Soundies: The Ultimate Collection Blu-ray - Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Doris Day

Firstly, a massive thank you to our Patreon supporters. Your generosity touches me deeply. These supporters have become the single biggest contributing factor to the survival of DVDBeaver. Your assistance has become essential.

What do Patrons receive, that you don't?

1) Our weekly Newsletter sent to your Inbox every Monday morning!
2) Patron-only Silent Auctions - so far over 30 Out-of-Print titles have moved to deserved, appreciative, hands!
3) Access to over 50,000 unpublished screen captures in lossless high-resolution format!

Please consider keeping us in existence with a couple of dollars or more each month (your pocket change!) so we can continue to do our best in giving you timely, thorough reviews, calendar updates and detailed comparisons. Thank you very much.

Search DVDBeaver

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

Soundies: The Ultimate Collection [4 X Blu-ray]

200 Musical shorts in these categories:

Introducing Soundies Starting From Swing Powered By Dance At the Piano

We'll Drink To That Outrageously Incorrect Straight from the Panoram #1

Introduction Going to War The Home Front On the Job

City Life ...And City Fashion Straight from the Panoram #2

Musical Evolutions Stirring Up the Melting Pot Hillbilly to Country Western Latin to Staten Island

Heading Toward Rock 'n' Roll Latin Boogies and Other Hybrids Straight from the Panoram #3

Women, Sexuality, and Gender Is It Love or Is It Conscription? Anxieties, Bickering, Heartbreak Loosening and Upending

Jumping into Gender Play Dorothy Dandridge and Gale Storm Straight from the Panoram #4 0

This four-disc collection presents a diverse sampling of 200 shorts—jazz, country-western, folk, and the boogie woogie roots of rock ’n’ roll—newly restored from 35mm and 16mm materials preserved by the Library of Congress and other archives

Soundies have been called the music videos of the 1940s, but that doesn’t begin to describe their cultural importance. It’s true that they feature a remarkable range of talent, from big-band luminaries like Duke Ellington and Count Basie to then-emerging stars like Doris Day and Ricardo Montalban, and lesser-known artists of the American nightclub circuit. But Soundies are also a rich, largely overlooked chronicle of American popular culture during and just after World War II. Produced for coin-operated jukeboxes in neighborhood bars and taverns, Soundies have an uncanny way of revealing what Americans were thinking about topics that weren’t discussed openly, from sexuality to ethnicity and race. Curated by Susan Delson, author of Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time, this four-disc collection presents a diverse sampling of 200 shorts—jazz, country-western, folk, and the boogie woogie roots of rock ’n’ roll—newly restored from 35mm and 16mm materials preserved by the Library of Congress and other archives. Never have so many Soundies been celebrated in one collection, or presented with such care: thematically organized, accompanied by on-screen introductions and a booklet of essays, photos, and credits.

Posters

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

Review: Kino - Region FREE - Blu-ray

Box Cover		CLICK to order from: Bonus Captures:
Distribution	Kino - Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime	Approx. 25-minute sections X 28 = 11.5 hours
Video	1.33:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc One Size: 47,044,574,460 bytes Disc Two Size: 45,329,233,776 bytes Disc Three Size: 46,267,180,903 bytes Disc Four Size: 42,201,543,957 bytes Video Bitrate: 20.00 - 38.35 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate Blu-ray:
Audio	DTS-HD Master Audio English 1645 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1645 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitles	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Kino 1.33:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc One Size: 47,044,574,460 bytes Disc Two Size: 45,329,233,776 bytes Disc Three Size: 46,267,180,903 bytes Disc Four Size: 42,201,543,957 bytes Video Bitrate: 20.00 - 38.35 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: Special Features: • Filmed introductions by series curator Susan Delson, with Ina Archer, Media Conservationist, National Museum of African American History and Culture • “From the Vaults,” a filmed interview with Matt Barton (Curator of Recording Sound at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center at the Library of Congress) and Mike Mashon (Head of the Moving Image Section of the Library of Congress) Disc One • Birth of the Soundies - interview with Mark Cantor (14:14) • From the Vault - Matt Barton (Curator of Recording Sound at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center at the Library of Congress) and Mike Mashon (Head of the Moving Image Section of the Library of Congress) (8:05) Disc Two • “Inside the Panoram,” a filmed interview with Mark Cantor, author of The Soundies: A History and Catalog of Jukebox Film Shorts of the 1940 (3:45) Disc 3 • The Modes of Production (6:39) • The Minoco Logo (1:57) Disc 4 • Epilogue (7:26) • Explaining the Chorus Line (21:41) Illustrated 44-page booklet with essays by Susan Delson, Ellen C. Scott, and Mark Cantor Blu-ray Release Date: July 25th, 2023 Standard Blu-ray Case

