The Doors-No One Here Gets Out Alive: The Doors' Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio Discography
Rating
Year Of Production	1981
Running Time	59:58
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Gordon Forbes
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Jim Morrison Ray Manzarek John Densmore Robby Krieger Danny Sugarman Jerry Hopkins Paul Rothschild
Case	Click
RPI	$39.95	Music	None Given

    The Doors - No One Here Gets Out Alive is a documentary made in 1981 which presents us with interviews with all the Doors' band members: Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger cut with clips of the group playing 13 of their songs during various concerts and TV appearances. Obviously, the Jim Morrison interviews are limited to archival footage, whereas those with the other band members as well as those with Paul Rothschild, the group's producer, and Danny Sugarman and Jerry Hopkins who wrote the group's biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, were recorded specifically for this documentary.

    Topics discussed include how the band was formed in 1965, the songs, the art, rock and roll, the relationship between Jim Morrison's music and punk rock as well as the relationship between Jim's poetry and the band's music. There are also some insights into what happened at the infamous New Haven and Miami concerts as well as plenty of commentary by the band's members and the others on Jim as they knew him.

    A nice feature of the disc is a song selection menu which gives you the ability to select the individual song performances. Once a title has been selected, this feature will continue to play all the songs on the disc.

Video

    You wouldn't buy this DVD because of its pristine video quality, you'd buy it because of your interest in The Doors and consequently your desire to know more about the life and times of this group and its enigmatic lead singer Jim Morrison. To be completely fair, the following comments regarding the quality of the video need to be read with the consideration that much of the material is over thirty years old.

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. This is the original aspect ratio for this material.

    The transfer was free of low level noise, however there are plenty of other problems to be seen in the source material. Shadow detail varies from acceptable in the newer material to poor in the older material. Equally, the sharpness of the older footage leaves a lot to be desired while the sharpness of the newer material of the surviving band members and other interviewees, which is from around 1980, is much better. Edge enhancement is also present and this varies from mild to severe.

    There is a significant amount of black and white footage which often has quite a flat look as a result of the limited grey scale of the source material. The older colour material exhibits a very dated look with colours that never look particularly natural, although the newer material is significantly better. On the material sourced from videotape, such as the clip from The Doors' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, there are a number of instances (for example at 16:12) of  diagonal lines in the bottom left hand corner of the image which may be the result of chroma overmodulation. There is also some colour bleeding present such as at 44:52 as well as some cross colouration on Ed Sullivan's tie at 26:10. At 4:08 there is evidence of  a fairly rare artefact, seen only in old videotaped footage, which is known as microphony. There are also a few minor tape dropouts.

    While the transfer was free of MPEG artefacts, there was some aliasing to be seen occasionally but this wasn't particularly distracting. The biggest problem was in the area of film artefacts which were continuously present in the various clips from the group's concerts and interviews. These often reached severe levels and included black and white marks, hairs, scratches and some very noticeable film grain.

    While the disc contained a number of subtitle options, there are no English subtitles present.

    This is single sided disc and therefore without a layer change to disturb the flow of the material.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    As with the video quality, the audio quality also leaves a lot to be desired. The same caveat regarding the age of the material applies.

    There is only one audio track, this being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 one.

    While the dialogue was quite clear, this doesn't mean that the audio in general was without problems. There are from time to time clicks, pops and crackles, the most obvious crackle appearing at 36:39. There is also a significant amount of hiss present from time to time.

    There weren't any problems with the audio sync.

    The music consists of about 13 of the band's songs although most of these are incomplete cuts rather than full length performances. The band's signature tunes The End, LA Woman, Light My Fire, Touch Me and The End are all present.

    The surrounds are not used at all. While the soundtrack is Dolby Digital 2.0 encoded, the audio is essentially monophonic in nature.

    You can give your subwoofer a break as it isn't needed for this DVD.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras are pretty limited.

Menu

    All the menu pages are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The main menu and the scene selection menu both feature animation and audio

Discography

    A single page list of the band's albums.

    The R1 and R4 discs have identical content so I'd choose the R4 version for its superior PAL image.

    If you can overlook the video and audio quality as well as the lack of extras then this documentary does provide some insight into the life and times of The Doors as well as Jim Morrison from the point of view of the three surviving band members as well as others associated with the band.

    The video quality shows its age.

    The audio quality also shows it age.

    The extras are very very limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall