Hell's Angels on DVD
Mar. 10th, 2008 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frustratedpilotHey.
Yeah, I bought the thing for my birthday, and only now do I get to watch some of it. I didn't start at the beginning; I only had half an hour to kill before the ABC affiliate showed At the Movies (which probably won't be Ebert & Roeper for much longer, I think).
Anyway, for it being one of the very first talkies, it's incredibly well done technically and the restoration for DVD is quite nice when it comes to the sound and visual clarity. I wish there could have been a commentary track, but who would you get to voice it? Smithsonian history experts? Stunt pilots from Old Rheinbeck? Experts on Hollywood history and Howard Hughes cultists?
Of course, the dogfight scenes are the main reason to get this disk. Yes, real WW1 planes (at least, the ones closest to the camera, of course...and that big bomber is a postwar Sikorsky). And the action looks right.
I'll have to see more of it, but I think I like it a little better than The Blue Max (as good as that one was), and about the same as The Great Waldo Pepper. Looking foward to Der Rote Baron, tho'.
FP
Yeah, I bought the thing for my birthday, and only now do I get to watch some of it. I didn't start at the beginning; I only had half an hour to kill before the ABC affiliate showed At the Movies (which probably won't be Ebert & Roeper for much longer, I think).
Anyway, for it being one of the very first talkies, it's incredibly well done technically and the restoration for DVD is quite nice when it comes to the sound and visual clarity. I wish there could have been a commentary track, but who would you get to voice it? Smithsonian history experts? Stunt pilots from Old Rheinbeck? Experts on Hollywood history and Howard Hughes cultists?
Of course, the dogfight scenes are the main reason to get this disk. Yes, real WW1 planes (at least, the ones closest to the camera, of course...and that big bomber is a postwar Sikorsky). And the action looks right.
I'll have to see more of it, but I think I like it a little better than The Blue Max (as good as that one was), and about the same as The Great Waldo Pepper. Looking foward to Der Rote Baron, tho'.
FP
