1208 The Roaring Twenties

[swo17]

The Roaring Twenties



Ripped from the headlines of the turbulent era between the Great War and the Great Depression, this dynamic, nostalgia-tinged crime drama balances tommy-gun action with epic historical sweep. Legends James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart star as army buddies whose fortunes rise and fall as their fates intersect, first in a foxhole on the front lines of World War I, then in Manhattan's Prohibition-era underworld. Directed by Hollywood master Raoul Walsh, and based on a story by prolific journalist turned screenwriter and producer Mark Hellinger, The Roaring Twenties brought to a close the celebrated Warner Bros. gangster cycle of the 1930s, and it remains one of the greatest and most influential crime films of all time.

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary with film historian Lincoln Hurst
• New interview with critic Gary Giddins
• Excerpt from a 1973 interview with director Raoul Walsh
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Mark Asch

[Drucker]

Breaking the rules of the forum by just posting hell yeah

[ryannichols7]

a UHD! well worth the time it took for this to come. one wonders if High Sierra would've gotten that treatment had it come later

can anyone vouch for the commentary? it was on the WB disc. nice to see Gary Giddins on here after I just gave him a shout yesterday for his Paths of Glory track

[Maltic]

Finally.

a UHD! well worth the time it took for this to come. one wonders if High Sierra would've gotten that treatment had it come later

can anyone vouch for the commentary? it was on the WB disc. nice to see Gary Giddins on here after I just gave him a shout yesterday for his Paths of Glory track

I listened to it on the Warner DVD at some point, and remember going "mehh". But hey, this was at least 10 years ago.

I guess Giddens is what separates this from a standard Warner Archive release. Yay. I like him too, though. If it's a thorough interview, maybe that's all we need...

[ryannichols7]

Finally.

a UHD! well worth the time it took for this to come. one wonders if High Sierra would've gotten that treatment had it come later

can anyone vouch for the commentary? it was on the WB disc. nice to see Gary Giddins on here after I just gave him a shout yesterday for his Paths of Glory track

I listened to it on the Warner DVD at some point, and remember going "mehh". But hey, this was at least 10 years ago.

I guess Giddens is what separates this from a standard Warner Archive release. Yay. I like him too, though. If it's a thorough interview, maybe that's all we need...

I'll take it, better than nothing. Giddins should cover a lot of ground, I usually enjoy his stuff a lot and he's usually well prepared. the big difference here though is the 4K DV release, something WAC wouldn't have given us. I'll take these long waits for WB titles if that's the end result

[Bressonaire]

Unlikely as it seems, this is the first Cagney movie in the Criterion Collection!

[zedz]

Well, they couldn't have picked a better one!

[FrauBlucher]

Beaver

[FrauBlucher]

Got a chance to watch this over the last few days. It looks marvelous and it's Cagney at his best. I think Walsh's films are distinctive in that you feel a certain rhythm and pacing I don't feel in many other studio system directors. As for the supps, Giddins' interview was excellent but the Hurst commentary track was very underwhelming. It bores me to tears when it's mostly a play by play track

[Finch]

Maybe I've seen too many Giddins interviews lately but I wasn't thrilled. The 4 minute piece with Walsh is mostly scenes from the film and he doesn't add anything particularly insightful either. I don't listen to commentaries and after what FB had to say about Hurst's, I'm even less likely to sample that one. Criterion continue to be seriously underwhelming to awful with the supplements and I think considering what the competition from the UK is offering both in terms of quality and quantity, the RRP is, even considering that it's a dual format of 4K and BD, bordering a little on cheeky. Yes, Warner Archive's own BD of the film would have been only 5 bucks less at full retail price than Criterion's BD standalone but Warner's discs get discounted even more so than Criterion's if you are patient. Criterion have long been rumored to have Captain Blood and the two remaining Lewtons and with the latter two, I feel like literally the only reason we'd want Criterion over WAC to release those is the inclusion of a UHD for Zombie and Seventh Victim. Great looking Blu-Ray (got no setup to sample the 4K yet) but otherwise this release is disappointing.

[dwk]

I wonder if WB is getting stricter with approving extras, because other than JFK and Natural Born Killers, it seems the last few Warner titles from Shout/Scream have either added only one or two interviews (for "Collectors' Editions" like The Island of Dr. Moreau & Lost in Space), a commentary ("Special Edition" of Coma) or nothing at all (the television version of The Shining, Lost Souls and The Terminal Man).

[FrauBlucher]

I know it's not thought of very much but I do think that the essays in pamphlets/booklets are a worthwhile addition to the releases. I sometimes find them more interesting and informative than some of the video supplements and some of the commentaries

[FlickeringWindow]

Criterion should have added the "Night at the Movies" preshow the Warner DVD had, especially since there's some 1939 shorts, cartoons, and trailers that would have been available in HD.

[Finch]

I forgot about the essay because I also think Criterion's decision to print the essays on foldouts instead of traditional booklets is annoying because they're more cumbersome to hold.

If dwk is right with his speculation that WB won't let the boutique labels curate more extras, I suspect that they also wouldn't have let Criterion replicate the Night at the Movies preshow (if CC wanted to include this in the first place).

[swo17]

The DVD included a Tex Avery short!

[dwk]

If dwk is right with his speculation that WB won't let the boutique labels curate more extras, I suspect that they also wouldn't have let Criterion replicate the Night at the Movies preshow (if CC wanted to include this in the first place).

I had forgotten that Orphan was a WB licensed title, that, for some inexplicable reason, Scream Factory felt needed four new audio commentaries. So my observation could be of nothing more than a fluke and Shout just had a run of lighter than normal releases (I imagine WB's legal department being quite strict with extras for a troubled production like The Island of Dr. Moreau). Although it could be a case where Dark Castle has to approve the extras for Orphan not WB.

[Red Screamer]

I loved this, and I think it’s more representative of Walsh’s best work for newcomers than High Sierra. Like They Drive By Night or The Strawberry Blonde, it’s multiple movies rolled into one, a heterogeneous mini-epic. Like the Flynn films later, it showcases one of Walsh’s most unusual qualities in comparison to his Hollywood peers other than Hitchcock: bold main characters that aren't made squarely into heroes or villains, but are given a wider range to play with, from aggravating antiheroes (Gentleman Jim) to characters who rapidly change both positively and negatively in response to shifting circumstances (They Died With Their Boots On). So Cagney in The Roaring Twenties doesn’t have a standard rise-and-fall or conscience-to-corruption narrative. I agree with FrauBlucher above that the film's pacing and rhythm is really extraordinary in that regard, to the degree that in the final third of the film, I was shocked by how much emotion and history had built up for me with Cagney's character. The anti-climax to his running streak of jealousy and violent lack of self-control, for example, I found really moving. One of Walsh’s main themes is social climbing, but his films don’t have the judgment or the aspiration that other directors typically bring to that mold. Instead, it’s more about watching a big personality react under pressure in different situations, especially ones where they don't belong. And with a cast like this and the mood fast, loose, and improvisatory, it’s a great recipe.