Buying Videos at Walgreens: Arts + Words: Joel Wicklund: CenterstageChicago.com

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Buying Videos at Walgreens

The joys and jeopardy of the public domain.

Tuesday Mar 22, 2005. By Joel Wicklund

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As DVDetours is devoted to "films for the adventurous movie buff," the focus here is mainly on renting. The advent of online DVD rental services has not only made a far greater variety of films available to viewers than local video stores could ever provide, but the current price wars between these companies has also made access to that variety extremely affordable.

Still, while renting is still the best option for checking out something unknown and unproven to your tastes, buying DVDs has quickly become an inexpensive option. Well-known titles can be found for less than $10 (used copies for even less), and for those willing to risk a couple of bucks, the world of public domain movies is a low-rent, movie gambler's paradise.

When a film's copyright expires and is not renewed, or was never properly secured to begin with, it falls into the foggy realm of the public domain, where basically anyone who can obtain a copy of the film in question can show it or sell it. For consumers, this can be a blessing or a curse.

Neglected films that might never see a DVD release from a major distributor are often picked up by enterprising, low-budget companies and sold at enticingly low prices. Working on the cheap, however, these companies often deliver pretty shoddy products: second, third or fourth generation copies of prints that were already terribly scratched or faded. Quite often the joy of finding a film gem for little more than bus fare quickly fades when the disc's quality is revealed to be wretched. Yet there are enough hits in the hit-and-miss public domain world to warrant the occasional roll of the dice.

Of the countless companies profiting from public domain films, Alpha Video is the most prolific distributor these days. Offerings from its large catalog can be found everywhere from specialty video stores to the local drug store, usually priced at $6 or less. Quality-wise its releases range from surprisingly good to unwatchable, with most of what I've sampled falling somewhere in-between.

For example, Alpha's release of Edgar Ulmer's thriller "Bluebeard" (1944) looks like a dupe of a well-worn print; demanding film buffs would be much better served by All Day Entertainment's 2-disc set, "Edgar Ulmer: King of the B's," which features a far better print of the film, as well as two other features by the director known for working minor miracles on impossibly low budgets: "The Strange Woman" and "Moon Over Harlem." Yet for the curious, budget-conscious viewer, Alpha's "Bluebeard" disc is serviceable enough. Ulmer's stylish direction and John Carradine's great performance as a puppeteer, artist and serial killer, survive intact in spite of the inferior DVD presentation.

Much better is Alpha's release of the beloved social satire "My Man Godfrey" (1936), a true classic that somehow slipped from Universal's hands into the public domain. Again, if you're willing to spend a bit more, you can do better, particularly with an extras-laden Criterion Collection release. With William Powell at his very best as the eloquent, witty homeless man taken in as a butler by the delightful Carole Lombard, this superbly scripted comedy of haves and have-nots deserves top-notch treatment. But the bargain-hunting collector won't be disappointed with Alpha's cheapie release. It's a sharp print, with good black-and-white contrast and decent sound.

One of Alpha's rivals in the P.D. market is Platinum Disc Corporation and, though it has its share of dodgy offerings, I've had pretty good luck with its products. Particularly noteworthy is their release of Alfred Hitchcock's 1934 version of "The Man Who Knew Too Much," a highly entertaining conspiracy thriller from early in the career of the master of suspense and a better film than his more widely seen 1955 remake with Jimmy Stewart. With dozens of companies releasing this film, I can't say definitively that you can't do better for the price, but for the $4 I shelled out, this was a real find. Despite a little wear, the print used is very sharp with good contrast levels. It even includes the original British Board of Film Censors certification at the start of the film.

As the P.D. field has become more crowded, distributors have started packaging several films together. I've seen packages of as many as 50 films grouped together for the price of a single new release studio disc. I would be very leery of those mega-collections, but I've gambled on some smaller sets and reaped some modest rewards.

Platinum's "Frank Sinatra DVD Double Feature" includes "The Man with the Golden Arm" (1955), Otto Preminger's famous drama of drug addiction featuring Sinatra's acclaimed performance as a junkie musician. The image quality is pretty soft here, but the contrast levels are decent. This groundbreaking film deserves better, but this version is acceptable. It's paired with the tense thriller "Suddenly" (1954) with Sinatra effectively sinister as a psychotic gun-for-hire on a mission to kill the president. (Like a later Sinatra assassination drama, the brilliant "Manchurian Candidate," it was withdrawn from circulation after the Kennedy assassination.) "Suddenly" gets a better treatment than its partner on this double-sided disc. Thought the print is a bit grainy and scratchy, the contrast is sharp and the sound is fine.

Platinum has also released several volumes of "Horror Classics," with four or five films crammed onto a single disc. The volume I purchased represented the best and worst of the public domain. On the extreme downside is a lousy transfer of a lousy print of "The Last Man on Earth," a flawed but interesting 1964 film with Vincent Price in a tale of post-apocalypse vampirism based on Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" (also the source for the Charlton Heston favorite, "Omega Man"). Taken from a TV distributor's print, this CinemaScope feature has been poorly cropped and is super-scratchy and faded to boot. Adding insult to injury, the film is wrongly identified on the video sleeve as an unrelated 1924 silent film with the same title!

But even with this waste of space, this collection remains a terrific bargain because of the other three films. "Chamber of Horrors" (1940) is a very fun adaptation of Edgar Wallace's gothic mystery "The Door with Seven Locks." With its great sets, sly humor and excellent British cast, the film is well worth your time even if the print quality on this disc leaves something to be desired. "White Zombie" (1932), with Bela Lugosi at his creepy best as a master of the revived dead, is one of those public domain warhorses that may have set a record for number of times released. But the image and sound quality of this early sound film is quite good on this disc, better than several other versions I've seen.

But what makes this "Horror Classics" disc a true find is an absolutely pristine copy of "Carnival of Souls" (1962), Herk Harvey's influential, low-budget chiller about a woman pursued by demons after a car accident. Technical purists can complain about the slightly over-saturated image quality of the digital transfer, but this release compares favorably with the Criterion Collection edition, albeit without the wealth of fascinating extras that Criterion includes on their elaborate, two-disc set. Still, with an image that looks as crisp as it was shot yesterday and nary an unwanted speck to be found, this is the kind of surprise that keeps film fans hopeful whenever they take a chance in the unreliable world of the public domain.

Films featured in DVDetours™ may be difficult to find at many video stores but are widely available from some of the online rental services, such as Netflix, Green Cine, QwikFliks and Blockbuster Online. Inventories vary from company to company and DVDetours has no connection to any of these services.

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