Wild West Days Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Wild West Days Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 23, 2021

There's little doubt that a lot of series television efforts become something akin to "comfort food", meaning you're not going to be consuming anything you haven't had before and enjoyed. In much the same way, the Golden Age of Hollywood's own "version" of a television series, the venerable serial, tended to offer "more of the same" over and over, and in that regard, Western themed serials were almost notorious in their utilization of repeated plots and character types. Even aside and apart from expected tropes like the "white hats" and "black hats", a lot of Western serials tended to revolve around lost and/or hidden mines containing untold riches, and nefarious efforts by villains to divorce rightful owners from their deeds. And that's pretty much what's in store in Wild West Days, an agreeable enough outing with Johnny Mack Brown (billed as John in this film) starring as Kentucky Wade, one of a quartet of good guys who do battle with a septet of bad guys known as The Secret Seven.

This serial is definitely a product of its time, and so there's a traditional "Cowboys vs. Indians" aspect that some contemporary viewers may find un- PC. The Indians aren't the only villains, as evidenced by The Secret Seven, but Wild West Days is actually kind of light in tone, with a few tunes sprinkled in and some regular comedy relief. This obviously utilized a lot of stock footage, and some of the interstitial stock footage moments may provide laughs of their own since they're so obviously mismatched with the bulk of the presentation.

Wild West Days Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wild West Days is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual and VCI Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The front cover of these release states "restored from the studio film masters in 4K!", which I'm assuming alludes to a print and not something like an interpositive or even an original camera negative. This is pretty much in line with the many other thirties era serials VCI has released, with pretty noticeable variances in image clarity and detail levels that are at least partially due to the glut of stock footage utilized. There's quite a bit of age related wear and tear, and again the ubiquitous stock footage can often look decidedly more ragged than the bulk of the presentation. For the most part, contrast is decent, and detail levels can be good as well. This is another VCI release that does have a grain field, as can perhaps be made out in some of the screenshots accompanying this review, but which seems kind of overly "managed" and which does not always spike during things like montages or even ordinary optical dissolves, as some might expect it to.

Wild West Days Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wild West Days features only a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track. The sound here is expectedly kind of boxy and hollow at times, probably most noticeable in some of the scoring and effects like gunfire or galloping horses. Dialogue makes it through the gauntlet of time and tide rather well, all things considered. Optional English subtitles are available, and this is another VCI release where someone had fun describing things like the theme music.

Wild West Days Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on the disc, and this does not even have the "liner notes" on the inside of the insert that some of the other VCI Cliffhangers have had.

Wild West Days Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Wild West Days is amiable, but it's probably not all that memorable. Brown makes for an appealing hero, but leading lady Lynn Gilbert doesn't seem to have much to do, and the story kind of ping pongs between the mining element (no pun intended) and those vicious "Indians". There is some comedy and some of the action scenes are decently staged, but the actual cliffhangers seem to depend an awful lot on stampedes to drum up a little excitement. Technical merits range from okayish (video) to definitely improvable (only lossy audio), and VCI has provided no supplemental content, for those who are considering a purchase.