Arrow's The Marx Brothers at Paramount Blu-ray Collection includes The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers and Duck Soup!

Also available in Universal's The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Blu-ray Collection (The Cocoanuts / Animal Crackers / Monkey Business / Horse Feathers / Duck Soup)

Image Entertainment

Region 1 - NTSC

1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 8.51 mb/s
NTSC 704x480 29.97 f/s

1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 8.46 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Universal

Image Entertainment

Universal

Arrow (Limited Edition - 2017) - Region 'B' - Blu-ray

English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, dubs in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

LPCM Audio English 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
Commentary:

Dolby Digital Audio English 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen - 1.33:1

Edition Details:

DVD Release Date: October 17, 2000
Snapper

Chapters 16
 

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen - 1.33:1

Edition Details:
• Trailer (1:15).
 

Chapters 20

Edition Details:
• Commentary on The Cocoanuts by film scholar Anthony Slide
• Commentary on Animal Crackers by film historian Jeffrey Vance
• Commentary on Monkey Business by Marx Brothers historian Robert S Bader and Bill Marx, son of Harpo Marx
• Commentary on Horse Feathers by film critic FX Feeney
• Commentary on Duck Soup by Bader and film critic Leonard Maltin
• The Marx Brothers: Hollywood's Kings of Chaos, a feature-length documentary containing interviews with Leonard Maltin, Dick Cavett and others (1:19:57)

• Sibling Revelry - Video Essay by David Cairns (19:50)

• MONKEYNUTCRACKERDUCKFEATHERS video essay by David Cairns (27:21)
• Three excerpts from NBC s The Today Show featuring interviews with Harpo Marx, Groucho Marx (7:13) and Bill Marx (4:35) (total = 16:37)
• FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Perfect-bound book featuring new and archival writing on the films

Blu-ray Release Date: June 26th, 2017

Custom case (see below)
Chapters 12

Two key attributes of the Blu-ray visuals, and their superiority over the , relatively poor, DVDs - are contrast and grain support. It's a massive difference as the SDs had artifacts and generally produced a poor presentation. This 1080P, while still having vertical scratches, has lush, pleasing texture. It's like seeing the films anew.

Arrow use a linear PCM audio transfer (16-bit) and it supports the frequent effects and bouncy score by John Leipold (The Flying Deuces). Dialogue is clearly audible but a factor of the original production. Arrow add optional English (SDH) subtitles - see sample below - and their three Blu-ray discs of the package are region 'B'-locked.

Commentaries for every film - on Horse Feathers by film critic FX Feeney plus this dual-layered disc is shared by Monkey Business and we get the feature-length documentary The Marx Brothers: Hollywood's Kings of Chaos containing interviews with Leonard Maltin, Dick Cavett and others. There are other extras that I will discuss in upcoming reviews of the specific films. For the first-pressings the package does contain a perfect-bound book featuring new and archival writing on the films.

Looks like an amazing Blu-ray package and I am just starting to watch Duck Soup. Stay tuned or more!

***

What bad shape this great comedy is in, especially one reel where there are damage lines running, cigarette burns etc. It seems like both releases are from the same print, but Universal has done a bad job converting it to PAL with lots of ghosting when there is movement in the picture. The Image Entertainment DVD is also a bit sharper and has more nuances in the B/W colors. Don't trade your old for new in this case.

 - Ole Kofoed