{"id":14978,"date":"2016-12-17T11:26:16","date_gmt":"2016-12-17T16:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=14978"},"modified":"2016-12-17T11:33:55","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T16:33:55","slug":"robert-aldrich-smackdown-all-the-marbles-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=14978","title":{"rendered":"Robert Aldrich Smackdown: …All the Marbles (1981)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AllTheMarbles_still\"A few years ago I snapped up some CED titles that at the time weren\u2019t available on DVD or Blu-ray, and in the intervening years Robert Aldrich\u2019s final work, the women\u2019s wreslting comedy \u2026All the Marbles<\/strong> \/ aka California Dolls <\/strong><\/a>(1981) has popped up in Europe and in the U.S. as a Warner Archive disc, but I decided to engage in a perverse fascination and watch the film on this antiquated format developed by RCA that\u2019s essentially a record that plays a movie.<\/p>\n

CEC Magic<\/a> provides a stellar overview of the format and all things CED, but my desire to own a pair of players and a few discs is to retain proof this nutty idea actually went into production for a\u00a0 few fleeting years before recordable videotape clobbered it, and laserdisc took over as the premium collector format.<\/p>\n

To be fair to CED, the thing did work, and could carry stereo tracks, alternate dub tracks for foreign films, but like the Beta vs. VHS and HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray wars, some studios signed exclusive deals for the CED format, of which Disney, MGM\/UA, and Fox were the main ones.<\/p>\n

That means a lot of films, TV, documentary, and odd titles appeared on CED, hence determined collectors tracking down whatever exists to complete their collections. In 2017 I\u2019ll put together a short-short on the format, but for now there\u2019s a sampling of the first 4 minutes<\/a> from Ticket to Heaven<\/a><\/strong> (1981) to give you an idea of the picture and sound quality.<\/p>\n

My copy of Marbles<\/strong> was a rental, so there was lots of skipping near the end of each side which oddly resembled DVD skipping, except it was a needle struggling to stay in an ultra-fine groove instead of a laser fighting against a fingerprint or gunk on a DVD. (I\u2019ve a rental CED of Ingmar Bergman\u2019s Fanny & Alexander<\/a><\/strong> that\u2019s virtually unplayable; either people loved the film to death, or someone swapped the diamond stylus for a Victrola\u2019s steel tip. The gamble in buying former rental titles is no different than a tapes, which\u00a0 may have a mangled section or three.)<\/p>\n

Like Ticket to Heaven<\/strong>, Aldrich\u2019s last film was one of the first to circulate on Pay TV, so after being teased with the trailer, it was kind of satisfying to finally see the film after 30-odd years. It may not be the director\u2019s best \u2013 his cult & commercial highpoints include Kiss Me Deadly<\/strong> (1955), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?<\/strong> (1962), Hush\u2026 Hush, Sweet Charlotte<\/strong> (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix<\/strong> (1965), The Dirty Dozen<\/strong> (1967), Emperor of the North<\/a><\/strong> (1973), The Longest Yard <\/strong>(1974), Hustle<\/strong> (1975), Twilight\u2019s Last Gleaming<\/strong> (1977), and The Choirboys<\/strong> (1977) \u2013 but it\u2019s another orphan film deserving a proper Blu-ray special edition, with a commentary track dissecting where and how the film fits into the director\u2019s cynical worldview.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Aldrich’s directorial swan song, the underrated wrestling comedy …All the Marbles \/ aka California Dolls (1981), is covered through the magic of dead home video format CED!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[4848,2302,2562,2563,4831],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/AllTheMarbles_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-3TA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14978"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14989,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14978\/revisions\/14989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}