Cheap Marx Brothers Collection (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of Marx Brothers Collection

Very mixed bag
This set is a very mixed bag - it's really only for hardcore Marx Brothers fans, who have to have everything (given the shortage of Marx material on DVD). It's got some interesting stuff, like a disc full of trailers, and the pilot for You Bet your Life (in surprisingly good quality), which are the 2 items that I give it 2 stars for, but the bad points of this set are:
1) they could've fit all of this onto maybe 2 or 3 discs - each disc only runs around 50 min.
2) A/V quality on some of the material is poor
3) Menus may not work on some machines, on some discs (someone else complained about this). Hitting "Play" didn't work, but fortunately, my DVD player allows me to direct access titles/chapters on the disc, so i figured out how to make the disc play by bumping directly to the title/chapter on the disc (using trial and error). An enormous hassle, though.
4) if you buy this box, don't buy the separate "Inside" disc, as it's in there along with some footage making up some of the other discs - they clearly were stretching material
5) one whole disc is just audio - for this, i needed a DVD?

The easy solution to this would be for Universal, Time Warner/WB, and all the other copyright holders to get on the ball and get the real movies out. I'd even settle for the latter/lesser ones, at this point. In the meantime, pop for "The Unknown Marx Brothers" - it's much better than this.

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It's equivilent to today's DVD extras
I can't believe the silly negative reviews here. Of course there are no movies on this collection. This is not a rip off, it is a rare treasure of non-movie material from TV, radio (they put a picture on the screen while you hear the radio material. Of course there's no video to this, remember radio?) and film items such as trailers and newsreels of the day. What can one expect from the 20's through the 50's? This is supplementary material that likely has never been seen by the public since it was originally aired. Of course it will be black and white and not what one is used to from modern films. That's doin' Marx Brothers fans a favor. This is a wonderful collection of, as it says on the box, "...clips, interviews, TV shows, and rare footage that span the careers of all five Marx Brothers." It's not a consistent laugh riot because it's not their moview, it's bits and pieces where the Marx Brothers appeared to the public outside of their films.
DVD 1 is "Inside The Marx Brothers" a documentary on them. DVD 2 is "You Bet Your Life the TV Pilot which is not very good viewing quality. The real rarities are the next three: DVD 3 is "Papa Romani" a TV episode or pilot staring Chico, essentially it's an early sitcom and Edward R. Murrow doing his famous TV studio to the star's home interviews with Groucho and then Harpo. DVD 4 is "The Marx Brother: Radio Days" with numerous radio segments some or all of them did. Try and find that material anywhere else. Finally, DVD 5 is "Marx Brothers Mixed Nuts" which is film trailers and newsreels (that's what they had in those days) and other studio film related segments with some or all of the brothers. You likely have never seen any of this material anywhere else unless you were watching the TV or saw the movies with newsreels or heard the radio when originally broadcast those many decades ago. This has been put together in a professional manner, as well as can be done given the limitations of 70 to 40 year old film material. Passport Video (whoever that company is) deserves a lot of credit for releaseing this collection. Sure, it could have been put on 2 DVD's. But the price (I paid about twenty bucks used) is very reasonable for 5 hours of material. Who could ask for a better price? I'm baffled by the negative reviews here. As much as I love their movies, particularly the first four or so, I've been hoping to see something else and this fills the bill. If you need a warning it's to think of these as DVD extras that we've grown used to in the 2000's. And when you love the movie often it's a treat to see non-movie material and this is it. I gave it a 4 rather than a 5 star because of the clear logo in the corner of the company. Heck, that's pretty standard today on TV. Can't have everything. I hope you understand what it is and isn't now. Thanks to all the film companies and probably the estates of the brothers for giving us this collection.

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Great for the price and to learn about them
I am not sure why so many people complain. I loved it, the piece with his(groucho) daughter is so cute.not bad quality,the times did not make great pictures.what does people want DVD quality from the 30's. get this and put it in your collection. I have all of movies and bio's this is in the top 3. the unkown marx bros is real good for 10 bucks too, get that one if you dont want to fork over more cash. but this is good, bet your life pilot,radio clips, etc...