Bachelor
Party (1984/Fox
Blu-ray)/The Cool Ones
(1967/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture:
C+/C Sound: B-/C+ Extras: C/D Films: C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Cool Ones
is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are two teen comedies that are time capsules of their times; both
part of the same counterculture wave...
Neal
Israel's Bachelor
Party
(1984) has the then-always-comical Tom Hanks (versus the
award-winning serious one we have now) trying to build on his Bosom
Buddies
success in a comedy where he is about to marry Tawny Kitean (who
would usually play the gal AT the title event) but madness ensues.
From the end of the Animal
House
wave of such comedies, it has some amusing moments, but was never a
favorite. It is also Adrian Zmed's other big screen movie (besides
cult item Grease
2) he
did that people forget in the celebrated ugliness that is the awful
TV hit T.J.
Hooker.
Director
Israel and Pat Proft (both of Police
Academy)
co-wrote this near cult item that did some business in its time, but
Proft fared better with the original Naked
Gun
films and both penned their comic masterwork in Martha Coolidge's
Real
Genius
(1985, still
not
out on Blu-ray) so this is mostly a hit and miss work. It is also a
curio with an at least more naturalistic Hanks before his hit &
miss later years, respectability or not. Bosom
Buddies
alumni Wendie Jo Sperber and Michael Dudikoff also star.
Extras
include the Original Theatrical Trailer, a few minutes of vintage
interviews, two vintage clips from the Electronic Press Kit and a
promo clip that takes the film far too seriously.
Gene
Nelson's The
Cool Ones
(1967) makes
for a fun idea that does not necessarily work out, but makes for an
odd time capsule that was not a hit in its time, but more than a mere
curio everyone ought to look at for what is tried here. Add the
talent involved and what was tired here and it is worth revisiting.
Potential star (Gil Peterson) is a singer whose caught up in stupid
music contract ideas that make him prefabricated and unhappy, though
a dancer and singer (Debbie Watson) is trying to get her big
on-camera TV break and the two start to fall for each other. A wild
record producer (Roddy McDowall) suddenly shows up and might be able
to change all that, if he were not so eccentric.
This
could be an outright comedy, but has all kinds of music performances
beyond any with the characters on stage or on TV, making it a
backstage musical. However, the style is also often in the mode of
the hit operetta musical The
Umbrella Of Cherbourg
(1964, reviewed elsewhere on this site), but looking like the
pre-Music Video Scopitones of the time (attention Eddie Vedder) with
all of their plastique oddness. But it does not end there. The TV
show in question is a send up of dance shows like Hullabaloo
and Shindig
(Teri Garr even shows up uncredited, though friend &
choreographer/dancer Toni Basil (later of the 1982 hit Mickey)
does not even get credit for her work here). Phil Harris shows up
and the music acts include Glenn Campbell, T.J & The Fourmations,
The Leaves, The Forte Four and The Bantams (with more talent there
than you might first think, I love it when McDowell's character is
ready to book the Whiskey-A-Go-Go) plus all the musical numbers are
written and composed by Lee Hazlewood (who wrote most of Nancy
Sinatra's hits; This
Town
in this film later became a hit for Frank Sinatra!) and arranged by
Billy Strange (whose hits include A
Little Less Conversation,
Memories
(both hits for Elvis), These
Boots Were Made For Walking
for Nancy Sinatra and Limbo
Rock).
So
what went wrong? The script is all over the place, the music
interrupts the narrative instead of forwarding it and talent like
Phil Arnold and Nita Talbot (as McDowell's assistant) is
underutilized throughout. We land up getting a series of missed
opportunities and a film that did not learn the lessons The Beatles
two feature films or why the Hollywood Musical was in decline at this
point. Yet, it is a good-looking, amusing, strange affair that I
think will eventually have some kind of cult following. Robert
Kaufmann, who co-adapted this into a film with the director from
Joyce Geller's story and script, is part of the reason, had penned
Dr.
Goldfoot & The Girl Bombs
for Mario Bava, then moved on to pen an episode of The
Monkees,
Divorce
American Style,
Getting
Straight,
Freebie
& The Bean
and Love
At First Bite.
It is a mixed but distinctive style of humor that does not always
cohere with its narratives, which is actually a talent, but does not
necessarily help the film. See The
Cool Ones
for yourself to see what I mean.
There
are sadly no extras, but this deserves a few.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 AVC @ 38 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer
on Party
can show the age of the materials used, but someone has toyed with
the image, leading to subtle degrading of the film as a result.
Color can be good, yet can look a little off or fake at times. The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Cool
is less manipulated, was shot in real 35mm anamorphic Panavision and
issued in
dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor prints of which this copy often reflects,
though it has more soft spots than I would have liked. The Director
of Photography Floyd Crosby (Black
Zoo,
X: The
Man With X-Ray Eyes,
The
Snow Creature,
plus several beach movies and Roger Corman films) uses the widescreen
frame to much of its full extent, never being TV safe. However,
Crosby was the father of musician David Crosby, so that only adds to
the cool/groovy factor.
Both
films were theatrical mono releases, with Cool
issued here in lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono and not sounding bad for
it age, but you'd think this one would have been issued in stereo
somehow. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix on Party
is a little better, one of the last major non-Woody Allen theatrical
films not in stereo of some kind. Both show some datedness, but
Party
sounds marginally if not outright better.
To
order The
Cool Ones,
go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
