Useful Relic Format That is DVD

 

Digging For, and Finding, Disc "Extra" Gold

Once there stood mighty fortress that was DVD with extras and talkers and sometimes Easter Eggs, a bargain for modest price to have them. Blu-Ray buried a generation of these in the name of image improved but for most part not much else. I get out an old disc to always surprise of how much is there to enjoy, a couple returned to by sheer chance, years since exploring either, but glad to have done so. Was there really a time when Fox Video released all their Charlie Chan features and did them up deluxe, each box, as in seven boxes, with oodles of bonus content that carry 65-minute movies to a two hour finish? Here’s how excavating happens for me: a happenstance visit to Philo Vance via The Garden Murder Case, then the Kennel, the Dragon, and wanting more if not of Vance, then why not C. Chan whom I’d not called up since The Black Camel, only this time Sidney Toler rather than default choice Oland, thus Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, among best of Tolers, and more so a treat for Fox documenting the World’s Fair of 1939 in San Francisco where an entire island rose out of the bay thanks to man-effort and engineering, color home movies and testimony of those who recalled first-hand what creation was like. Segments being made in 2007 puts us sixteen years past ones who saw the real Treasure Island and were still around to speak of it. Then there was a wow of an extra comparing “Zodiac” villainy of the film with real-life Frisco serial killings a generation after. Chilling to contemplate are links suggested between the two.

So what influence led to retrieve of dust-laden Fall of the Roman Empire, Bronston behemoth of 1964 not consulted since 2008 when proud double-disc marched ways into household that till 2024 has watched Fall but once. Did its three hours daunt? Memory of the feature faded over sixteen years save much shooting in snow and honey of a chariot race plus duel to make Ben-Hur look like a Sunday surrey ride. Fall of the Roman Empire was owned in ’08 by “The Weinstein Company.” Is it still? Glory that was Rome looks still glorious here, what with production to take breath truly away. Why did I go see Duel of the Titans in 1963 and not this? Checked for Blu-Ray access in the US and found none. Lots from elsewhere Regions however, these clearly digging what once straddled the world and remains longest lasting of all civilizations. Picture looked fine on my standard disc, a cinch that newer ones, even if Blu, would lack all of bonus content this ’08 release has. Never knew a lot about Samuel Bronston, but experts taught me here. Bronston and bunch rebuilt Rome on Spanish plains, him fleeced a whole time by “assist” lining own pockets to tune of millions, Bronston fated to fall upon Roman sword that was fail of this most massive among his ventures. Each of what Bronston made had to be mighty hits in order to enable a next. In this case, it was El Cid to grease chariot wheels, always-threat a boxoffice reverse that would fell Bronston’s fragile empire. The producer was himself a sort of update Rome, doing one more as colossal which was Circus World, which like Roman Empire, also available off-shore only on Blu-Ray.

All Chans were not created equal, as neither are discs hosting them. I began Chan (Toler) in Reno and had a good time till the image froze around fifteen minutes in, not to regain footing and henceforth a coaster. Some DVD’s last, others not. Extras play fine, the feature lasting barely past the first murder. One that did play, until lights out dictated by me, was a cluck called City in Darkness, CC in Paris (again) but this time sans son, any of them, comic that was no relief enacted by Harold Huber who was test of endurance beyond mish-mosh of a story I could/would not follow. Always a bitter pill to concede failure at watching any feature, though preferable to taxing oneself past point of boredom. Don’t want to sour myself with Chan for after all there may be Monograms to cope with down the line. Does Sidney Toler please as substitute for Warner Oland? I say yes for recognition of large shoes former had to fill, as who really could be so graceful as true-life mystery that was Oland? There was something distinctly uncanny about this man so few seemed to know well. He came and went to work till one day he simply went and never came back. Do I go on a limb by declaring Oland second only to Shirley Temple as most valued Fox property? The Chan series always made profit, and he was principal reason for it, Oland loss like Will Rogers for leaving major hole in release schedules. Toler filled in, someone had to, but things would never be quite the same. Time answered the riddle of how long the series could last when Fox let it go in 1942, bargaining with Toler so he could carry Chan elsewhere.

Wish I had lived more in a roadshow age. Saw some on two-a-day terms, mostly of musical bent, but what a treat The Fall of the Roman Empire would have been, surely balm for ages mostly young, talk in plenty giving way to action resplendent on scale movies had not so far touched. Don’t know how Bronston slept for pressure of finance and keeping massive force organized toward finish of undertaking that was Rome. One of disc interviews was a Bronston son who went to medical school rather than follow elephantine Dad footsteps. Offspring and wife visited massive forum sets, decorated inside and out, stunned as any civilian confronted by such effort. Imagine life as spawn off Olympian that was S. Bronston. And yet even gods do tumble, for Bronston went begging to Paramount for completion cash, giving up much to see over-bloated Rome through. Critics and much of viewership called Fall too much a downer, but let’s be fair, it wasn’t called Rise of the Roman Empire, even if maybe that should have been the concept and title. Taking three hours for a civilization to collapse was less burden at least than three centuries the real Rome took to fold, but what matter come 1964 with Paramount’s ill investment facing tepid turnstiles? Frustration for us is the monolith withdrawn from modern inspection, as with others of Bronston lineage. Fans call regular for US Blu-Ray release of Rome, Cid, Circus World, the spectacle-lot, but so far nothing. Maybe it needs the Cinerama restoration crew to pull these mastodons back from oblivion.