Bananas
(1971/United Artists/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Bob
Hope: The Ultimate Movie Collection
(1938 - 1949/Paramount/Universal DVD Box Set)/Gidget
(1959/Sony/Columbia/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Logan
Lucky (2017/Universal 4K
Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B/C+/B/B Sound: B-/C+/B-/B
Extras: C+/C+/C+/C- Films: B-/B-/C+/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Bananas
and Gidget
Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Twilight Time,
are limited to 3,000 copies each and can be ordered from the link
below.
Here's
a wide variety of comedy movies to consider...
Woody
Allen's Bananas
(1971) is one of his earliest feature films and hits, starting with
his character (Fielding Mellish is his amusing name here) who works
as a human dummy for the testing of various equipment and devices
before they are 'safe' and 'useful' enough to be sold to the public.
However, as is the case with many early Allen films, this somehow
lands him in a position where he goes to a third-world dictatorship
(!) and somehow accidentally becomes its dictator!
Reuniting
with Louise Lasser (who he was with in real life at the time) and his
co-writer Mickey Rose, they try the jokes from all over approach they
used so effective in Take
The Money And Run,
Allen's 1969 directorial debut spoof of serious documentaries of the
time (more shocking at the time than now in the mockumentary era) and
this can be as funny. However, the script is competing with a more
linear plot idea, so the scattered approach of the earlier film is
not always as effective here. I will not ruin any of the jokes, but
some intertextual references might be lost on the audience today
because of time periods, yet the hilarious Marvin Hamlisch score so
brilliantly punctuates the lunacy that its implementation here is a
classic (imitated in many references and spoofs of Allen himself!)
and would continues to be the style of comedy music in Allen films
for decides to come. Hamlisch even revisited the style before his
sad, too-young passing a few years ago for Steven Soderbergh's The
Informant!
with Matt Damon.
As
with many early Allen films, you will also recognize name stars in
small roles including Sylvester Stallone as one of the thugs
harassing Fielding on a New York subway car, plus future Diff'rent
Strokes
TV co-stars Conrad Bain and Charlotte Rae in separate scenes in the
film (Rae is Fielding's mother, but you can only hear her and barely
see her as she is in surgery when he visits them DURING surgery for
help!) so keep be on the lookout for things like that.
MGM
has made this United Artists/Allen gem available as another one of
Twilight Time's Limited Edition Blu-rays, which would have been
shocking when these films were such hits, but Allen does not have the
audience he used to (though he still has hits, private scandal or
not) and all his works should be issued in great new transfers like
this one. Amazing this one is just coming out now, but it seems as
timely as ever in its satire of dictatorships and with the great
isolated music score in fine, clear stereo, watching the comedy
scenes with just Hamlisch's music makes them funny all over again.
Like
the previous dozen Allen films issued by Twilight Time, extras
include another nicely illustrated booklet on the film including
informative text and yet another excellent, underrated essay by the
great film scholar Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray adds an Isolated
Music Score with select Sound Effects and Original Theatrical
Trailer.
In
speaking of Allen, he always sited Bob Hope as one of his influences
and you can see it when watching their films next to each other. The
timing of those witty one-liners in context to the action can work
very well. Bob
Hope: The Ultimate Movie Collection
(1938 - 1949) collects 21 feature films that Paramount issued in the
iconic star's early prime. Universal now owns most of the early
Paramount films to about 1949, so it is their DVD set we are covering
here.
However,
watching these films (again for the first time in a long while in
most cases), I was struck about how similar they could be to what we
is called 'Elvis Musicals' where the big star is in a film that puts
him in a genre situation (musical, war, drama, historic tale, even
horror) and makes a star vehicle out of it. In Elvis Presley's case,
it was a musical that usually had comedy, whether the music or comedy
was memorable or not (no Elvis film ever lost money!) and that is the
case with Hope.
He
enters the set-up of the film and brings his slightly subversive,
funny self with him. At first in the early film, he is shown as a
serious romanic figure, but that quickly gives way to
joke-a-minute-Bob that still has its laughs. Unfortunately, the
films also have more homophobia, sexism, racism and a few other
politically incorrect items than you might expect, but that was film
comedy then. It seems to get more so when he tams up with Bing
Crosby in their Road
films, which the set includes in a separate casing in the box.
Though a few films are not here from the period, most are and
include...
