Betty Boop: The Essential Collection: Volume 4

The best quality Betty Boop."Snow White" is worth buying the disk by itself. This features a young Cab Calloway singing "Saint James Infirmary". His siren-like bending of notes is unique to the "hi-de-ho" man. When he sings "Seeeeeeeeee my baby laid out on a long white table...", it still moves me like it did the first time I heard it 40 years ago.Also included, "Red Hot Mama" which was considered too risque to be broadcast on TV. "Stopping the Show" is longer than the version included in earlier VHS releases. "Poor Cinderella" is the only attempt by the Fleischer brothers to make a color BB cartoon.The whole "Essential Collection" series disks include early and later cartoons on each disk. I assume this is marketing so that each disk will have at least one "gem" mixed in with the later-not-so-interesting BB cartoons.I am hoping that Olive Films will continue to transfer Betty Boop to Blu-ray!

Was it really necessary to round out the last third of this final disc with shorts that focused more on Pudgy than Betty? When you consider how many Betty Boop cartoons there are that weren't used for these four volumes from Olive Films (such as BETTY IN BLUNDERLAND), that seems hard to justify. While it's great to have these shorts on disc, it doesn't seem like the format was really taken advantage of here. Each volume from Olive runs roughly 90 minutes, give or take a few minutes, so each of these could have included a few more shorts without sacrificing image quality. Right from the start Olive announced this was only going to be a four-volume series, so fans knew up front we wouldn't be getting the entire run of Betty shorts...although I don't think it was ever stated why. Probably many here recall Republic Home Video's eight-volume VHS release of BETTY BOOP: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION from the 1990s (which was also available on laser disc). In addition to giving us almost the complete Max Fleischer/Betty Boop library, it also had the onscreen participation of Max's son, director Richard Fleischer (FANTASTIC VOYAGE, Disney's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, TORA! TORA! TORA!). Although image quality on the Olive releases easily surpass those, it would have been nice to have had additional volumes to make this a more comprehensive collection. And, like Volume 3, this latest entry drops the cardboard slip sleeve found on Volumes 1 and 2. Still not sure why, since the initial idea was that the four cardboard sleeves would line up on the shelf to form a picture of Betty. (Corporate corner cutting, perhaps?)

As with Volume 3 (see my review for it), this one could also use more of those racy pre-Code Betty Boop cartoons and Talkartoon shorts. On the bright side, Snow White (1933) and Poor Cinderella (1934), both highly-acclaimed classics, are on this release with restored Paramount logos! As the only Betty Boop cartoon made in color, as well as Max Fleischer's first color cartoon (albeit done in the inexpensive Cinecolor process), Poor Cinderella looks STUNNING on Blu-Ray in HD! It kills all the other public domain copies out there! Olive Films, if you're listening, next thing on your list should be the 1941 Fleischer animated feature Mr. Bug Goes To Town, as well as the rest of the Talkartoons, pre-Code Betty Boops, and Screen Songs!

I just love Betty Boop and this selection of shorts is great! It's great to finally have the classics "Snow-white" and "Poor Cinderella" in superb quality. I feel like with these four blue-ray releases, I have all the shorts I needed. I would have been devastated to be missing most of these cartoons. Thank you Olive Films for releasing these four sets. There are still some gems that need to be released on blu-ray.

The Cinecolor print of "Poor Cinderella" was amazing. Brighter colors than I have seen on any other version, and the "two-color" process gives it a surreal quality. The 3-D background models also really stand out. As a collector, I still wish Olive films had arranged these discs differently, and had been more comprehensive in what they included, but getting this one simply for "Poor Cinderella" was well worth it.

Way too many post-code cartoons, but the only thing that was really important to me was that I was finally able to get 'Snow White', perhaps the best cartoon I've ever seen. Over the past 40 years I've been amazing friends & family w/this cartoon. Everyone who saw it was impressed, but it a several generations copy on VHS, leaving the quality much to be desired. Still isn't perfect, but probably the best shape we'll get to see it at this point.

It's too bad that the last volume in the series has so many weak latter-day Betty cartoons on it, when there are still plenty of choice ones left unreleased. Only 6 are the great pre-code titles fans clamor for, and the last, SALLY SWING, is barely a Betty Boop cartoon, and is dreadful by any measure.The jewel in the crown here is getting the only vintage Betty Boop cartoon photographed in color, POOR CINDERELLA, in the bunch. It's a real treat to those like myself, who have only seen public domain prints, to get a chance to see it sourced from studio elements. It too is arguably not one of her best, but it has a few laughs, and the novelty of seeing Betty in glorious Cinecolor makes it a must for Boop fans.So, overall a mixed bag, but still worth it for the desirable titles in the set.

Black and white eeerrr thang.

Perfectly restored and animated!Must have blu rays if you are a fan.