RKO Classic Romances Blu-ray - Constance Bennett

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RKO Classic Romances Blu-ray

Millie (1931) Kept Husbands (1931) The Lady Refuses (1931)

The Woman Between (1931) Sin Takes a Holiday (1930)

Kino Classics and Lobster Films are proud to present five Pre-Code love stories from RKO Radio Pictures in the RKO CLASSIC ROMANCES collection. Preserved by the Library of Congress and restored by Lobster Films, these are tearjerkers that will tug every last heartstring. Millie is a grand melodrama about a divorce e (Helen Twelvetrees) who climbs the ranks at a luxe hotel, and whose tattered romantic relationships drive her to a life of independence. Kept Husbands circles around a bet made by a steel magnate s impish daughter, played by Dorothy Mackaill. She guarantees that she will get a plant manager (Joel McCrea) to marry her within four weeks. She wins her bet, but gets all the class issues that come with it. The Lady Refuses is a frank Pre-Code melodrama about a poor woman on the verge of becoming a prostitute (Betty Compson), who is hired by an aristocrat to woo his son away from a gold-digger. The Woman Between is a risque romance in which Lili Damita unknowingly enters into an affair with her estranged stepson (Lester Vail). In Sin Takes a Holiday Constance Bennett plays a poor secretary in love with her boss a womanizing divorce attorney. He proposes a sham marriage to Bennett to keep his lovers at bay, giving her what she wants in exactly the wrong way.

Posters

Theatrical Release: All 1930-1931

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

Review: Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray

Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Kino - Region 'A' - Blu-ray
Runtime	Millie (1931): 1:24:32.400 / Kept Husbands (1931): 1:16:08.564 / The Lady Refuses (1931): 1:11:47.428 / The Woman Between (1931): 1:12:42.066 / Sin Takes a Holiday (1930): 1:21:03.483
	Blu-ray 1	Blu-ray 2
Video	1.33:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 46,957,934,213 bytes Millie (1931): 24,595,519,488 bytes Kept Husbands (1931): 22,163,625,984 bytes Video Bitrate: 34.99 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video	1.33:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 48,343,762,121 bytes The Lady Refuses (1931): 16,106,213,376 bytes The Woman Between (1931): 15,898,036,224 bytes Sin Takes a Holiday (1930): 16,141,056,000 bytes Video Bitrate: 26.50 Mbps / 25.99 Mbps / 23.49 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate Millie (1931) Blu-ray:
Bitrate Kept Husbands (1931) Blu-ray:
Bitrate The Lady Refuses (1931) Blu-ray:
Bitrate The Woman Between (1931) Blu-ray:
Bitrate Sin Takes a Holiday (1930) Blu-ray:
Audio	DTS-HD Master Audio English 1794 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1794 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitles	English (SDH), None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Kino 1.33:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 46,957,934,213 bytes Millie (1931): 24,595,519,488 bytes Kept Husbands (1931): 22,163,625,984 bytes Video Bitrate: 34.99 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video 1.33:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 48,343,762,121 bytes The Lady Refuses (1931): 16,106,213,376 bytes The Woman Between (1931): 15,898,036,224 bytes Sin Takes a Holiday (1930): 16,141,056,000 bytes Video Bitrate: 26.50 Mbps / 25.99 Mbps / 23.49 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • None Blu-ray Release Date: May 21st, 2019 Standard Blu-ray Case Chapters 10 X 5

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (May 2019): Kino have transferred five RKO Classic Romances to Blu-ray. The films are approaching 90-years old and have the anticipated weaknesses, scratches and marks. The grain textures are extremely thick. The 5 films are housed on two dual-layered Blu-rays. The first has Millie (1931) and Kept Husbands (1931) with max'ed out bitrates. The second Blu-ray has The Lady Refuses (1931), The Woman Between (1931) and Sin Takes a Holiday (1930.) The image has flickering contrast and most look specifically weaker in the beginning of the films settling down to be more stable for the rest of the presentations. The scratches can be frequent and the screen captures below should be a reasonable representation - however they tend to look superior in-motion and I, personally, love the heavy grain.

On their Blu-rays, Kino use a DTS-HD Master (24-bit) 2.0 channel mono in the original English language. The audio is, like the video, at the mercy of both the original production limitations or the available sources. Dialogue is imperfect, rough at times, but audible and the available subtitles can be useful. The scores are by Nacio Herb Brown, iconic Max Steiner (Mildred Pierce, Key Largo, Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny, Bird of Paradise, Beyond the Forest, Pursued, The Fountainhead etc. etc.), plus Three Little Words played as dance music at the nightclub and It's the Same the Whole World Over sung a cappella by Daphne Pollard twice in The Lady Refuses, Victor Schertzinger (Other Men's Wives), and Francis Gromon. Predictably weak, but not fatal. The Kino Blu-rays offers optional English subtitles for all five films on their Region 'A'-locked discs.

The Kino Blu-ray has no extras.

These are Pre-code genre films - created before the censorship Production Code (also knows as Hays Code) that was established in 1930 but not instituted till 1934. They freely deal with more adult topics - relationships, sexual relations etc. This alone makes them desirable for fans of vintage era films. I enjoyed them immensely on Blu-ray. A recommendation to lovers of this surprisingly subversive era of films!

Gary Tooze