3-D Classics on Blu Ray

If you're a fan of vintage 3-D 2016 has been a pretty awesome year so far. MVD kicked things off in January with 1981's Comin' At Ya!. Admittedly, that's a terrible movie--all of the 80s 3-D films fail at being good movies--but it has a lot of goofy 3-D gimmick shots so it's kind of fun in that manner.

Kino Lorber in March released Gog courtesy of the 3-D Film Archive. I've mentioned before what a fantastic restoration it is and it bears repeating. Gog hasn't looked this good since its initial release in 1954. This is a restoration to rival restorations from the major studios, that's how well done it is. If you're a fan of 50s science fiction or classic 3-D movies, you really need to get this one.

Going back to 80s 3-D for a moment, last month Universal finally released all 3 Jaws sequels on Blu Ray. Included in this, of course, is Jaws 3-D. While they didn't make as big a deal about it as it can be argued they should have, that Blu includes the 3-D version listed as a special feature. But it's the 3-D Blu Ray edition, unlike Paramount's anaglyphic release of Friday the 13th Part 3. Some of the gimmick shots get way too close to the camera for comfort but the 3-D looks great. I have a warm spot for Jaws 3-D (despite knowing it's a bad movie) since it was my first 3-D movie in the theaters so I'm glad it's finally out the way it was meant to be seen. Besides, why would you want to watch it any other way?

The most recent release is a 1950s title from Twilight Time. Miss Sadie Thompson starring Rita Hayworth and Jose Ferrer shipped just this week. Sony did a beautiful 3-D DCP restoration a few years ago. I saw that DCP at the 2013 World 3-D Film Expo and it looked terrific. That's what Twilight Time is releasing. I'm looking forward to revisiting this soon.

There's more on the way, too. Kino Lorber and the 3-D Film Archive are working on 1976's A*P*E.  A South Korean Kaiju movie made to compete  with the Dino DeLaurentis remake of King Kong, A*P*E has a ridiculous looking 36 foot gorilla rampaging across Korea, kidnapping Joanna Kerns (the mom from Growing Pains), and flipping off the audience! While it wouldn't be my first choice for restoration, I'm confident the 3-D Film Archive will make it look better than it deserves. More exciting is the potential restoration of September Storm from the 3-D Film Archive. There's a Kickstarter campaign to fund the restoration at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3-dspace/september-storm-1960-3-d-digital-feature-film-rest. If you are a fan of vintage 3-D, you owe it to yourself to contribute to this.

On top of that, Shout Factory has announced 1983's Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn. Charles Band's second of three 3-D movies, Metalstorm stars Kelly Preston in the second worst sci-fi movie she was in (Battlefield Earth remains the champ) and Richard Moll in the part that got him the role of Bull in Night Court. It has just enough goofy 3-D effects to make it worth watching, too. The 3-D Blu Ray will be released on September 13.

Finally, Universal may be working on the 1953 sci-fi classic It Came From Outer Space. Originally, Panamint in the U.K. had announced a release set for this month but cancelled it when Universal said they were planning a release. It the Universal Blu Ray is the same as what Panamint was planning, it will include the short that originally played with the movie, Nat King Cole and Russ Morgan's Orchestra. Universal hasn't confirmed anything yet, however, so vintage 3-D fans wait eagerly for news.

For those of you who wonder why I get so enthusiastic about these old 3-D movies and not so much the newer ones, it's because I generally find the older titles have better 3-D. They take better advantage of the process with greater depth and more gimmick shots. Even the less gimmicky films of the 50s are deeper and, as a rule, have at least some pop outs. There are more recent titles that have     nothing coming out of the screen at all. They also usually don't take as much advantage of the depth as they could. There are exceptions, of course, but they aren't the rule. So until all modern filmmakers bring the fun back to 3-D, I'll continue to jump at any of these older titles.

St. Louis Blues (1958)

I've always found the 50s a fascinating decade for movies. While most people credit the 60s with changes  in the way movies were done due to the introduction of the rating system in 1968 (among other things), but if you peel back the 50s, you can see the changes that were slowly coming. Directors like Hitchcock started pushing boundaries involving sex while other directors like Preminger and Kramer pushed the boundaries of race. Studios started taking chances on films like Carmen Jones and Porgy & Bess, despite the ugly scourge of segregation in the South. Into that came St. Louis Blues, a somewhat lesser known but worthy entry.

