Big News

Rare, early Carole Lombard film
BIG NEWS is a 1929 sound film starring Robert Armstrong as a drunken newspaper reporter caught up in big city crime and corruption. The film itself is no great shakes, but the real reason to watch this DVD is to see a very young Carole Lombard. Lombard plays Armstrong's supportive, put-upon wife.It's not much of a role, but Lombard does a decent job. However, she is far from the mid 30's Lombard that most movie fans are familiar with. This film is so early in Lombard's career that she is billed as "Carol" instead of "Carole". Lombard developed an interest in numerology and added an e to her first name soon after this film.
As for Alpha Video's DVD---the print is pretty bad. The framing is not very good--there are several scenes where the top of the characters' heads are cut off! The DVD clocks in at 66 minutes. I have a book on Lombard which lists the film's running time as 75 minutes. Having only seen the film on this DVD, it's hard to say if this is a complete version or not...

"Big News" = Big Disappointment
I was really looking forward to watching this 1929 early talkie starring a very young Carole Lombard. However, I could only get through the first thirty minutes of the film before I had to give up and stop the DVD. The movie itself was okay, but the transfer was terrible.

The whole time that I watched the film, most of the actors' heads were cut off at the shoulders. This went on scene after scene. Talk about bad framing of the picture that appears on your TV screen. Come on, Alpha, you can do better than this.

There are lots of B-movie and Poverty Row movie fans who depend on Alpha for its vast catalog of quirky, obscure, and mostly public domain titles in many different genres. Alpha does a great job with its colorful and well-designed DVD cases. So how about putting that same amount of time and effort into the picture and sound quality of the movie that's inside the case.

Is it really big news?
A little slow, but still interesting. Mobsters and newsroom action that you have to follow through to the end. There are some interesting characters along the way too, especially the guy from the DA's office. I think this is Carol's 2nd major movie role, so she is quite young.

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