Boardwalk
(1979/MVD Visual Blu-ray + DVD)/The
Front
(1976/Columbia/Sony/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/When
Jews Were Funny
(2013/First Run DVD)
Picture:
B- & C/B/C+ Sound: C+ & C/B-/C+ Extras: C-/B/D
Main Programs: C+/B/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Front
Blu-ray is a limited edition from our friends at Twilight Time, only
3.000 copies will be produced and you can order it while supplies
last from the link below.
Judaism
and what it is to be Jewish becomes the topic of three new releases,
including two underseen feature films just released...
Stephen
Verona's Boardwalk
(1979) is an underseen independent film released long ago by the long
gone Atlantic Releasing with Lee Strasberg as the patriarch of a
Jewish family in a declining Brooklyn with a great wife (Ruth Gordon)
and a nice deli business watching his business decline with the
neighborhood. He has help from his family including his daughter
(Janet Leigh) and longtime friends, but his grandson Peter (Michael
Ayr) is estranged a bit from his mother by not following old ways of
living.
He
wants to be a singer (performances include him on stage singing the
late, underrated Gerry Rafferty's Mary
Skeffington)
and make a career out of it instead of playing it conservative and
safe. The cast is pretty good here and I liked the drama, comedy and
how it deals with Judaism, but there is a subplot about local
hoodlums (all of who turn out to be ethnic minorities) terrorizing
the neighbors, robbing them, assaulting them and more. Besides the
obvious tired stereotypes (more aged in the Spike Lee era), this
variant is weak, then laughable and pathetic as it ruins the film
more than it should and becomes a bizarre spoof of itself.
The
film had a chance to deal with this aspect of the story as
progressively as anything else, but the young actors (as menace)
becomes a race-baiting plot point that is not even fully developed
and it is why the film has likely been forgotten for so long. For
what I like here, the film is still worth seeing, but it could have
been so much more.
A
trailer is the only extra in both format versions.
Martin
Ritt's The
Front
(1976) is the often forgotten drama comedy about the horrible
Hollywood Blacklisting madness that happened in the 1950s by artists
who were blacklisted. Woody Allen is a cashier who has a friend
(Michael Murphy) who is a professional writer and has suddenly found
himself out of work because of not playing the get-the-commie game
with HUAC (the House of Un-American Activities committee) but unlike
an actor or director, could get his friend Howard (Allen) to pretend
to be the writer of his work. Howard would get some free money and
no one would know the difference.
He
starts to take on even more writer works to cash in, but the
situation is getting uglier as more mysterious men are investigating
anyone and everyone in the entertainment business (TV in this case)
and they even start wondering about Howard. Sadder still is a big
comedy star (Zero Mostel, channeling several actors including Stan
Laurel and Jackie Gleason at times, but implying the many talents who
never got to have a career under highly unfair circumstances) is now
going to be a big target of HUAC and as much as the network wants him
on because he is a money-making star, they'll allow HUAC anything.
Though
this has some comic sidelines and some great performances, it is a
drama about a time that was hideous and that many on the far right
very recently (and highly erroneously) have claimed was a good thing
and act like it was the country at its best when it was the country
at its most authoritarian, fascist and lame. One of the other
writers tells Howard that this is to get everyone on the
anti-Soviet/Cold War bandwagon, but the film at least implies it is
as much a witch-hunt for Jews in the industry as much as anything
else and the line tells me how naïve even smart people (maybe in
denial) were at the time.
Many
think Allen directed this great film, but he is so good and surprised
many, but the film did not do the business it should have, yet is
more relevant than ever since we saw a variant repeat of this
starting in 2000 and especially after 9/11, leading up to the
controversies about surveillance taking place as you read this and we
post this. Along with Irwin Winkler's also-under seen/underrated
Guilty
By Suspicion,
are excellent in showing and telling this story whose basic truth
needs to be reiterated more than ever before. This has aged
incredibly well (including being a period piece with a limited
budget) and I cannot strongly recommend this one enough.
Extras
include an Isolated Music Track, Original Theatrical Trailer and
feature length audio commentary track with film scholars Nick
Redmond, Julie Kirgo and the terrific female lead of this film,
Andrea Marcovicci. Just remember this is a limited edition release
and all serious fans and collectors should get this Blu-ray before
supplies run out.
Finally
we have a terrific new documentary from Alan Zweig called When
Jews Were Funny
(2013) tracing the legacy of great stand-up comics in the 20th
Century and how so many were bold, Jewish (even if they did not talk
about that part) and how they shaped what we now consider American
comedy, as well as how we have lost the richness of that comedy in a
melting pot (or whatever you would like to call it) in the vastness
of globalism, multi-media and generic boredom since the 1980s.
I
got to watch this just before the unexpected death of comedian David
Brenner, who ws not the oldest interviewee here, but many greats who
had passed (including a few shown in clips like Rodney Dangerfield)
are discussed and many you may not have heard of or remembered are
here along with Sheckey Green, Howie Mandell, Gilbert Gottfried,
David Steinberg, Shelley Berman, Jack Carter, Norm Crosby, Bob
Einstein and more tell priceless stories in a long overdue, much
needed record of comedy history that can never be long enough here
(hard to believe they put so much in 89 minutes, but this could have
been 5 hours and worked) so if you love to laugh, you must consider
this a must-see release.
Extras
include five more comic clips that did not make the final cut of the
film.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the
Blu-rays have print that can show the age of the materials used, but
The
Front
is a newer transfer and does not have the age issues Boardwalk
tend to have, besides the fact that it was a more low-budget affair.
Still, they are both very watchable (The
Front
even has a few demo shots for your HDTV) and I was happily involved
re-seeing both. The anamorphically
enhanced Boardwalk
DVD is much softer than expected, but watchable, though no match for
the much nicer Blu-ray. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image
on Funny
fares somewhere in between with mostly new interview footage, but it
has vintage clips and they are not bad.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 1.0 Mono lossless mix on The
Front
has the best sound here and even for a monophonic film, is well
mixed, recorded and presented due to being so professionally recorded
to begin with. Boardwalk
has had its mono sound bumped up to lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Blu-ray and DVD versions, but that cannot
hide the age or production limits of the film, but it sounds less
compressed on the Blu-ray. That leaves a
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Funny
that tries to expand the sound, but this is mostly talking and that
can only to so much, yet it is well recorded enough.
You
can order
The
Front
and many more limited edition Blu-rays from Twilight Time while
supplies last at this link:
www.screenarchives.com
-
Nicholas Sheffo