The MGM LaserDisc sounds excellent. It has lots of mid-frequency noise throughout, but it's remarkably clear and detailed. The noise floor after 00:53:45 (equivalent blu-ray timecode) gets louder, which suggests source element issues, but the DVD and blu-ray appear to just be cleaned up and homogenised versions of the same element(s).
The Warner DVD begins with 6 minutes that sound similar to the LaserDisc, and there's another 1.5-minute segment ~6 minutes later that also sounds clear. But everything else is aggressively noise-reduced and extremely muffled. Given that the LD track has an abundance of noise in its mids in addition to its highs, I think it's likely that the DVD has some heavy noise gating going on, which would explain its thin dialogue. Its bass is also massively exaggerated, far beyond what any film from 1936 could have ever had. There are a few dropouts and thumps faintly audible beneath all the noise reduction, which suggests that very little manual work was actually done.
The Warner Blu-ray is like the DVD but with the aforementioned 7-8 minutes scrubbed to sound like the rest of the track.
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