God bless Olive for bringing Leo McCarey’s 1944 The Bells of St. Mary’s to Blu-ray.
It’s a bit of an odd bird. As explained by Prof. Emily Corman in one of the supplements, it’s a bona fide sequel – but produced via another studio. Going My Way was a Paramount production, released in 1944, a year previous to Bells. Mr. Crosby plays the same character in both. But Bells is an RKO production, with Mr. Crosby as one of the producers. A bit of cross-pollination.
While Going My Way is currently part of the Universal catalog, Bells appears to have been licensed by Olive from Paramount.
And while Going won a myriad of awards, Bells was nominated for eight, inclusive of Best Picture, but won only for Best Sound Recording. Best Picture went to The Lost Weekend.
Olive’s new Blu is a lovely affair. While it appears to be derived from a fine grain, the image is stable, crisp and clean, with a terrific gray scale.
Zero problems to be found.
Bells in another of those wonderful ’40s productions, for which these words will be few.
Just pick up a copy.
Image – 4.5
Audio – 5
Pass / Fail – Pass
Highly Recommended
RAH
Robert has been known in the film industry for his unmatched skill and passion in film preservation. Growing up around photography, his first home theater experience began at age ten with 16mm. Years later he was running 35 and 70mm at home.
His restoration projects have breathed new life into classic films like Lawrence of Arabia, Vertigo, My Fair Lady, Spartacus, and The Godfather series. Beyond his restoration work, he has also shared his expertise through publications, contributing to the academic discourse on film restoration. The Academy Film Archive houses the Robert A. Harris Collection, a testament to his significant contributions to film preservation.
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