|
Senior Member
|
Musings from the Tea Room...
Blue Skies (1946) 1080p Kino Lorber
Advertised as "One of the all-time great musicals!," well, it's not quite that, but as a workmanlike musical from post-war America, it checks all of the boxes for great performances, even if the plot consists of nothing more than Astaire as a sexual masochist for Crosby's and Caulfield's on-again-off-again love-mania. Astaire was never one of the more macho hombres from Hollywood's stable, yet I still found it jarring to watch Astaire's character being written as such milquetoast, repeatedly getting punked by two members of the bughouse.
Once (or if) you can clear your mind of those contrivances, Blue Skies is chock full of marvelous Irvin Berlin Song 'n' Dance ditties, a few of them as spellbinding as anything captured on nitrate. Kino Lorber delivers a stunning Technicolor image for its entire 104 minute runtime.
From everything that I can gather, Blue Skies is sourced from the best available three-strip Technicolor print. There's no indication that this film went back to the original three-strip negatives, which is a very costly endeavor (if they're available at all); nevertheless, unlike many three-strip prints, in Blue Skies there's no misalignment of the three color matrices (see Dr. Cyclops (1940) from Kino, for typical, though highly watchable, misalignment). Look at the edges of white shirt collars, and you'll find no red nor green halos, and no color bleed. Shadows here are gray to black, and not some off-green tint that displays color issues. Moreover, there's an incredible sense of image stability, both horizontally and vertically solid. No wobble nor warpage.
What you get is a cinematic experience, which probably replicates what was seen in the best movie houses in 1946. There are a few pops, flecks, and lines in the picture, but as few as they are, they only serve to remind us that we're watching a great analog source. Inherent analog artifacts are not intrusive, especially when you get wrapped up in the brilliant saturated colors; the primaries are full of juice, with just about every shade and variety are on display; nothing is washed out nor faded. Of course, three-strip Technicolor never promises realism; it's pure eye-sugar, but within that bold spectrum, skin tones, teeth and hair color are never too far from center. I've seen the skin tones described as "pinkish," which is true. There is a slight pink hue, but this pigment can be more ascribed to the abundance of chroma grain/noise in the source, as opposed to heavy makeup. The more light that hits the lens the more chroma grain, so darker scenes, like when Crosby sings the title song to what's-her-name, Crosby's skin looks dead-on. Indeed, the detail in busy clothes patterns are full of intricacies.
I should say here, big kudos to Kino, or Universal, of whomever, for not scrubbing any of the grain, leaving the chroma grain in. Indeed, the entire image holds a healthy grain profile that's extremely pleasing, with no detectible digital artifacts (I really don't have to list them all, do I?).
The sound and music is where it's at, though, although even Ronnie Milsap could write a song about this image.
I won't go into all of the deets, but particular standouts are "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" (Astaire), "You Keep Coming Back Like a Song" (Crosby), "Blue Skies" (Crosby), "Heat Wave" (Astaire & Olga San Juan), and "(I'll See You In) C-U-B-A" (Cosby & Olga San Juan). It's Olga San Juan who is kind of the unsung hero of this film. She doesn't have big parts, but when she's on screen, she's electric. All of this comes wrapped in a clear mono mix, typical of the 1940s, where it's a little peaky in the upper-mids, yet clarity is bell-like. The orchestra tends to suffer in these types of soundtracks, before magnetic tape took over, but the voices are natural.
Outside of that, you have the classic Astaire joint, "Puttin' on the Ritz," whereupon Astaire show us why he is arguably the greatest pop dancer in American history. It's not as complex as anything from Swing Time (1936); however, 10 years later it's all about Fred going out on a high note, due to his impending retirement that year (which didn't last). Then we have the big Astaire/Crosby duet, "A Couple of Song and Dance Men," which, at first, appears that it's going to set the world afire, but then it just goes bizzaro (it also kind of rips off Holliday Inn (1942), only not as good).
In sum, a knockout picture, a slew of great numbers, and a story that's a big nothing, in what might as well have been a revue picture, à la Ziegfeld Follies (1945). The price of admission is nothing compared to the dividends onboard.
|
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Linear Mode
