The Big House - Wallace Beery

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

directed by George W. Hill
USA 1930

Prison life on the half-shell is plainly exposed. The big wallop is the prison revolt, resulting in several deaths and an expose of how the officials deal with foolhardy prisoners. The hand grenades, barrages, stench bombs, tractor attacks and other means to conquer rebellious prisoners, with variations in the dungeon, etc, are all graphically dovetailed into the tense story.

Excerpt from Variety located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: 14 June 1930 (USA)

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DVD Review: Warner Home Video (Archive Collection - DVD-R) - Region 0 - NTSC

Big thanks to Gregory Meshman for the Review!

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Warner Home Video Region 0 - NTSC
Runtime	1:27:15
Video	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.5 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate
Audio	Dolby Digital 2.0 (English)
Subtitles	None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Warner Home Video Aspect Ratio: Fullscreen - 1.33:1 Edition Details: • Warner Archives Promo DVD Release Date: March 22, 2009 Keep Case Chapters 9

Comments

Available for purchase or download HERE - but only if you reside in the continental United States.

This is a review of a Warner Archives disc - a new made-on-demand service available from Warner that currently only being sold at their Online store. There are a few drawbacks to this service:

1. The discs are being burned on DVD-R instead of being pressed at the plant, but Warner is using the best possible DVD-R media and is standing behind their product.

2. Most of the transfers being sold at this time are interlaced and not progressive. It's unfortunate, but hopefully they will correct this for later releases.

3. High price point. Current price for each disc is $19.95, which is too steep for a non-progressive DVD-R. So far they've been having multiple coupons and sales that can bring the price for each disc lower. You still have an option to download the movie, but for $14.95 each title that may have some compatibility issues - it's even less attractive than DVD-R for $5 more.

Of all the Warner Archive releases we reviewed so far, this one has the weakest image. It was sourced from a tape master - probably the same one used in 1994 VHS (see the same old Turner logo). In fact the smaller the screen, the better video would look, so these captures don't look as bad as they looked on my big screen TV. The video keeps fluctuating with some noise and damage on the screen (see third capture for an example of damage). It is clearly no digital restoration was done for this transfer. The audio hasn't been cleaned with some clicks and pops evident on the soundtrack. It's a shame that such an important film that won 2 Academy Awards (and was nominated for 2 more) gets such a poor treatment for a DVD release - it could have been a nice addition to Warner's future Controversial Classics collections.

- Gregory Meshman

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