7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A headstrong young woman defies the wishes of her father by ignoring the romantic advances of a powerful local landowner, instead deciding to run her own ranch with the help of a recovering alcoholic and his friend.
Starring: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Don DeFore, Donald Crisp, Preston FosterWestern | 100% |
Romance | 17% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Paramount was home to two of the most iconic blondes in motion picture history, both of whom suffered from mental instability and post-Hollywood careers that were fraught with traumas and turbulence. Frances Farmer was signed by Paramount on her 22nd birthday in September 1935 and by the end of 1936 was arguably Paramount’s hottest property, albeit mostly due to her loan out to Goldwyn for Come and Get It. A mere five years later she was being offered only B-movies and supporting roles at her home studio while managing to eke out a few higher profile parts at other studios, but by the end of 1942, she had been dropped by Paramount and had been arrested for drunk driving, an arrest which would ultimately lead to her headline making court appearance in 1943 and her eventual institutionalizations which would fill out the bulk of the remainder of that decade. Veronica Lake, by contrast, came to Paramount in 1941, just when Farmer’s career was on the ropes, after having had a less than stellar tour at RKO. Lake made an immediate impression at Paramount, though in one of those unintentional ironies that seems to haunt Hollywood with some regularity, the role that really put her on the map, that of the girl in Sullivan’s Travels, was at one point thought of as a perfect vehicle for Frances Farmer, the actress whom Preston Sturges evidently preferred for the film, but who was scuttled by the studio which was finding Farmer increasingly unreliable and unstable. (Many of us who have been fascinated by Farmer’s life story through the years have wondered what might have happened had Farmer indeed made Sullivan’s Travels, which would have reunited her with her Come and Get It co-star Joel McCrea and been a high profile project with a strong writer-director that might have resuscitated her career and kept her on track emotionally.) Lake churned out a rather impressive quantity of films at Paramount during her seven year ordeal, but, as in the case of Farmer, excessive drinking led to her being shunned by her fellow actors and Lake was also dropped by the studio at the end of her first tour of duty. Unlike Farmer, however, Lake was able to keep working, at least for a while, something fostered by her then husband, André de Toth. De Toth never really captured the brass ring in Hollywood, instead trafficking in B-movies or cult appeal items (like the 3D House of Wax). Ramrod is a fitfully entertaining 1947 western reuniting Lake with Joel McCrea, but it's a film that never really finds a convincing or comfortable melding of Lake’s very contemporary sultriness with a nineteenth century western setting.
Ramrod is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This particular Olive release features some of the more unfortunately problematic elements of any film from this era which this niche label has brought out. Originally released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer but now licensed by Paramount, there is some notable damage to weather in Ramrod, typically some density issues, emulsion problems, print through and milkiness that often mars the left side of the frame. Several scenes also have some minimal warping, and a number of cutaways (most notably in the climactic scene with DeFore and Foster) have very poor and variable contrast in the darker sequences. All of this said, large swaths of Ramrod look rather good, at least by comparison. Aside from the expected specks and flecks, a lot of the film looks rather nice, with excellent clarity and sharpness and decent fine detail in the close-ups.
Ramrod's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio mono mix sounds rather spry for its age, with Adolph Deutsch's appealingly romantic and boisterous score adding immeasurably to the impact of the film. Dialogue is cleanly presented, though it's very easy to hear quite clear differences in scenes that were filmed on location versus studio bound segments. In fact a couple of times, close-ups were obviously done in the studio while master shots were done on location and the difference in sound is quite startling at edit points.
No supplements of any kind are included on this Blu-ray disc.
Lake is too frequently pegged as a sex siren who led Alan Ladd astray in a number of iconic noirs, but she really had some unexpected depth and nuance, which she gets to show, albeit fitfully, in Ramrod. The film itself is a really interesting examination of troubled people and the lengths they'll go to to achieve some semblance of normalcy. Ruggles is miles apart from his usual cuddly soft character roles, and McCrea begins to show some of the world weariness that would become his stock in trade quite a bit later in his career. The supporting cast, including such stalwarts as Donald Crisp and Lloyd Bridges, is uniformly excellent. Though this Olive release has some occasionally spotty video quality, overall this release comes Recommended.
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