St. Louis Blues is the story of W.C. Handy, the father of Rhythm and Blues. Handy is the son of a fire and brimstone preacher in Memphis. Rev. Handy believes there are only two types of music: God's music and the Devil's music. Anything that isn't a hymn is the Devil's music. Young W.C. (Billy Preston as a kid) is attracted to the Devil's music, naturally. Of course, he doesn't see it the same way as his dad. Rev. Handy in a particularly mean spirited moment takes W.C.'s prized horn and tosses it under a passing wagon, causing it to be crushed. Years later, the adult W.C. Handy returns from college. He's supposed to take a teaching job, but he gets asked to write a song for a politician. Torch singer Gogo Germaine (Eartha Kitt)hears the song and gets him to adapt it for her and he's off and running in a career writing popular tunes while working in the same seedy nightclub Gogo works in. His father eventually finds out and the two are estranged for years.

This film is a Jazz lover's dream. Nat King Cole plays the adult W.C. Handy. Poor Nat has drawn a lot of criticism for his performance, but he's not really bad in the film. Cole's problem can best be summed up by the fact that he was shy by nature and comes off as shy and a little awkward. But that awkwardness actually works considering the nature of the relationship between him and his father (Juano Hernandez) in the film. Singers who turn to acting are always a tricky proposition and he does better than some of the others who have tried it (though not in this film per se). Besides, anytime he sings, he commands the screen with that velvety voice he had. His rendition of the title tune is the final word in the film--as well it should be.

Eartha Kitt plays Gogo and nearly steals the film from everyone. Gogo should just be another bad girl, and yet Kitt breathes a life into her that you're not expecting. She's actually one of the more sympathetic characters in the movie, quietly championing Handy and trying to get his family to accept him as he is. Hernandez doesn't quite overdo the Rev. Handy, which would be easy to do as the character is written pretty melodramatically. The film also boasts performances by Mahalia Jackson, Pearl Bailey, and Cab Calloway. Calloway doesn't get to sing, but as the snake who owns the night club, he makes a great villain. Bailey plays the understanding Aunt Hagar. She only gets to do a couple of verses of the title tune, but she's great throughout. Ruby Dee plays Handy's fiancee, who never fully seems to know what she wants. Ella Fitzgerald gets an anachronistic cameo in one scene.. All she does is belt out a tune, but that's all Ella needed to do. In fact, the only people missing from the movie seem to be Lena Horne and Louis Armstrong.

Some people have criticized the film for playing fast and loose with the facts, jumbling events up such as Handy's blindness. But that was Standard Operating Procedure for Hollywood Biopics of the day. Come to it, it still is. Yet the film has a purpose in it's storytelling and it's a purpose that isn't immediately self-evident. 

It's interesting because this isn't a film you would instantly associate with race. Oh, sure, it's got an all African-American cast in it, but on the surface it appears to your standard Hollywood bio-pic musical that just happens to have a purely African-American cast. And yet, like the decade itself, when the layers get peeled back, you find out there's more than the surface story going on. And like Billie Holiday's famous song Strange Fruit, it's not too subtle when it drops it's bomb. Appropriately, it's Kitt who drops it right in the audience's lap. I can imagine the reaction of Southern theater owners upon seeing it, too. 

The movie was shot in VistaVision, the 65mm Hi-Fidelity film process Paramount used back in the 50s. It was one of the rare black and white VistaVision films. But considering how incredible most of the VistaVision films that have been released on Blu Ray look--in particular White Christmas, The Ten Commandments and To Catch A Thief--it's a crime that the only way to see this currently is a Standard Definition Open Matte 1:33 version on Amazon Instant Video. Paramount, Warner, Olive--Someone--needs to get this out on Blu Ray in all it's VistaVision glory. Maybe then this movie would get the attention it so richly deserves. With some of the greatest voices in 20th Century music and a message it cleverly slips in when you aren't looking, St. Louis Blues is a movie that deserves to be far, far better known that it is.