Cabin In The Sky (1943) coming from Warner Archive

[whiteberry]

Coming to Blu-ray January 30th!

NEW 2023 1080p HD Master from 4K Scan of Preservation Elements!

CABIN IN THE SKY (1943)
Run Time: 98 Minutes
Subtitles: ENGLISH SDH
Audio Specs: DTS HD-MA 2.0
Aspect Ratio 16x9 1.37:1 with Side Mattes
Product color: B&W
Disc Configuration-BD 50
Directed by Vincente Minnelli

Cast: Ethel Waters, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Lena Horne, Rex Ingram

Special Features: Feature commentary by Evangela Anderson and Eva Anderson (Wife and Daughter of Eddie "Rochester" Anderson), Fayard Nicholas, Black Cultural Scholar Todd Boyd, Film Historian Dr. Drew Casper and Interview Excerpts of Lena Horne; Vintage Pete Smith Specialty "Studio Visit"; Audio-only bonus: Louis Armstrong "Ain't it the Truth" Outtake; Original Theatrical Trailer.

Lena Horne, Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, and Louis Armstrong—head an exciting cast of musical legends in this musical fantasy as temptation pulls a man toward Satan . . . and his loving and God-fearing wife fights for his eternal soul. Seriously injured in a barroom brawl, Little Joe Jackson (Anderson) hovers between life and death, dreaming that he is the centerpiece of an epic struggle between Heaven and Hell for his soul: On his side are the prayers of his loyal, pious wife, Petunia (Waters) battling on the side of darkness is Lucifer Jr. (Rex Ingram) and his most powerful weapon, the beautiful and seductive Georgia Brown, played to the hilt by a stunning Lena Horne. Based on the hit Broadway musical which starred Waters and Ingram, the film is best remembered as the feature directorial debut of the great Vincente Minnelli.

Cabin in the Sky (1943) Official Trailer - Ethel Waters, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson Movie HD - YouTube

[witheygull]

Sweet. I've only seen this once, and it's been a while, but I remember being impressed that a Hollywood movie from this era actually had good roles for black actors rather than the stereotypical servant parts that were much more the norm at the time.

[bergman864]

Happy to see this finally getting a blu-ray release.

[ilenewoodsfan99]

*Starts humming Taking a Chance on Love*

[Areyakiddin]

Kind of surprising that they didn't wait a week to tie it in with Black History Month in February.

[bigshot]

Originally Posted by witheygull

Sweet. I've only seen this once, and it's been a while, but I remember being impressed that a Hollywood movie from this era actually had good roles for black actors rather than the stereotypical servant parts that were much more the norm at the time.

This film was made around the same time as Stormy Weather, which shared that.

[witheygull]

Originally Posted by bigshot

This film was made around the same time as Stormy Weather, which shared that.

I haven't seen that one, so I'll be on the look out for it.

A lot of times when I'm watching older movies I'll be wishing some black folks would show up, but then I'm usually cringing if they do due to the roles they tended to get at the time. It's always refreshing encountering something that goes against the grain of old-timey racial biases.

[bigshot]

Stormy Weather is the better of the two.

[Swissangel4616]

fantastic, great talents, very entertaining

[Areyakiddin]

FYI, according to this review the commentary for this movie is only playable on the SD transfer of the movie that is also on the disc.
https://trailersfromhell.com/cabin-in-the-sky-2/

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by Areyakiddin

FYI, according to this review the commentary for this movie is only playable on the SD transfer of the movie that is also on the disc.
https://trailersfromhell.com/cabin-in-the-sky-2/

Theory:

They’ve since found footage that wasn’t in the DVD cut, and therefore the commentary track couldn’t be synced up properly. I’d have to go through the two transfers frame by frame, but I could figure it out.

It’s happened before, but unless someone sits there and looks at it carefully, there’s no way we can confirm.

[bigshot]

Usually, that sort of thing is when they restore extra frames missing from cuts or dissolves throughout the run time, and there are enough of them that there is no way to sync the sound to the picture any more. It's especially hard when the extra frames come in the middle of musical numbers, because they can't cut the sound to fit. The commentary is probably married to an attenuated soundtrack that they can't remove.

[MifuneFan]

Angel Face and Land of the Pharaohs also have their commentary tracks relegated to an SD version of the film. This is the reason mentioned in the site review for LotP

Please note that, much like on Warner Archive's recent Blu-ray release of Angel Face, this commentary is only playable during a separately-included standard definition version of the film; it was reportedly not stored as a separate audio file and thus incompatible with the newly-restored visuals.

[dallywhitty]

That's... weird. They couldn't just rip the audio and provide it as an option on the Blu-ray?

[bigshot]

It would be a sync issue, not because they couldn't separate the track from the picture. The new transfer is probably a few dozen frames longer than the old one.

[Randy Miller III]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Angel Face and Land of the Pharaohs also have their commentary tracks relegated to an SD version of the film. This is the reason mentioned in the site review for LotP

Thanks, was just about to post the same thing but you beat me to it. I'm sure with enough time and resources it could be done, but sadly Warner Archive is pretty limited on both of those fronts.

[bigshot]

If there is music from the soundtrack playing under the commentary and the new picture is a different length than the old one, it will either fall out of sync, or they would have to cut the sound to match the picture, resulting in either silent gaps or missing sound.

[Randy Miller III]

Full site review is up for this highly entertaining (and underrated) film. Enjoy!

Cabin in the Sky Blu-ray Review

[lcbmd]

The commentary track is only included on a separate, DVD-quality copy of the movie on the blu-ray disc, according to Blu-ray.com's review because "it was reportedly not originally stored as an isolated audio file and thus incompatible with the newly-restored visuals."

It took me about 10 seconds to sync the track with the 1080p version via MKVToolNix. Why couldn't Warner Archive do that? So bizarre.