A Day At the Races appears in an aspect ratio of 1.37:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The movie looked very good.
Overall delineation seemed solid. Only minor softness ever crept into the presentation, as it provided a largely accurate image.
No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Light grain cropped up and I saw no print flaws.
Black levels looked very solid, so contrast seemed smooth and distinctive, while dark tones were deep and firm. Low-light sequences also displayed nice definition and accuracy, with shadows that were appropriately detailed and clear. Ultimately, Races offered a very positive visual experience for a movie of its vintage.
While not as good as the picture, the DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack of A Day at the Races seemed fine for a film of this era. Speech was slightly dense and thick, but the lines displayed no edginess or sibilance, and they remained easily intelligible at all times.
Music seemed reasonably bright and dynamic given its age. The score and songs never excelled, but they came across with pretty fair definition.
Effects seemed fairly clear and tight when I considered technological restrictions. No issues with background noise manifested. In the end, the audio of Races came across as satisfying for an old flick like this.
How does the Blu-ray compare to the DVD from 2004? The lossless soundtrack felt a bit warmer than its lossy DVD counterpart, but the primitive nature of the source limited improvements.
Visuals showed a nice step up, as the Blu-ray appeared more precise and richer. It also lost the source flaws that popped up during the DVD, so expect a nice upgrade.
The Blu-ray repeats the DVD’s extras, and we open with an audio commentary from Glenn Mitchell, author of The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia. He offers a running, screen-specific chat that gets into biographical information for some of the participants, the influence of producer Irving Thalberg over the film’s structure and some production issues.
Although he presents some decent information, Mitchell speaks so infrequently that this becomes a frustrating piece. The comments about Thalberg add some useful material, especially when we learn of his death during production and its impact.
I also like the fact that Mitchell strongly slams one part of Races, as he declares the ballet sequence boring and urges us to skip it. We don’t often hear that kind of bluntness in this format.
However, much of the information seems somewhat pedestrian, and a lot of the good bits already appeared on Leonard Maltin’s chat during A Night at the Opera, which makes it redundant if you’ve already heard that one.
Or vice versa, I suppose. Ultimately, though, it’s all the dead air that makes this commentary fairly unsatisfying.
After this we get a featurette entitled On Your Marx, Get Set, Go!. In this 27-minute, 37-second program, we hear from director Robert B. Weide, writers Larry Gelbart and Irving Brecher, comedy writer Anne Beatts, writer/director/actor Carl Reiner, film historian Robert Osborne, and actors Dom DeLuise and Maureen O’Sullivan.
They discuss the Marx style, developing Races, the cast and personality elements of the Marx Brothers, the movie’s setting and characters, a dissection of some set pieces, the impact of Thalberg’s death, and some general anecdotes related to the film.
The program provides a fairly concise examination of the topics. Some redundancy occurs if you’ve listened to the commentary, but a fair amount of new information pops up here.
It moves briskly and seems generally entertaining. It’s especially cool to hear from O’Sullivan, as it’s nice to get the perspective and stories of someone actually involved in the production.
Up next we find a 1937 Robert Benchley short called A Night at the Movies. It lasts 10 minutes and provides some sporadically amusing material. It’s also interesting to get a look at movie theaters of the era.
The Vintage Cartoons section includes three shorts: 1938’s Old Smokey (7:34), 1939’s Mama’s New Hat (8:24), and 1940’s Gallopin’ Gals (7:26). The first two come as part of the “Captain and the Kids” series, while the third’s from Hanna-Barbera.
None of them seem particularly good, but they’re moderately entertaining. By the way, they show up on this disc because all of them involve horses.
Within the Audio Treasures domain we find three features. There’s an outtake from “A Message from the Man in the Moon” that lasts two minutes, 34 seconds. Glenn Mitchell introduces the piece with some background, and then we hear Allan Jones sing the tune.
“Treasures” also includes a radio promo called “Leo Is On the Air” (13:28). This offers an extended ad that includes material from Races.
New to the Blu-ray, we get “Dr. Hackenbush” (2:56), a musical performance meant for the movie but unrecorded. Groucho does the song for the radio.
The disc concludes with the film’s theatrical trailer.
By the time they made A Day at the Races, the Marx Brothers had settled into a pretty formulaic system for their movies. That means Races presents a mix of negative traits moderately balanced by more than a few fine comedic moments. The Blu-ray offers positive picture along with relatively satisfying audio and an erratic but generally satisfactory set of supplements. Races doesn’t provide a consistently enjoyable movie, but it works well overall.
To rate this film, visit the original review of A DAY AT THE RACES