1938:
The Big Broadcast of 1938, College Swing, Give Me a
Sailor, Thanks for the Memory
1939:
Never Say Die, The Cat and the Canary
1940:
Road
to Singapore,
The
Ghost Breakers
1941:
Road
to Zanzibar,
Caught
in the Draft,
Nothing
But the Truth,
Louisiana
Purchase
1942:
Star
Spangled Rhythm,
My
Favorite Blonde,
Road
to Morocco
1945:
Road to Utopia
1946:
Monsieur Beaucaire
1947:
Variety Girl, Where There's Life
1948:
The Paleface
1949:
Sorrowful Jones
Like
Jerry Lewis and Eddie Murphy later, Hope was a huge comedy money
machine for Paramount (long past 1949 for that matter) and not
without competition from comedy kings at other studios, but these
films remind us just how phenomenally huge he was. With him gone and
remembered for his USO tours and TV special, the movies (and not just
because they are not shown as much as they used to be) get lost in
the shuffle. He also attracted some of the biggest names tot he big
screen as much as he would on his USO tours, so they represent big
time Hollywood in the Classic period when Paramount was the second
biggest studio (behind MGM) around. Thus, these are also time
capsules and worth revisiting, flaws, datedness and all.
Horror,
mystery and thriller fans should take note of The
Cat and the Canary,
which is an outright comedy remake of the classic that has been
remade as a serious murder thriller several times over the decades
and The
Ghost Breakers,
which roughly inspired the 1970s Ghost
Busters
TV series, which led tot he blockbuster film of the same name,
despite being a different franchise and both films show the wave of
Abbott and Costello monster spoofs at Universal were not the fluke of
just one studio.
Bonus
Features include Bob
Hope and the Road to Success,
Entertaining the Troops, Command Performance 1944, Command
Performance 1945 and Hollywood Victory Caravan.
For
an even larger, more expanded look at Hope's TV Specials and USO
Tours, a new expanded DVD box set of those have arrived at the same
time as this box here...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15095/The+Bob+Hope+Specials+Deluxe+Collection+(195
Paul
Wendkos' Gidget
(1959) also launched a franchise of sorts, though one of its time
that later ended with the hit Sally Fields TV series, but Sandra Dee
(the very one spoofed in the song from Grease
(1978) referencing this film as much as any of hers) as the
woman-who-loves-too-much-to-be innocent gal (named Francine in the
film) who suddenly finds herself loving surfing and gets caught in a
love triangle with James Darren (forever typed as Moondoggie!) and
Cliff Robertson (in one of many connection his fateful career would
have with Columbia Pictures) as the Big Kahuna. This was pretty much
the first beach/surfing comedy that eventually inspired a cycle if
not a genre, but that's a debate for another time.
The
actors here for the most part (save for adults playing adults like
Arthur O'Connell) are unknowns and many became better-known later.
It is also a film that I part of a cycle of Rock Music movies (that
wrapped up and changed when The Beatles arrived with A
Hard Day's Night
(1964), by which time the cycle had ended; the Kennedy Assassination
speeding up matters) that started with low budget black and white
dramas, concert films (many of which we have covered) and Elvis
Presley in the CinemaScope Jailhouse
Rock
(1957), so the featured music act (only one here versus several in
the other films) are The Four Preps, who were one of Capitol Records'
biggest hit acts from 1958 to 1961 and this film did not hurt.
Capitol was so sure that The Beach Boys were the next big thing after
the preps, they though they did not need The Beatles when they first
had the chance to get them! Yes, this film suffers 'good girl
syndrome' and seems sexist by today's standards at times, but it is a
time capsule of its era too and deserves this restored Blu-ray
release so people know when all of this started. Sony has licensed
this key Columbia film to Twilight Time as part of their Limited
Edition series and that works. Also, Dee is an icon of the time
whose work has been lost to time, but she is fun to watch and had a
good comic sense about her, so you can understand why she was such a
big deal after watching this, flaws and all. Everyone should see
this one just once so they know what is going on here. Very amusing.
