Image of the Day

The Front Page (1931)

I think I've enthused about Netflix Instant View in the recent past, but now that I've watched more movies that way, I have to say that it's a mixed bag, quality-wise. I started watching the streamed version of John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) the other day, and I just turned it off. The image quality was just too crappy to bear. For other streams, the image quality is fine, and then there are those like this one, the 1931 version of The Front Page, that are crappy, image-quality-wise, but still worth watching, for me.

This was on the heels of watching Howard Hawks' 1940 version of the same story, His Girl Friday, also on Netflix Instant View, also compromised visual-quality-wise, but still worth watching. And both of these movies have been in my queue for a while, but watching Andy Hooper's fannish radio play of the story, produced at E Corflu Vitus, inspired me to finally watch them both. And the 1931 version isn't as good as Hawks', but it still has some great bits, including some great visuals, even in a crappy reproduction. In fact this screen cap has a distorted abstract quality that almost looks expressionistic.

Yeah, I'd prefer a high quality image too. Well, these are early days for streaming, and I think it'll get better over time.