7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A slick nightclub owner discovers an adult gorilla living happily in Africa as the beloved pet of a young woman. He brings both to Hollywood as a floor-show sensation, until some no-goods ply Joe with booze and the blitzed behemoth goes bonkers.
Starring: Terry Moore (I), Ben Johnson, Robert Armstrong (I), Mr. Joseph Young, Frank McHughSci-Fi | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Sixteen years after the rushed sequel to King Kong disappointed at the box office, its core creative team reunited for Mighty Joe Young (or "MJY"). In spirit, if not literally, MJY is the true sequel to Kong, because, unlike The Son of Kong, MJY offers the kind of grand spectacle and memorable scenes that inspire fans to revisit the film again and again. Willis O'Brien, a veteran of Kong, designed the elaborate visual effects, but their realization was largely the work of his assistant, a relative newcomer named Ray Harryhausen. The script by Kong co-writer Ruth Rose, from a story by Kong producer Merian C. Cooper, reshuffled the basic elements of a wild ape who becomes devoted to a pretty human female and is exploited by an avaricious showman. But this time the ape was normal-sized, and his devotion to the girl was mutual. Also, the story had a happy ending—but only after Kong director Ernest B. Schoedsack staged enough chaos and destruction to ensure a jolly time at the movies. Despite favorable reviews and an Oscar in the relatively new category of Visual Effects, MJY was a box office failure. Audiences of the Cold War era could no longer enjoy the cinematic "imagination of disaster" the way they did in the Thirties. Over the next few years, episodes of mass destruction onscreen would become the province of science fiction, where catastrophe typically resulted from the quest for knowledge, usually in the nuclear field, or from an alien invasion, which served as a thinly disguised metaphor for America's new enemies abroad. But MJY has endured, because it's a superbly crafted entertainment and one of the finest achievements in stop-motion animation ever created. The film's elaborate sequences have inspired many later effects wizards, a lineage that is evident in the commentary recorded for the 2005 DVD featuring five-time Oscar winner Ken Ralston (formerly at Industrial Light & Magic and now head of Sony Pictures Imageworks), as well as in the included interviews of Ray Harryhausen by The Chiodo Brothers, who are among his direct descendants in the art of puppet effects. By a stroke of good fortune, MJY also happens to be the film best represented on Blu-ray in Warner's new Special Effects Collection. (It is also available singly.) The reasons are discussed in the "Video" section below.
The credited cinematographer on Mighty Joy Young is J. Roy Hunt (I Walked with a Zombie), although many of the scenes were actually photographed by Ray Harryhausen, who operated the camera, one frame at a time, for the many scenes containing stop-motion animation. As with the other titles contained in Warner's Special Effects Collection, MJY has been newly scanned at 2k from a fine-grain positive for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, but anyone who views all four discs will immediately notice that MJY has the best image of the bunch. This remains obvious even after making due allowance for the inevitable softness and loss of detail that occurs in various effect shots containing multiple layers of opticals, rear projection and multiple "passes" of the same negative to combine various elements. (Harryhausen describes the process in the interviews contained in the extras.) In MJY's non-effects shots, and even in effects shots, if one concentrates on the last element added, which is usually Joe Young himself, the Blu-ray image reveals a level of clarity, a degree of detail and a sense of depth that even the films made later (i.e., Them! and The Beast from 20,000 Phantoms) cannot match. The difference is attributable to the source material. As some readers will know, the silver nitrate film stocks commonly used before 1951 were subject to many risks. They could decompose or deteriorate, and they were also highly flammable. Many original camera negatives (OCNs), and more than a few lives, were lost as a result of vault fires caused by nitrate stocks, which is why nitrate was phased out and replaced by so-called "safety stock". On the plus side, however, nitrate, in the rare instance where it has survived, produces a noticeably superior image when scanned for video. Some people call it the nitrate "sparkle". The OCN for MJY no longer exists, but it just so happens that the surviving fine-grain master used for this new scan is nitrate-based. That is what accounts for the additional luster, detail and depth in the Blu-ray image, as well as the solidity of the blacks and the overall clarity, even when the image softens due to the effects processing. In its best moments, MJY is a reminder of just how superbly Blu-ray can reproduce the experience of black-and-white motion picture photography. To ensure that the full benefit of MPI's scan and restoration work appears on Blu-ray as intended, Warner has encoded MJY with an average bitrate of 34.85 Mbps, which is a figure more commonly seen from the Warner Archive Collection.
MJY's original mono soundtrack is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA mono, and it sounds very good for its era. There is no distortion or other interference. The dialogue and effects are clear, and Joe's roar has sufficient dynamic range to make the requisite impact. The musical score by Roy Webb (Out of the Past) navigates the film's tricky emotional turns effectively.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2005 DVD of Mighty Joe Young.
As Ray Harryhausen says several times in his interviews and commentary, he worked in an era when the audience didn't scrutinize visual effects as they do now, looking for mistakes and fakery, trying to puncture the illusion. He had the advantage of doing magic tricks for viewers who wanted to believe in the reality of what they were seeing and were willing to play along with the filmmakers. He didn't worry about whether one part of the frame was more or less detailed; instead, he cared about whether the creature he was animating had personality, expressed emotion and gave a good performance. The best effects people always make these elements their top priority, no matter what technology they are using. It's why their work endures, even after the technology dates. MJY is a prime example. Highly recommended.
The Son of Kong
1933
1953
Warner Archive Collection
1933
1976
1932
1961
1957
1976
1977
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1961
1954
A*P*E / The New King Kong
1976
1954
1957
Warner Archive Collection
1969
Island of the Twilight People
1972
Sharkman
2005
1956
The Director's Cut
1997
2018