6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
A Kansas City horn player and his jazz band face extortion from a local gangster. One of the thug's demands: take on his alcoholic girlfriend as a singer.
Starring: Jack Webb, Janet Leigh, Edmond O'Brien, Peggy Lee, Andy DevineCrime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Music | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.57:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.55:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Anyone who grew up watching TV's Dragnet may find it hard to watch Jack Webb or hear his distinctive delivery without immediately thinking of Sgt. Joe Friday, the matter-of-fact L.A. cop who was Webb's tribute to the working stiffs of the police force. But Webb was far more than an actor who played an iconic role. After a successful career in radio, including the first incarnation of Dragnet, he became an entertainment powerhouse with his own production company, Mark VII Limited. As producer, writer and sometimes director, Webb created a body of successful TV work, including the hit shows Adam-12 and Emergency! and the unusual Western, Hec Ramsey, which was often described as "Dragnet meets John Wayne". But Webb's true love was jazz. He spent most of his life trying to master the cornet, and in private hours he could usually be found in clubs and other hangouts where jazz musicians gathered and played. (It was how he met his first wife, Julie London, whom he later cast as a regular on Emergency!) One of Webb's early radio shows, co-created with friend and writer Richard Breen, was called Pete Kelly's Blues and starred Webb as a cornet-playing band leader, whose misadventures provided an excuse for Webb to share his favorite music with his audience. The program wasn't a success, but it gave Webb and Breen the idea for a movie that Breen wrote and Webb produced and directed, as well as playing the title role. Released in 1955, the film of Pete Kelly's Blues wasn't much more successful than the radio program, but it's fascinating to watch today, because it transports Webb's familiar hard-boiled persona back to Prohibition and gives him the "fringe" quality of a film noir hero. The movie also contains rich musical performances from the likes of Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as an engaging performance by a young Lee Marvin. Like some other intriguing films that defy easy categorization, Pete Kelly's Blues is being released on Blu-ray through the Warner Archive Collection.
In the trailer included in the extras, Webb introduces his cinematographer, Harold Rosson, as one of the best cameramen in Hollywood, which wasn't overstating it. A five-time Oscar nominee, Rosson's credits include The Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain and Duel in the Sun. For Pete Kelly's Blues, he had the challenge of shooting a period recreation with the early Cinemascope cameras and lenses that required massive amounts of light and were subject to the kind of horizontal stretching that could easily produce what has been called "mumps syndrome". (It can readily be seen in some of the shots of Peggy Lee.) The Warner Archive Collection has done their usual creditable job in bringing Pete Kelly's Blues to Blu-ray. The image on WAC's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is smooth and film-like with a fine (very fine) grain pattern and a rich reproduction of the colorful jazz milieu presented in "WarnerColor", which was Warner's rebranding of the Eastman Kodak label. The image sports rich reds, deep blues and solid blacks, and the quality of the color reproduction is repeatedly demonstrated, e.g., during a dance hall sequence where the dancers are bathed in tinted lighting that rotates through the spectrum. Fine detail can be observed in everything from the elaborate flapper outfits worn by Janet Leigh to the individual figures in crowd scenes at bars and parties. Webb and Rosson preferred medium shots to close-ups, even when only one character occupied the frame. They would often fill the frame with people, so that Rosson was challenged to keep everyone in focus. The Blu-ray's clarity and sharpness demonstrate how successfully he accomplished the goal. WAC has followed its usual practice and mastered Pete Kelly's Blues with a high average bitrate, in this case 34.99 Mbps. Given the complexity of the images, the bandwidth is welcome.
Pete Kelly's Blues was released in both four-track stereo (the magnetic encoding process introduced with Cinemascope) and mono. For the film's 2008 DVD release, the soundtrack was remixed for 5.1, presumably from the stereo stems, which is the version presented on Blu-ray, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. Although the mix is largely front-oriented, the wonderful jazz score is the obvious beneficiary of the multi-channel format and lossless encoding. The instruments have detail and a spacious presence that belies the age of the recordings, and the vocal renditions are superior all around. Several shootouts (one quick and one extended) have fairly good impact, although sound designers in the Fifties didn't ramp up gunshot volume the way contemporary effects crews frequently do. The dialogue is always clear. A filmmaker who started in radio, as Webb did, would have insisted on it.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2008 DVD of Pete Kelly's Blues (although it isn't clear from the box cover whether the DVD included the trailers).
Pete Kelly's Blues isn't likely to show up on anyone's list of "great films", but it's a distinctive experience with a unique flavor not quite like anything else. Breen's script has enough interesting incidents, and Webb's eye for casting was sufficiently sharp, that there's always something worth watching, even when the story seems to be meandering. Even if you don't like jazz, the film holds your attention. If you do like jazz, it's a must-see. WAC has given it a fine treatment. Highly recommended.
Warner Archive Collection
1950
1954
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1955
1952
Losing Game
1930
Warner Archive Collection
1948
1953
1939
1967
1953
1967
1956
1936
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1949
1958
Warner Archive Collection
1928
1955
1931
Limited Edition to 3000
1957
4K Restoration
1948