Hellzapoppin' (1941)
Music, Comedy • 1h 24m
Director: H. C. Potter
Cast: Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, Martha Raye, Hugh Herbert, Jane Frazee, Robert Paige, Mischa Auer, Richard Lane, Lewis Howard, Clarence Kolb, Nella Walker, Shemp Howard, Elisha Cook Jr., Frank Darien, Kay Johnson, Gus Schilling, Slim Gaillard, Slam Stewart, Harlem Congeroos, Olive Hatch, Eddie Acuff, Sig Arno, Frank Austin, Don Brodie, George Chandler, Milton Charleston, Dean Collins, Billy Curtis, George Davis, Hal K. Dawson, William Downe, Bess Flowers, Karen X. Gaylord, Jody Gilbert, Julia Griffith, Ben Hall, Charlie Hall, Samuel S. Hinds, George Humbert, Frances 'Micky' Jones, Ethelreda Leopold, Jack 'Tiny' Lipson, Leota Lorraine, Jimmie Lucas, Norma Miller, Susan Miller, Al Minns, Harry Monty, Lyle Moraine, Joseph North, Gil Perkins, Jean Porter, Dorothy Raye, Billy Ricker, Willa Mae Ricker, Bert Roach, Bob Rose, Angelo Rossitto, Fred Sanborn, Rex Stewart, Andrew Tombes, Dale Van Sickel, Ellinor Vanderveer, Terry Walker, Billy Wayne, Dave Willock, James Carlisle, Dick Gordon, Barry Norton, Hazel Dohlman, Joe Gilbert, Danny Beck, Edward Biby, George Ford
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 1 year ago
Overview
Olsen and Johnson, a pair of stage comedians, try to turn their play into a movie and bring together a young couple in love, while breaking the fourth wall every step of the way.
More Music on Blu-ray
Directors: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
UK StudioCanal UHD
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Shout Factory Blu-ray
Shout's BD has both cuts of the film in addition to the 3.0 stereo and 2.0 mono mixes making it the first time the full theatrical cut is available with the 3.0 mix. The new commentary is good. The 3.0 stereo sounds wonderful and the mono sounds solid.
That's where the positives end. This is the same terrible Universal DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc with a terrible encode making both versions share the disc separately taking up more space. This master was already poor for DVD and is nearly unwatchable here on the Shout disc. It looks virtually identical to the upscaled DVD most of the time with only a bit less noise due to it being 1080p. This is one of the most appalling cases of "DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc" you can possibly find. Absolutely shameful video presentation. This should have never been released this way. Sadly it's still ever so slightly better than the DVD and the only way you get the proper theatrical cut with lossless 3.0 stereo. This is still the best source we have for the film.
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.
Director: Sian Heder
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Apple TV 4K Blu-ray with Atmos
(Eagle Pictures is 5.1)
Director: Miloš Forman
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Warner Bros Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray: Huge improvement in colors and detail. The restoration was done by the Academy instead of WB MPI which explains that there’s no grain management or issues with colors. They also accessed the original credit optical and scanned that one instead of recreating them digitally
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray, according to Saentz, the 5.0 is a recreation of the original and subsequently 70mm mix from original elements.
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· last reviewed 1 year ago
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