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

ADDITION: Dr. Film (Eric Grayson) Blu-ray (November 2024): Dr. Film have transferred Richard Thorpe's The King of the Kongo to Blu-ray. It is described on the back cover as  "This chapterplay was rushed into theaters to make the record books as the first sound serial. It isn’t fully sound: it features music, sound effects and usually one talking sequence for each of its 21 reels, a typical method of production in the early sound era. Unlike modern films, this soundtrack was recorded only on fragile shellac discs, which were found in four private collections. Of the 21 sound discs, we’ve recovered all but six of them. This film has not looked or sounded this well since 1929. It is a full 4K restoration from archival prints and negatives at the Library of Congress, 95% of which is from 35mm. Boris Karloff, in his third Mascot serial, appears as the villain Macklin, the biggest speaking part he’d had since the dawn of sound a couple of years earlier. He would achieve lasting fame in 1931 as the Frankenstein monster. Sit back and enjoy 211 minutes of Karloff, dinosaurs, gorillas, lions, cougars, alligators, elephants, and lost jungle temples."

It is further described with text screens as "This serial has been restored from nine different prints and negatives. We have done our best to compensate for the image differences, but there will be some variance in quality, particularly in Chapters 1 and 3, where ideal materials do not survive."

Predictably there are inconsistencies but, where possible, the 1080P image can look impressive. Rounded corners are visible. There are light vertical scratches, contrast flickering, the 16mm footage used has rich grain texture, plus focus and framing issues - more associated with the production limitations. Much of it looks grand with expected warts surfacing. This restoration should definitely be strongly commended - ma 'labor of love' indeed.  

NOTE: We have added 72 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Dr. Film use a lossy Dolby in the original English language. It is described as:

"The sound was issued only on shellac discs that were not stored with the prints. These discs vary in quality because they came from four different collections, which ranged from nearly pristine to mold-covered.

The sound for the first two-thirds of Chapter 1 has not been located. Additionally, the sound for the entirety of Chapter 3 is missing, as well as the first half of Chapter 7 and the last half of Chapter 9. In the cases where this occurs, the dialogue has been performed by actors, using both the script and lines retrieved by lip-reading techniques. Most of the missing sound in these reels consisted of music and sound effects, which have been reconstructed with existing sound from other chapters." Like the video there are inconsistencies (sporadic hiss and static) but the actual, restored, dialogue is audible and impressive considering the 95-year age plus the new re-DUB'ing - Bravo! Dr. Film offer English intertitles when there is no dialogue - on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Dr. Film Blu-ray offers two commentaries. Firstly a 'Historic Commentary" by Ed Hulse (Distressed Damsels and Masked Marauders: Cliffhanger Serials of the Silent-Movie Era) for chapters 1 through 7. Ed films the time with plenty of details on the budget, actors (Karloff, Jacqueline Logan, Walter Miller) serial in general, the history of Mascot Serials etc. Sara Karloff (Boris Karloff's daughter - who is celebrating her 86th birthday on the day of writing of this review) does the commentary on chapter 8 and Kelly Robinson does the commentary for chapters nine and ten. She talks about the gorilla in The King of the Kongo and gorilla (ape) representations in film way back in the day. Quite the niche and she appears to be the go-to professional. Pretty interesting. The second commentary is for the restoration and it is by preservationist Eric Grayson (A Fearful Thing to Love,) Bruce Lee, Greg Dunn, digital restoration artist Thad Komorowski (Sick Little Monkeys,) and Glory-June Greiff (People, Parks, and Perceptions.) They talk about the 16mm footage and where it came from, the overDUB'ing, the unimpressive lip-readers utilized, lack of script for some scenes/chapters, re-editing, time-correction, de-flickering software, stock footage, decomposition, stabilization, locations, geography, history, studio shots, the original camera negative usage and so much more. Lastly the package has an 8-page booklet with text and color pictures and a second disc DVD of the feature.        

Richard Thorpe's The King of the Kongo has value to vintage and serial-format fans (see Imprint's Tales of Adventure 4 which includes seven 40s and 50s serials to Blu-ray!) for the Herculean restoration, as the first serial to have sound, the extensive restoration and the story itself with "Boris Karloff as 'Scarface Macklin' (2-years before Frankenstein), plus a dinosaur (oversized iguana), gorillas, lions, cougars, cheetahs, alligators, elephants, Secret Service operatives, ivory smugglers and lost jungle treasures." Cinematography was by Hungarian-American Ernest Laszlo (Impact, D.O.A., Kiss Me Deadly, Tormented.) The King of the Kongo is a hokey adventure yarn but totally fun if having repeated footage here and there. The first chapter is a "three reeler" (half hour) and the remaining nine episodes are "two reelers" (20-minutes.) They utilize cliff-hangers and descriptions of the previous chapter. Easy indulgence for serial devotees. Congratulations to Dr. Film for the Blu-ray project and its highly remarkable, pain-staking, restoration, two commentaries, booklet and more. Strongly encouraged to fans.

Gary Tooze