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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Released	1937
Running Time	62:27 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	Dual Layer	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection, then Menu
Region	2,4	Director	James W Horne
Studio Distributor	Universal Home Video	Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$34.95	Music	Marvin Hatley

    Way Out West sees our likeable but generally brainless duo heading to Brushwood Gulch in search of a young lady by the name of Mary Roberts (Rosina Lawrence). They have been entrusted with the task of delivering to her the deed to a very rich gold mine left to her by her recently deceased father. Naturally, even this simple task is too much for our intellectually challenged duo and they spill the beans to local hotelier, and sometime profiteer, Mickey Finn (James Finlayson), who has his wife Lola (Sharon Lynne) pretend to be the said Mary Roberts in order to get the deed. After the boys find the real Mary Roberts and realize they have been duped, they attempt to recover the deed but are eventually run out of town by the local sheriff (Stanley Fields). They return at night with the intention of stealing the deed from Mickey Finn's safe and the real hilarity begins.

    Big Business sees our heroes trying to make a dollar by selling Christmas trees to the local populace, without much success. After another knock back, they attempt to leave the property of James Finlayson but the tree is stuck in the door. Minor misunderstandings then begin to escalate as the intrepid duo find things getting slightly out of hand - to the extent that their car is destroyed by Finlayson whilst they destroy his house. All this is done under the incredulous eye of a local law enforcement officer.

    Whilst the earlier reviewed Sons Of The Desert would not rank in my eyes as a true comedy classic, there is no doubt that these two films would. I would not like to guess how many times I have seen both, and despite the rather predictable comedy, they still manage to put a smile on the face. These are two genuinely well-crafted pieces of the comedy art of Laurel and Hardy and in that respect are gems that should be included in any representative comedy DVD collection.

    It should be noted that in addition to the two original black and white films, the DVD also contains a bastardized, colorized version of the main feature. By all accounts this was the first of the Laurel and Hardy features to undergo the treatment and it has to be said that this is a better effort than the previously reviewed film. However, it by no means changes my view about colorized films.

Video

    Allowing for the age of the transfer, this ends up being a very sharp effort with plenty of detail on offer. Indeed, amongst the recent older vintage DVDs through my player, this looks much better than the norm. Well, at least until we consider the colorized version of the film. In common with the norm for such abominations, what you gain (marginally) from the colour, you more than lose in the detail department. Whilst the colorized version is certainly better than that afforded Sons Of The Desert, it is still a considerable degradation from the standards of the "proper" version of the film. The colorized version of the main feature loses a lot of the sharpness and detail in the colorization process. The short on the other hand is pretty much on a par with the quality of the main feature. The shadow detail on offer is generally pretty decent for a film of this vintage and would certainly rival some films of a more recent vintage. Naturally they are not the absolute best in the clarity stakes, but that is to be expected and the grain that is present is hardly a serious distraction to the overall transfer.. There did not seem to be any problem with low level noise in the transfer.

    The black and white transfers demonstrate a nice style of black and white tones, although the main feature is just a little on the bright side at times, which slightly overpowers the depth of the black and white tones. The overall grey scales are quite decent in their definition and do not really hide any detail at all. The colorized version of the feature once again demonstrates what is inherently wrong with the process, even though this is a somewhat better effort overall. Once again the skin tones demonstrate the unnatural feel of the colorization process to the extreme. Whilst it might start sounding like a broken record, direct comparison between the original black and white and the colorized version is decidedly not in favour of the colorized version at all. There is also the inherent problem of perceived colour bleed in the colorized version, as well as the general tendency towards a lack of natural saturation in the colours. The black and white transfers are well worth indulging though.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer, although there seemed to be a brief period of blockiness in the background at around the 12:15 mark. There did not appear to be any significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. The big benefit in the restoration process has been the general cleaning up of the film and this is quite a clean transfer for a film of the vintage. That is not to say that there are no problems - a a few brief sections are still very badly afflicted with dirt marks in particular, and the obligatory reel change markings certainly cannot be missed. However, since some sections are actually quite free of affliction, I willingly accept those odd sections as something that can be lived with in the overall scheme of things. Once again, the colorized version is far less prone to the film artefacts.

    In the absence of noting any layer change, it is presumed that this is a Dual Layered DVD with one of the main features on the second layer of the DVD.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

	Original Version	Colorized Version
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue is reasonably clear and easy to understand in the soundtrack. There did not seem to be any real problems with audio sync in the transfer, although be aware that there is one sequence in the film where Stan and Ollie are singing and other peoples voices are overdubbed. This sequence is naturally out of sync, but this is a reflection of the rather primitive techniques of the era, and not a transfer issue.

    The musical score for the main feature is from Marvin Hatley and, on the presumption that it is the original soundtrack score, is a fairly typical, slightly slapstick style effort. Apparently the score copped an Oscar nomination in 1937, so it must have been pretty good for its day.

    The main problem confronting the viewer here is the inherent background hiss in the soundtrack. People who are used to restored CD recordings of the 1930s and 1940s will probably have less of a problem here than most, but if you are used to modern, open, clean soundtracks then this is going to disappoint. I would classify the hiss as being in the marginally annoying category, as once it kicks in around the 14:00 mark, it is difficult to ignore. This was the reason why I resorted to checking out the other two soundtracks, which did not appear to suffer anywhere near the same level of hiss.

    Apart from that moderate problem, there is not much else to worry about with the soundtracks.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    Mike Dutton, for those who are not aware, runs a record company called Dutton Laboratories, and is acknowledged as producing some of the very best remastered CDs from 1930s and 1940s recordings. In his field, the man is pretty much a genius - some of the things I have heard on his CDs almost defy listening belief.
 
 

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
6th February 2001