Comments:

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

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (July 2023): Kino have transferred 200 'Soundies' shorts to four dual-layered Blu-rays. They are cited as being "newly restored from 35mm and 16mm materials preserved by the Library of Congress and other archives". There are 29 sub-sections ('Programs') with about 6-8 "Soundies" under such titles as - Starting From Swing, At the Piano, We'll Drink To That, The Home Front, Hillbilly to Country Western, Latin Boogies and Other Hybrids, Anxieties, Bickering, Heartbreak etc. The 1080P has inconsistencies (see damage samples below) related to the sources but is certainly watchable with abundant grain. I'm forgiving of the many marks and speckles. I doubt anyone was expecting pristine visuals from these 200 shorts.

NOTE: We have added 40 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Kino use a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) in the original English language. The list of music seems endless and it includes performances by Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Ricardo Montalban, Spike Jones, Doris Day & Pat Boone, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, Doris Day, Duke Ellington and John Coltrane to name a few. There are frequent sync issues. The audio quality can be rough at times but mostly clean and enjoying-ly toe-tapping. Again, it is a function of the available material. Kino offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Kino Blu-ray offers filmed introductions by series curator Susan Delson, with Ina Archer, Media Conservationist, National Museum of African American History and Culture. Birth of the Soundies is a 1/4 hour interview interview with Mark Cantor plus we get “From the Vaults,” a filmed interview with Matt Barton (Curator of Recording Sound at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center at the Library of Congress) and Mike Mashon (Head of the Moving Image Section of the Library of Congress.) “Inside the Panoram,” is a brief interview with Mark Cantor, author of The Soundies: A History and Catalog of Jukebox Film Shorts of the 1940 about the hardware used to play Soundies. Other supplements include "The Modes of Production", plus an interesting 2 minutes showing the use of the Minoco Logo. There is an Epilogue and Explaining the Chorus Line - the latter running over 20-minutes. Lastly, The package has an Illustrated 44-page booklet with essays by Susan Delson, Ellen C. Scott, and Mark Cantor.

You have never seen so many joyful, happy, people as you will in Kino's Blu-ray package of Soundies: The Ultimate Collection. These "Soundies" were all produced between 1940 and 1948 and you wouldn't be the first to identify them as "precursors to MTV". These shorts - typically 3-minutes - were accessible using "Panorams" - a 16mm, rear projection, coin-operated Jukebox - containing eight Soundies films - a hardware way ahead of its time. They could be found in high-end restaurants, bars and nightclubs. More than 1,800 Soundies mini-musicals were produced and these 200 would be wonderful to show at parties. It is non-stop fun. Some African-American artists had less opportunity to perform in mainstream cinema and Soundies are a terrific avenue to see some unjustly neglected talent perform. I loved watching these "Soundies" so much - it really helped me forget how messed up the world is. Perhaps the closest thing I could compare them to today are "Flash Mobs" that I have seen where organized people assemble suddenly in a public place to, usually, perform a musical and/or dance number - spreading joy. I fully recommend this set.

Gary Tooze