Precode Hollywood [Import]

DVD transfer: All features are in B&W. The shorter version of Hell Harbor and Jungle Bride are really very good. I own a copy of Jungle Bride from Alpha Video and it's a total mess. Not so here, VCI has found and used excellent prints of the films and I must say, the transfers are as good as any for films from this period.

Neither film will impress modern audiences with plot or performance so this review is for collectors. The pre-code highlight is Hell Harbor (you need only watch the shorter version). Lupe Velez is in top form as a girl of the tropics who's father has "sold" her into a marriage. The prospective husband merely needs to sell some pearls to get the money necessary for the marriage bargain. Lupe intercedes by finding the pearl buyer before the money changes hands. She falls for the buyer, and he for her, and we have a dated but still entertaining pre-code drama. Lupe spends a lot of screen time in provocative positioning but nothing beyond PG ratings.

Jungle Bride is the story of shipwrecked individuals, one of whom is suspected of murder. Anita Page plays a young woman who is convinced that another man is guilty of the murder for which her brother is imprisoned. She, along with her newspaper reporter fiance, follow the man aboard an ocean liner only to have the ship sink and 4 survivors wind up being marooned on a Pacific isle. The setting is nice and Anita is truly beautiful.

The real star of this offering is the DVD transfer. Pre-code fans will love the fine work from VCI. This is why I gave this DVD a 4-star rating rather than the 2 or 3 stars I would have put on the films by themselves.

Highly recommended for: pre-code fans, movie historians, fans of older fims, Anita Page fans, Lupe Velez fans. The films are fine for kids but I doubt they will stay with Hell Harbor. However, Jungle Bride has more of a "Gilligan's Island" feel and might just hold the little ones' interest.

VCI Entertainment presents "PRECODE HOLLYWOOD DOUBLE FEATURE:HELL HARBOR & JUNGLE BRIDE" (1930 & 1933) (209 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- Editorial Reviews & Product Description on this Amazon page for your viewing interest.

FIRST FILM ON DOUBLE FEATURE:

United Artists presents "HELL HARBOR" (1930) (64 & 84 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- Starring Lupe Velez, Jean Hersholt, John Holland, Gibson Gowland & Harry Allen

Directed by Henry King

NOTE: Quite young and lovely Lupe Velez (the Mexican Spitfire) and the rest of the cast is good but acting is overstated. Lupe is beautiful but overdoes the cuteness - Who was once Mrs. Johnny Weissmuller (1933 - 1939) (divorced) -- Lupe committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal on December 13, 1944, she was only 36 years old.

Two versions both pre-code footage-
64 min from a 35mm nitrate mint print is very good.
84 min limited release 35 mm nitrate print:quality is fair.

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 Stars
Performance: 4 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 3 Stars
Overall: 4 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

SECOND FILM ON DOUBLE FEATURE:

Monogram Pictures presents "JUNGLE BRIDE" (1933) (63 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- Starring Anita Page, Charles Starrett, Kenneth Thomson, Eddie Borden & Gertrude Simpson

Directed by Harry O. Hoyt & Albert H. Kelley

NOTE: Actor Charles Starrett is in good form before his famous B-Western character adaptation "The Durango Kid" (1940-1952) gave him years of riding the trails. In this film "Jungle Bride" some interesting twists and turns, many are very predictable. Within a general mix makes this an enjoyable one hour afternoon viewing.

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 Stars
Performance: 3 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 3 Stars
Overall: 4 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 209 min on DVD ~ VCI Entertainment ~ (02/01/2011)

Henry King was born in 1888 and made movies from 1912 to 1962. Andrew Sarris summarized his storytelling as turgid and rhetorical, which seems fair, especially with his later films. The Bravados, despite Gregory Peck, spectacular scenery and a splendid cast of villains, is, well, turgid. Perhaps that's why, even back before the Hayes code, Hell Harbor came in two versions, the 90 min original trimmed to 64 for "pace". Perhaps the work of a studio anti-turgid committee. One has to give full marks, and a giant pat on the back, to VCI not only for giving us both versions, but for unusual honesty-in-packaging about the prints. The 84 min print is the longest extant, and well worth watching. Although it has many more frame drops and random glitches than the shorter mint print, many of the deletions are brief bits of business that enrich the characters, or show interesting period detail. It also seems to have better sound and clearer dialogue in many places. It's really not that bad of a print, all things considered. Not even all that turgid, truth be told.
Also nice of VCI to fill up the disk with an amusing minor film, Jungle Bride.
Neither of these films is particularly salacious, and neither has nudity (although a lot more braless cleavage than after the code), but Hell Harbor does have a nice Caribbean variant of trailer-trash mayhem and lazy, quasi-sleazy atmosphere (more implied than real). One of the sailors looks like he stumbled out of Tom of Finland, and one of the bar girls replies to an advance in a man's voice, so perhaps the 'crew' were having some covert fun before Joseph Breen paddled them all for being naughty. Not a great movie, but very enjoyable, with a kind of looseness that many precode films had. Given the price, and VCI's dedication to providing a good product, this disk is a bargain.