NEW VITAPHONE DVD SETS!!!

[sepiatone]

Found this great shot of Shemp going head to head with Jimmy Stewart.

I didn't realize Harry Gribbon(or is it his bro Eddie?) was so tall. In the photo he matches the height of young Jimmy Stewart who was arount 6'5" and probably due to age down to 6'4" when he played Charles Lindbergh in 1957.

[Richard Finegan]

I didn't realize Harry Gribbon (or is it his bro Eddie?) was so tall. In the photo he matches the height of young Jimmy Stewart...

That's Harry.
He and Shemp appeared together in five Vitaphone two-reel comedy shorts between 1934 and 1936. They worked as a team in three of them, and I think they worked very well together. But I heard somewhere that Gribbon sometimes wasn't very happy when Shemp was considered the funnier of the two.

[Changsham]

Just got my copy of VITAPHONE VARIETIES VOLUME 2. Only watched the first 8 shorts on Disc 1 one so far. Shorts number 2, 7 and 8 have a strange flickery jerky motion throughout their entire programs. The sound is unaffected. Anyone else notice this problem? Still happy to have this set. Am a big fan of these WA Vitaphone shorts series.

[Paul Penna]

Just got my copy of VITAPHONE VARIETIES VOLUME 2. Only watched the first 8 shorts on Disc 1 one so far. Shorts number 2, 7 and 8 have a strange flickery jerky motion throughout their entire programs. The sound is unaffected. Anyone else notice this problem? Still happy to have this set. Am a big fan of these WA Vitaphone shorts series.

I'm not getting that.

[Changsham]

I tried them on the bluray player and they work fine. Put them back in the DVD and now they play fine too. Must be hardware glitch.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Just got my copy of VITAPHONE VARIETIES VOLUME 2. Only watched the first 8 shorts on Disc 1 one so far. Shorts number 2, 7 and 8 have a strange flickery jerky motion throughout their entire programs. The sound is unaffected. Anyone else notice this problem? Still happy to have this set. Am a big fan of these WA Vitaphone shorts series.

For me it was short 14 on disc 1, and shorts 4, 6, and a couple of others on disc 2 that had problems, but it was not with the picture, which played fine. Instead it was the sound that cut in and out at first, and then was about a third to a half-second out of sync for the rest of those shorts. It did this on two different Blu-ray players (an LG and an Insignia), but when I put it into my Sony (the newest of the bunch) it played perfectly for every short. Sometimes ejecting the disc and reloading it will make it play okay the second or third time on the older players, but so far they've always worked on the new Sony.

It's probably just the constant compatability problem with these so-called digital standards that keep getting modified and may or may not be compatible with older hardware (most discs now warn you that some players may need to be updated, but if it's an older disc it may have problems on an updated player!). I get the same problems with not just DVD-Rs but a sizeable number of newer commercial Blu-ray releases that play fine on one or two machines but will freeze or skip chapters on others, and it's usually but not always the newest players that they play best on.

You just about have to have three or more different brand and different year players to be assured to play any given disc. Any given player will have problems with certain discs that play fine on another, and vice versa. At least players are cheap enough now that it's not that big a deal. And moreover, having two or three players connected gives the additional advantage of being able to cue up a couple of shorts and a feature, so when you're showing them you don't have to suffer through all the FBI warnings, studio disclaimers, and forced previews when you're trying to have a program for a group of people. Just push the input button on your a/v receiver to switch machines.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Oh, and having now watched every one of the films, the Vitaphone Varieties Volume 2 set is great fun! Some of the shorts are much more entertaining than others, of course, depending on your personal tastes. A few of my favorites are the Shaw & Lee GOING PLACES (1930), Trixie Friganza's STRONG AND WILLING (1930), THE HAPPINESS BOYS, BILLY JONES AND ERNIE HARE (1927), JOSEPH E. HOWARD, AMERICA'S POPULAR COMPOSER (1928), Joe. E. Brown's TWINKLE, TWINKLE (1927), many of the all-musical shorts, especially the Norman Thomas Quintette in HARLEMANIA (1929) --gotta love that drummer!, as well as the two Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy shorts and a couple of the other comic skits. Picture and sound quality vary a bit, but usually both are pretty good. All 34 shorts are worth seeing at least once, and quite a few should have a lot of replay value, and make the perfect prelude for audiences before a feature or even as an extra short film after a feature before everybody's ready to leave.

For anyone into 1920s vaudeville and/or early sound films, this set is a must-buy!

[Changsham]

Just got my copy of VITAPHONE VARIETIES VOLUME 2. Only watched the first 8 shorts on Disc 1 one so far. Shorts number 2, 7 and 8 have a strange flickery jerky motion throughout their entire programs. The sound is unaffected. Anyone else notice this problem? Still happy to have this set. Am a big fan of these WA Vitaphone shorts series.

For me it was short 14 on disc 1, and shorts 4, 6, and a couple of others on disc 2 that had problems, but it was not with the picture, which played fine. Instead it was the sound that cut in and out at first, and then was about a third to a half-second out of sync for the rest of those shorts. It did this on two different Blu-ray players (an LG and an Insignia), but when I put it into my Sony (the newest of the bunch) it played perfectly for every short. Sometimes ejecting the disc and reloading it will make it play okay the second or third time on the older players, but so far they've always worked on the new Sony.

It's probably just the constant compatability problem with these so-called digital standards that keep getting modified and may or may not be compatible with older hardware (most discs now warn you that some players may need to be updated, but if it's an older disc it may have problems on an updated player!). I get the same problems with not just DVD-Rs but a sizeable number of newer commercial Blu-ray releases that play fine on one or two machines but will freeze or skip chapters on others, and it's usually but not always the newest players that they play best on.

You just about have to have three or more different brand and different year players to be assured to play any given disc. Any given player will have problems with certain discs that play fine on another, and vice versa. At least players are cheap enough now that it's not that big a deal. And moreover, having two or three players connected gives the additional advantage of being able to cue up a couple of shorts and a feature, so when you're showing them you don't have to suffer through all the FBI warnings, studio disclaimers, and forced previews when you're trying to have a program for a group of people. Just push the input button on your a/v receiver to switch machines.

Thanks for that. Seems for my discs it was just a temporary glitch. I have been lucky, my multi region DVD is a $40 cheapie but is very reliable and plays everything. Strange how these days that a hardware issue could easily be less of a worry than a faulty disc. Looking forward to see all these shorts if full. I loved the first set. Though the entertaiment may not be first rate these are snapshots to forgotten vaudeville performers and popular entertainment of the day. Makes for far better understanding of the times.