Danger
- Love At Work (1937/Fox
Screen Archive DVD)/Inside
Llewyn Davis (2013/Sony
DVD)/Margin For Error
(1943/Fox Screen Archive DVD)/Tomboy
(1985/Crown International/Scorpion DVD)/Welcome
To The Jungle
(2013/Universal Blu-ray)
Picture:
B- (DVDs: C+) Sound: B (DVDs: C+) Extras: D/C/D/C/C-
Films: C+/C+/C+/C+/C-
Here
are more comedies to be in the know about...
Otto
Preminger's Danger
- Love At Work
(1937) is a curio simply based on the fact that it has a charming
Jack Haley in fine form only two years before big screen immortality
as The Tin Man in the 1939 Wizard
Of Oz,
falling for Ann Southern in her early prime in this tale where h I a
lawyer trying to get her and her family to sell some property for big
money until his further investigation turns up that they are being
swindled as the land is even more valuable!
John
Carradine, Mary Bolan, CC. Clive and Edward Everett Horton are among
the fine supporting cast in this sometimes Screwball Comedy (it
certainly has the zip and energy of one) that shows a rare side of
Preminger as well. No, it is not always successful and some moments
seem like a TV sitcom, but this is worth seeing for what does work
and that includes some politically incorrect humor with wit you will
not see anymore.
There
are no extras.
The
Coen Brothers' Inside
Llewyn Davis
(2013) is the duo's attempt to tell a semi-factual tale of the period
in New Tour City before Bob Dylan shows up and after the classical
1950s Folk period started to dim. Oscar Issac is the musician (he
carries the film well) and title character trying to get his debut
album marketed and sold, one that has the title of the film. This is
not easy and includes a rough relationship (the underrated Carey
Mulligan), a wacky old Jazz guy (John Goodman) and other unusual
characters with some barely sane ones and a cat!
I
liked the feel, humor and sometimes music here, but its 104 minutes
are a little uneven and inconsistent. No doubt it is wroth a look
(including a reference to Harry
& Tonto,
showing the Coen's usual good taste), yet I did not totally feel like
were in the world built simply because it did not go far enough with
the music or was serious enough despite some good humor. Garrett
Hedlund, Justin Timberlake (in a subtly amusing turn), F. Murray
Abraham (back in top form), Ethan Phillips, Adam Driver and Max
Casella make for a solid supporting cast and Director of Photography
Bruno Delbonnel (who shot this on film) delivers his best outright
visuals since Bogdanovich's underrated The
Cat's Meow
(2001, no puns intended).
The
only extra is Inside
Inside
Llewyn Davis
making of featurette.
Otto
Preminger's Margin
For Error
(1943) is the oddest entry on the list, based on a stage play by
writer (and later known for entering Washington politics and leaning
Right for the time) Claire Boothe Luce send up (even acknowledging at
least in the film if not the play; not knowing if they knew the
extent of the genocide of The Holocaust) of the Nazis and noting
Concentration Camps. I want to give it one leeway as I would
Chaplin's 1940 masterwork The
Great Dictator,
but this is not in the same class.
A
pre-TV Milton Berle is a cop sent to protect a top Nazi official
(Preminger) as the political situation becomes more intense and
things are about to get worse. This is mostly a comedy, though some
dark things happen and some will be more amusing than some will feel
comfortable with (Berle and Preminger would be villains a few decades
later on the 1960s TV Batman
series, though not in the same episodes) and will remind some of the
later TV hit Hogan's
Heroes.
This
all makes it a mixed film to see and WWII was not over when Fox
released this in theaters, so it becomes a unique time capsule and
key film of that period when Hollywood Went To War and was among the
reasons the original studio system slowly fell apart. It is
anti-Nazi (and anti-Axis all the way) making for a sort of propaganda
film as comedy and sometimes working. Joan Bennett has the female
lead role, another plus for the film.
There
are no extras.
Herb
Freed's Tomboy
(1985) centers around race cars as a young female driver (Betsy
Russell) gets involved with her male idol (though with a clichéd
twist) that we reviewed when originally issued on DVD by the now
defunct BCI Eclipse and has surfaced elsewhere, but the film from the
Crown International catalog needed an upgrade. Through a new HD
transfer, Scorpion has issued this on DVD we're covering here, as
well as a Blu-ray.
Crown
was one of the last companies making what would have been seen as
driven fare in the 1970s, taking advantage of home video as well as
the screens still out there. This is not a great film, but an
amusing, interesting one and Russell was an iconic star of the
period, of a cult one not many remember. Ad the amusing car angle
and this this is also worth a look.
Extras
include a TV Spot, trailer for this and other Scorpion releases,
Katarina's Kat's Meow look at the film and Interview with lead star
Betsy Russell.
Last
and least is Rob Meltzer's Welcome
To The Jungle
(2013) is yet another bad film trying o send up advertising,
commercialism, corporate culture and like Syrup and In A World...,
does a hideous job. In this one, a group of office people land up
stuck on an island and even worse, Jean-Claude Van Damme shows up in
one of his worst-yet performances. Adam Brody leads the bored,
unfunny cast and appearances by Dennis Haysbert cannot save this dud.
Except
for some slight potential and a few moments that are simply not as
bad as the whole thing, this barely misses our lowest rating, but it
came close... real close.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes
capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds Behind The Scenes/Deleted
Scenes.
Being
the only Blu-ray here, you would expect the
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Jungle
to be the best performer here visually and it is, but by only so much
as the color looks odd, the editing is lame and this is not a great
or even good-looking presentation. Therefore, not that far behind
and tying for second/last place are the
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Davis
which looks a little too watered down versus what it should look like
(and does in HD), the 1.33 X 1 black and white image on the Work
and Error
in the Classical Hollywood style (both deserving Blu-rays) and the
upgraded from a new HD master (and also on Blu-ray) anamorphically
enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Tomboy
outperforming all previous DVD editions.
Sound
is the same story with the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix
on Jungle
sounding much
better than it deserves to, but yet another winner from Universal
Blu-ray. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Lewis
should be richer and stronger, but not on this DVD, so only expect so
much and it is a quiet film at times and therefore, the lossy
Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo on Tomboy
and lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Work
and Error
sounding as good as they are ever going to in the format can more
than compete.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
