Wednesday 1 September 2010

Manslaughter (1930 George Abbott & scr)

Paramount. $7.99 including p&p from iOffer - always check the quality!

Claudette Colbert, Frederic March

ph. Archie Stout (since 1921, many Westerns).

Certainly the worst print we'd seen, made worse by a poor home transfer from VHS.

For its day though, quite brisk with good location scenes, car/bike chase, water skiing. Camera / editing quite fluid.

Obviously plot seems quite dated and prison scenes tame (prisoners are called 'miss') but bribery and corruption bold, and interesting early montage in trial scene. So not without interest, but don't watch this print again! Also, as apparently in 1.2:1 ratio, lots of missing tops of heads! (i.e. if you stretch 1.2 across to fit the 1.33 standard TV ratio, you increase the height to 1.11, so the 0.11 is missing).