Betty Boop: Vol.3

After emerging from my mailbox home, disc firmly in teeth, it occurred to me I was due to give my thoughts on BETTY BOOP THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION VOL.3. Just stop sticking in those cardboard mailers-they really hurt!

First off I should say, if you are trying to decide on one of the (somewhat pricey) three issued volumes, you should absolutely knuckle down and buy this. Of the 12 cartoons on the disc four really are essential, not just among Fleischer cartoons but animation in general. Two or three others are really good examples of Fleischer at it's surrealistic peak and the rest, while perhaps not on anybody's top ten, still retaining the high production values the Fleischers maintained unwaveringly until almost the end. Of Betty's jazz cartoons it contains four (the essentials) of the five. Roland 'Doc' Crandall's masterpiece SNOW WHITE will undoubtedly appear on a future volume.

Now I should say I've seen these cartoons a gargoonian amount of times. So, my point of view isn't someone just discovering these for the first time but someone who's all too familiar with all the rotten ways Betty Boop has entered the DVD marketplace over the years. 

The question on my mind remained whether Olive had sought to correct the screen ratio problem that  distracted highly from my enjoyment of their first two volumes. At first everything seemed OK but when I compared the Olive version with the earlier Republic VHS/Laser transfers something still seemed off. On closer inspection though I realized the problem was not with the Olive transfer but with the earlier Republic version! For example, compare examples of the same frame of I'LL BE GLAD WHEN YOU'RE DEAD YOU RASCAL YOU from both Republic and Olive by clicking the below image and scrolling back and forth with your mouse wheel. 

Olive restoration

Republic version (overlayed on Olive version)

Not only were the Republic Betty Boops cropped but it seems as though they were also photographed at a slight angle (not quite straight on as a scan will give you) as well as slightly tilted. Whatever the problem was (I'm no video expert) it looks messed up. Comparing the two versions show what a good job looks like: it makes the previous version look obsolete.

Frankly, it's dazzling. Shots like the above previously ruined by DNR, over-exposure, interlacing and about every other problem now read crystal clear in a way not seen outside of a film archive in decades! I don't want to spoil things by posting too many grabs but there are some mind blowing things on this disc: detail in backgrounds of MINNIE THE MOOCHER I never noticed before, the top of the studio wall visible (!) in the live action intro to I HEARD and more!

As for the audio, I will say it is also an improvement over all previous video versions with fuller body and resonance within the context of very early sound recording. That said, the soundtracks to MINNIE THE MOOCHER and HA! HA! HA! retain the distortion audible in the earlier Republic release. A strange thing since BETTY BOOP'S UPS AND DOWNS (on Vol.2) had it's audio corrected. In the case of MINNIE THE MOOCHER this may be as good as it ever sounds (though it certainly bears investigation) but there are certainly better sounding versions of HA! HA! HA! out there. Likewise with BE UP TO DATE. For those of us who've already grown comfortable with the distortion (from earlier versions) it's no biggie but those checking these out for the first time  will need to adjust their eardrums a little for these. 

So, overall, a much better job than Vols. 1 and 2. I see recently that King Features has designed some alternate covers for Vols.1-3 featuring the work of the talented Stephen Destephano. The Olive covers are terrible so perhaps this may be the way we will see them in the future. Personally I'm a booster for original vintage artwork gracing the covers. Many Fleischer promotional drawings survive to this day so there's no shortage of images to choose from. Betty even had an official logo that appeared on all kinds of merchandise through the 30's. Either way it's better than what they are using currently: looking a bit like the cover of that spanish text book you lost in the eighth grade. As to Paramount stepping up and correcting the video problems that effected Bettty Boop The Essential Collection Volumes One and Two (Thanks Thad!), I hoist my best jug of corn drippuns in your general direction! Thank-you!!!

A bit more on Betty Boop

Happy New Year all! By now you may have realized I sort of view this blog as lawn sculpture: beautifully decomposing into toxic goo with each passing day. But before I allow the elements to take hold again there's still some left over business stuffed in that shoe box with the crumpled bank receipts, pizza menus and 2 for 1 bagel coupons. Wait, 2 for 1 bagels?!

First off is Volume two of The Betty Boop Essential Collection. Thad K, who broke the story of the goof which rendered our Betty with a head more like a pancake, kindly sent along his own transfers reformatted in something closer to their correct aspect ratios. It certainly helped antidote the original problem which was making me kind of crazy. So, for that I hoist my finest roast pigeon to Thad: thank-you for taking pity on my eyeballs!

That said, I would not call these 'fixed aspect ratios'. I noticed, when the above image was posted to Facebook with the heading 'fixed ratios', how narrow Frederic March's face seemed. So, I decided to compare three versions of BETTY BOOP'S PENTHOUSE: The Olive disc I purchased, Thad's redux version (based on a copy he purchased), and the old Republic version from the VHS set I bought years ago. What I discovered were images which were distorting vertically as well as horizontally. If you click the first image below and scroll between the series of three using your mouse wheel you'll see what I mean.

Olive

Thad

Republic

Personally, I don't care: I'm glad to have these cartoons looking closer to their correct aspect ratio than what we got from the first two Olive discs.  Everything I've read from Thad backs up that his disc was only a best guess done as a kindness to fans who were upset by the problem.  So it should be clear that these are not actually fixed ratios. My instinct, totally unverified by anything, is that the Republic set is the closest to showing the proper proportions of the characters, BG's etc. (neither stretched nor squashed) but that the image, as seen above, was cropped randomly to fit Academy Ratio. 

'Poor Cinderella' is a title appearing on Olive's master list of Betty Boop cartoons  appearing in their Essential Collection. However, many others, including the brilliant MYSTERIOUS MOSE, were left off for reasons unknown.

I've noticed some people asking if  the aspect ratio differs only on the pre-code Bettys or whether all of them are effected: a logical question since Fleischers changed formats early in their run.  Personally I didn't notice anything funny on Olive's release of THE FOXY HUNTER (1937, long after Fleischers had standardized their release format) until I scrolled it (as you can do below) with the same frame from the earlier Republic VHS. You will see there is indeed squishing occurring. So it is not a problem exclusive only to the pre-code Bettys.

Olive

Republic

Dryness is something you have to get used to if you're a Fleischer fan. I was thinking today of the Popeye Laser Disc I purchased at top dollar years prior to WB's Popeye set. The hope was at least it would be less bad than what I had previously. That was dry. Compared to them days (with a recent release of Puppetoons, Thunderbean discs of Gulliver and Eshbaugh on the way and even Betty Boop) we're livin' in a paradise, buckeroo!  Personally I was getting worried the series might stop abruptly at Vol.2. So, the hope is they're quality checking the work this time around. Thad's redux discs are welcome but I would expect better from Vol.3 for which I'll be shelling out actual hard earned cash.  Of course I, like you, would prefer the mammoth no-frills box set of Screen Song cartoons (or Color Classics for that matter) for the binge weekend of a lifetime. 12 cartoons a disc, with months to wait between volumes, is pretty thin. But any action on the part of Paramount to do something beside sit on their gigantic back catalog of cartoons should be greeted with as much enthusiasm as possible. And as I wrote previously, the aspect ratio was the only real problem with the first two volumes and, aside from that, they have never looked or sounded better. So there is something to be enthusiastic about! We now return you to our regularly scheduled test pattern...

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