtly offensive, they're not at all interesting. Moving on.

One Step Ahead of My Shadow - I can't even begin to descibe to you how offensive this is. I can't even begin.

Live action shorts:

The Wall Street Mystery - Handsomely shot but horribly edited whodunit, with a pretty disappointing transfer. Though I suppose a 17-minute short from the early 30s likely not to have been seen in 75 years wouldn't have the prettiest looking vault materials, eh? Thoroughly uninteresting, regardless.

The Studio Murder Mystery - Another ancient, antiquated whodunit, just shy of 20 minutes. Everything I noted for The Wall Street Mystery applies.

Goofy Movies #1 - "A whole show in one reel!" A weird 8-minute short, chock full of obvious stock footage with yuks aplenty. Funny, but stupid. Oh, so stupid. Thrills, chills and spills.

The Trans-Atlantic Mystery - Yet another 20-odd minute short. Equally uninteresting, but this one has the distinction of having a quite beautiful transfer, and I'm not sure how. At times it looks about as good as the actual feature on the disc. If any of these were worthy of a watch, this would be the one.

Commentaries:

Midnight Mary - Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta. A truly interesting document of the pre-code Hollywood, as well as the film. However, Vance and Maietta often sound like they're reading from notes directly, annunciating dramatically, speaking very carefully as if they were much older. There are several dry spots, but overall, it's worth a listen.

Heroes for Sale - Film historian John Gallagher. He tells some interesting stories, but his voice and intonation are dry and dulling. Due to this, the track is unfortunately not all that compelling. A shame.

Wild Boys of the Road - William Wellman Jr. and Frank Thompson. Informative, slow, and typical. Like the others.

Horrible trailers for all the movies are included.

Finally, two feature-length documentaries on William Wellman round off the set.