You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939)
Comedy • 1h 16m
Directors: Edward F. Cline & George Marshall
Cast: W.C. Fields, Edgar Bergen, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Constance Moore, John Arledge, James Bush, Thurston Hall, Mary Forbes, Edward Brophy, Arthur Hohl, Princess Baba, Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd, Blacaman, Ernie Adams, Dorothy Arnold, Irving Bacon, Lulu Mae Bohrman, Ralph Brooks, Eddy Chandler, Dora Clement, Jack Rube Clifford, Richard Clucas, Charles Coleman, Evelyn Del Rio, Drew Demorest, Dick Dickinson, Jan Duggan, Eddie Dunn, Billy Engle, Jack Gardner, Grace Goodall, Jennifer Gray, Bobby Hale, Ted Hardy, Sam Harris, Leyland Hodgson, Otto Hoffman, Lloyd Ingraham, Frank Jenks, Si Jenks, Tiny Jones, Jack Kenney, Joe King, Ivan Lebedeff, Ethelreda Leopold, Jimmie Lucas, Kathryn Marlowe, Eric Mayne, Frank Melton, Harold Miller, Edmund Mortimer, James C. Morton, Ray Moyer, Byron Munson, Charles Murphy, Frank O'Connor, George Offerman, Jr., David Oliver, George Ovey, Lee Phelps, June Preston, Ralph Sanford, Harry Stafford, Grady Sutton, Ferris Taylor, Don Terry, Walter Tetley, Edward Thomas, Lelah Tyler, Minerva Urecal, Dale Van Sickel, Russell Wade, Beryl Wallace, Delmar Watson, Florence Wix, Bill Wolfe, Edward Woolf, Bill Worth, Arthur Yeoman, Duke York, Ruth Cherrington, Hazel Dohlman
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 1 year ago
Overview
Fields plays "Larsen E. Whipsnade", the owner of a shady carnival that is constantly on the run from the law. Whipsnade is struggling to keep a step ahead of foreclosure, and clearly not paying his performers, including Bergen and McCarthy, who try to coax money out of him, or in McCarthy's case, steal some outright.
Directors: Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline
MoC or Kino Lorber Buster Keaton: The Complete Short Films 1917-1923 boxset Blu-ray
No comparison available
Directors: Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton
MoC or Kino Lorber Buster Keaton: The Shorts Collection 1917-1923 Blu-ray boxset
(a newer restoration by Lobster Films compared to the older 1920-1923 boxset)
No comparison between MoC and Kino Lorber available
MoC boxset has more extras and commentary tracks, while also providing a 184-page book, a substantially better extras package compared to Kino Lorber
Director: Edward F. Cline
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Simon Wincer
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
4K is defective with color space issues and poor encoding, UHD replacement disc is also defective with worse encode. The UHD has visible artifacts from the bad encoding. The HDR is overdone and the Paramount 4K master has grain management.
The new Kino Blu-ray has none of the UHD's problems and is superior to the UHD in every way though it still uses the same Paramount master.
DVD 5.1 or LaserDisc 5.1 AC3, LD PCM 2.0 for the matrix stereo version. The LD and DVD seem to be the theatrical audio mix untouched with plenty of low end. This low end like a number of 90's Paramount titles was mixed out or tamed on subsequent releases.
The Lionsgate BD and Paramount BD share the same lackluster HD master with DNR and image distortion. The Lionsgate is much better encoded but has a 7.1 remix which messed up the original mix design by lessening all the great Foley work in favor of the score. The Paramount BD had a 5.1 lossless version of the original mix but it's a new version where the bass has been tamed so the track has lost its punch. The Kino Lorber UHD and Blu-ray recycle this same lesser 5.1 mastering. The original mix can still be heard on LD and DVD. The 2.0 stereo on the Kino is matrixed but also does not sound as good as the 2.0 matrix audio on DVD or LD.
Kino has a replacement program for the defective UHD to fix the color space issue. The new disc is not marked, has a worse encode AND DOES NOT FIX THE COLOR SPACE! Thus it is a worse defective disc version of the original defective disc.
The Billy Zane interview on the Kino BD has technical issues in the editing and clip quality used.
Director: Preston Sturges
No information on French Elephant Films Blu-ray
Director: Martin Scorsese
Other releases have horrendous DNR
Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Sourced from a 4K scan of the 35mm Fine Grain. Even with its unfortunate and noticeable print damage, tears, and other issues, still easily beats any prior disc release, though the Imprint BD (same master as Kino, but inferior encode) included in their Essential Film Noir Collection Vol. 3 set does include more extras. https://youtu.be/-Wrsn6-XJCo
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion Box Set coming October 20th with FiM encode
Director: Paul Leni
Theatrical/Original A negative: MoC Blu-ray
European C/D negative but better picture quality: Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
From DVDBeaver: The MoC Blu-ray is scanned from the American A negative, as opposed to the European C or D negatives used by Photoplay and others (Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray), so it is identical with the film US audiences saw in 1927
See caps for comparison
In addition, the Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has sepia tinting throughout while the MoC Blu-ray has yellow for normal scenes, blue for night scenes, and some even green tintings.
Director: Lewis Teague
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray disappointing
R1 DVD
R1 DVD sounds best and has the original mono and a Dolby Stereo remix
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has excellent master in SDR and a good encode. BD caps here.
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor audio: The 2.0 is fine but unremarkable, the 5.1 is presumably an upmix with a botched, strongly raised LFE channel which makes the entire track unlistenable on well-tuned equipment. Audio graphs here.
More Comedy on Blu-ray
Director: Bruce Robinson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray has stronger encode than Criterion
Director: Olivier Assayas
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Encoding is clunky on both Arrow and Criterion BDs but Arrow at least included the original stereo mix in addition to the 5.1 remix, while Criterion only included the 5.1 remix.
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
TV series
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative for all episodes
Director: Norman Taurog
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Delbert Mann
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Garson Kanin
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Only Streaming has 1080p
Edit history
Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.