Coney Island Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Coney Island Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 20, 2017

The Warner Archive Collection has been one of the perhaps unexpected pleasures of the mature Blu-ray era. This “manufactured on demand” line debuted without an overabundance of press and with a kind of unlikely assortment of films which included such disparate titles as Deathtrap, Gypsy, The Hudsucker Proxy, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes , Billy Rose's Jumbo and Fearless (along with perhaps even more unlikely efforts like Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Complete First Season and Green Lantern: The Animated Series), but it has become increasingly popular in the intervening years, providing a wealth of at times underappreciated but (at least in some cases) important films that otherwise would have probably never seen the high definition light of day, at least in disc form. The Warner Archive efforts have had generally very high technical merits, something else that has commended them to home theater enthusiasts. In the “better late than never” category, 20th Century Fox is now aping Warner’s MOD strategy by offering a new Fox Cinema Archives line. Somewhat similarly to Warner’s kind of quiet roll out of their line, Fox hasn’t really marketed these in any hyperbolic way, and in fact their PR firm wasn’t even able to provide Blu-ray screeners (hence the somewhat delayed reviews of the first films in the series). So, how is this first selection of Fox Cinema Archives titles? Read on.

It's always fun to see great old pictures (moving or otherwise) which either actually or purport to document Coney Island's storied past. Coney Island was frankly a pretty decrepit place when an Aunt of mine lugged me out there on a special request of mine when I was visiting New York City relatives as a kid. It was a weekday and there wasn’t really any activity to speak of on whatever boardwalk we were on, but I at least got to experience the joy of eating a famous Coney Island hot dog while the kind of fetid air of a hot and muggy New York summer day wafted around us. Coney Island’s history has certainly had its share of economic ups and downs, and if I visited at what was probably an “ebb tide” of sorts, this redolent satellite of Manhattan is reportedly experiencing something of a gentrification (I admittedly haven’t been there in years, so can’t confirm), and certainly had long years of fabulous success, especially in the 19th and (early) 20th centuries. That era of unbridled optimism and glitzy entertainment palaces makes the 1943 20th Century Fox extravaganza Coney Island unavoidably strong on production design details, even if the film’s plot is as hackneyed as they come.

It’s 1905, and a small time promoter (who might just have a hint of the grifter about him) named Eddie Johnson (George Montgomery) shows up at a club owned by his former partner Joe Rocco (Cesar Romero). Joe’s star attraction is a comely singer named Kate Farley (Betty Grable), whom Eddie obviously has eyes for from the get go. However, Eddie initially has other things he wants to take care of, which includes giving Joe a bit of comeuppance for having cheated Eddie out of his half ownership of a carnival the two collaborated in running in the recent past.

There’s probably no arguing that Metro Goldwyn Mayer was the studio for musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, but Fox had their own special approach toward the genre, and certainly had both the on screen stars and (perhaps especially) the backstage talent (like Alfred Newman) to create memorable “tuners” (as Variety used to like to call them) of their own. Coney Island is frankly kind of middling from a story perspective, but it’s invariably bright, energetic (even kind of manic at times) and it contains a wealth of period tunes which evoke a nostalgic flavor. Plus, for certain audiences at least, it will provide a moment where they can ask, “Did Phil Silvers really just say shabbos?”

You can see where Coney Island is going from the moment Eddie shows up, has a brief showdown with Joe and an even more contentious initial meeting with Kate (opposites attract, right?), but that doesn’t really debilitate the film’s inherent ebullience. One of the pleasures of the film is an almost self deprecatory performance by Grable, where Kate is kind of a fashion victim (some of the costumes are hilarious) and, frankly, the kind of “entertainer” who might have been at home in a later era in that early Warner Archive effort, the 1962 film version of Gypsy. Eddie’s attempts to both woo her romantically as well as to “smooth” out her bump and grind edges makes for some amusing interchanges, even if the endgame is clearly in sight from the get go.

There’s a probably needless subplot that allows Eddie to first exact his comeuppance on Joe but which then allows Joe a bit of vengeance of his own, a plot device which is of course hoary and completely predictable. But through it all the production numbers keep flowing and even some on the fly “performances” by various supporting players who just burst into period appropriate songs help to keep the ambience enjoyable. It’s notable that this film came out in mid 1943, just as Grable’s appeal as a World War II pinup girl was reaching almost epic proportions, and there’s some frankly kind of provocative footage of Grable flaunting her “assets” (you may want to remove the “ets” part of that to fully appreciate my meaning).

Coney Island Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Coney Island is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's new Fox Cinema Archives imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. I'm hoping that Fox starts providing more information on their releases under the Fox Cinema Archives imprint, for I'd love to know what restoration process Coney Island was granted. A lot of this transfer looks absolutely great, with no appreciable damage and with color that looks vivid and authentically "Technicolor" (see screenshots 1 and 17 for two good examples). But the palette is at least slightly variable at times, with a somewhat unnatural look which includes what can come off as almost olive skin tones (see screenshots 6 and 15). Grain structure is natural looking if occasionally just slightly gritty, and fine detail is generally also very good, offering precise looks at elements like the straw hats many of the male performers wear. If this was brought back from "near death" as some other vintage color films (Cover Girl, Drums Along the Mohawk) have been, the results are extremely commendable and maybe even astonishing. If not, I'm a little curious at the variances on display, which are sometimes quite fleeting and which have no apparent connection to the lighting of any given sequence. All in all, though, this is a nice looking transfer that should delight fans of the film.

Coney Island Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

One area where the new Fox Cinema Archives line could use some improvement is in offering Blu-ray consumers lossless audio. It's an especially distressing choice that a musical be granted only a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 mono mix (and to add insult to injury for some potential consumers, there are no subtitles on this release). There's a wealth of great (if hardly innovative) music on tap throughout Coney Island, including a delightful opening where a great Fox chorus sings some of the credits. While all of the music sounds at least reasonably full, there's an unavoidable boxiness to some of the orchestrations that also occasionally ports over into dialogue moments. There's nothing downright horrible with what's offered here, but audiophiles will certainly be wondering if lossless audio could have upped the sonic ante on this release.

Coney Island Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Photo Gallery (1080i; 1:51)

Coney Island Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Coney Island is good old fashioned entertainment in more ways than one. A spirited Grable is tons of fun, and the supporting cast is colorful (to say the least). The plot is as standard as they come, but Fox's production values and musical acumen are always firmly on display. It's disappointing that this release has lossy audio, but otherwise Coney Island comes Recommended.