Warner Bros | 1930 | 192 mins. | Not Rated
By 1930, Robert L. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! syndicated newspaper panels had made him famous the world over. As a result, Warner Vitaphone decided to put him in front of the camera and make a film version of his newspaper panel. There were 24 made in all, which are presented in this collection. Ripley wasn’t an actor, nor does he look like a natural on camera. He’s very wooden and often miffs his lines (particularly the jokes, which are supremely lame). However, his clumsiness is just part of his charm, since it’s so obvious he loves what he’s doing.
The earliest shorts tend to focus on Ripley himself. Instead of showing us some amazing fact, or freak of nature, Ripley would talk about it, then say, “Here, let me draw it for you” after which he’ll move over to a large and conveniently placed sketch pad and do just that. A decent artist, Ripley would continue to talk about his discovery as he drew. These clips are likely going to fascinate only the most diehard Ripley fans among us; the rest of us will want to see the real thing.
About a third of the way through the series, Ripley is dragged into court by a District Attorney for “making statements that appear questionable.” Our man Ripley gamely proves his innocence by drawing things for a scowling judge. It’s after that segment, that Ripley and his crew decided to get real footage of “unbelievable” things, and the shorts become a whole lot more interesting. What we wind up with are essentially a series of mini-Mondo movies that still provide amusement all these years later.
The great thing about these shorts is that you never know what you’re going to get. One may feature a woman who talks incredibly fast, or an old lady who collected a ridiculously large ball of yarn (whatever trips your trigger). On the more bizarre side of things, we meet a cat that enjoys smoking cigarettes, and chickens who have learned to swim from a duck. Some things seem ridiculous by today’s standards: the worlds tiniest book, and a man who has made an entire suit out of old Confederate currency.
I said earlier that Ripley wasn’t a natural in front of the camera. While that’s true, he had a quirkiness that audiences of the time likely found endearing. It’s not uncommon for him to suddenly spout off completely unrelated facts as he goes about his business. In the first episode, , as he’s getting ready to make a hole in a piece of cigarette paper large enough to walk through he lets us in on a couple of secrets—the Biblical Abraham wasn’t Jewish, but Babylonian and Albert Einstein failed math in school.
This is just plain old fun stuff.
The 1.33.1 fullframe black and white image looks about as good as could be expected given that the shorts here haven’t been given a full restoration and, like the rest of the Warner Archive titles, were simply mastered from the best materials that the studio had on hand. Contrast fluctuates here and there and it doesn’t take make effort to spot the scratches and mild print damage that appears throughout the presentation, but otherwise the progressive scan image looks okay considering that some of this material is eight decades old.
The same comments apply to the Dolby Digital Mono audio track. You can understand things without having to strain your ears and the levels are well balanced, but these shorts do show their age. Background hiss and pops are fairly common and there’s a bit of waver and some audible distortion noticeable mostly in the higher end of the mix. No alternate language dubs or subtitle options are supplied.
There are no special features.
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