Extras
include another nicely illustrated booklet on the film including
informative text and yet another excellent, underrated essay by the
great film scholar Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray adds an Isolated
Music Score with select Sound Effects and Original Theatrical
Trailer. However, you can read more about the documentary about the
real-life female surfer who inspired the Gidget franchise at this
link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11586/Accidental+Icon:+The+Real+Gidget+Story+(2011/
Finally
we have Steven Soderbergh's new heist comedy Logan
Lucky
(2017) that may seem like tempting fate to repeat himself again after
turning his Ocean's
11
remake into a trilogy where the sequels were some of his worst work
ever, but this film was an experiment in a new way to distribute a
feature film and though it was not a hit that way, it is usually
amusing as the two brothers of the title (Channing Tatum and Adam
Driver) get so sick and tired of their lives that they hatch a plan
to rob the local NASCAR racetrack of a huge fortune because the tube
transportation system is more vulnerable than even they can believe.
It is implied that the people who run the place don't think 'local
hicks' would know about or try to understand the system if they knew
it was even there, but Jimmy (Tatum) is fired from a construction job
(discrimination against a past injury for which he cannot sue, knows
to sue or has the means to sue) just after finishing out it is there
as he is part of a crew fixing sinkholes under the stadium.
They
are smart enough to know they need help and should not try anything
like this alone, so they turn to an explosives expert named Joe Bang,
and that is when the film starts to get interesting because he is
played by Daniel Craig and Craig steals every single scene he is in
until the end. Another actor turns up later by surprise doing the
same thing in different scenes, but we'll not ruin that surprise for
you.
The
gang also adds Jimmy's ex (the under-appreciated Katie Holmes) and
some of Bang's people, then they're off to the races for all the
wrong reasons. Everyone is good here, but Craig helps the film while
showing two of its problems: it is 20 minutes too long and Soderbergh
is not for sure how much to play the 'Southern Dummies' card so
rather go for the Mama's
Family/Hee
Haw/Beverly
Hillbillies
extreme, he has most of the actors play slow and slightly lethargic,
though that slows the film down a little too much. A subplot about
Jimmy's pre-teen daughter also has trouble fitting.
Yet,
there is just enough here to make it worth a look and I know there is
a larger audience here for this one than it got in initial release.
Universal has rightly issued this in an 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray
set because this is one of their better films this year. Even when
everything does not work, I like actors, director and at least they
are trying to be ambitious here which is more than I can say for so
much of the forgettable junk we've seen for 2017.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds a few Deleted
Scenes, though this film deserved a bit more.
The
2160p HEVC/H.265, HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced 2.35 X 1 Ultra
High Definition image in Lucky
manages to just pull ahead of the three fine 1080p Blu-ray here to be
the visual champ with more image stability than the 1080p regular
Lucky
Blu-ray that has slight motion blur at times. Color ranges from full
color to slightly dulled and even monochromatic (in single colors) at
times, but the design is at least consistent shot with a RED HD
camera.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Bananas
looks really good, as good as I have ever seen the film (including a
really fine 35mm print years ago) with the expected grain you'd get
from a film of this period, but color is impressive and there are few
flaws in the presentation.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Gidget
is also color-impressive (dubbed ColumbiaColor, it was EastmanColor
and shows up as such in some promo materials) shot on 35mm film with
the old CinemaScope format. That means some flaws in slight
distortion and the like, but it looks as good as expected.
The
1.33 X 1 image transfers on all the Hope
films here on DVD can show the age of the materials used, with some
transfers looking a bit better than others, but have any of these hit
Blu-ray yet? Paramount definitely made sure Hope's film looked good,
so the mostly black & white films look good, though some look
like older transfers with detail issues. A few like Paleface
are dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor films and can look good,
but might
need some more work too. Otherwise a decent cumulative presentation.
As
for sound, bot the 4K and 1080p Lucky
discs offer only DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, so no
7.1 or 11.1 as we usually expect on new films now. Still, the sound
rarely hits a bad note and is pretty good throughout. Bananas
and Gidget
land up with DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes that
sound fine, but I though Gidget
might be in simple stereo. The isolated music tracks (especially
Marvin Hamlisch's work on Bananas)
sound better than their presentations in the film.
Finally,
the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono mixes on all 21 Hope
films are good, but can show their age with background noise more
prominent than others in some cases, though I bet they would all
improve in restored, lossless presentations.
To
order the Bananas
and Gidget
limited edition Blu-rays, still in print while supplies last, buy
them and other great exclusives of what is left of the original
Twilght Time Blu-ray pressings at:
www.screenarchives.com
-
Nicholas Sheffo
