A Bet's A Bet (2014/VMI/Cinedigm DVD)/The Fortune (1975/Sony/Columbia/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/The Palm Beach Story (1942/Paramount/Universal/Criterion Blu-ray)/Purple Rose Of Cairo (1985/Orion/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Picture: C/B/B/B Sound: C+/B-/B-/B- Extras: D/C+/B-/C+ Films: D/B-/B/B-

PLEASE NOTE: The Fortune and Purple Rose Of Cairo Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, are limited to only 3,000 copies each and can be ordered while supplies last from the link below.

Here are some new comedies, including two older gems you may have missed...

Actor Johnathan Silverman and Jennifer Finnigan have co-directed a comedy in A Bet's A Bet (2014) but it is so shrill and awful that I bet you will not be able to sit through it without turning it off or throwing a brick through your HDTV. Silverman is a really talented actor, but this package deal is so desperate that I watched in shock as it got worse and worse and worse and worse as its ever-unfunny 97 minutes unfolded. Mena Suvari (whose fighting with ex-husband Geoff Stults is the starting point for the so-called plot) and Kristin Chenoweth also show up, but they are pushed into the grid of shrillness that ruins what might have been at least amusing if someone had just burned/erased the script and started all over again. Yikes!

There are thankfully no extras.

Mike Nichols' The Fortune (1975) was made when all the major participants were on a roll. Nichols, who sadly just left us, had made the mixed Catch 22, controversial Carnal Knowledge and ambitious Day Of The Dolphin when he took on this broad-but-edgy comedy about two guys (Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in their early prime) trying to get the money of a wild gal (Stockard Channing doing an underrated job of more than holding her own against her co-stars) who may be an heir to much money, but cannot hold her liquor well. To avoid an early immorality law's penalties (circa the 1920s), one of them marries her so they can take her across state lines.

Of course, nothing goes as planned, Nicholson's character is out of his mind, Beatty's is trying to hold it all together and the young new 'wife' continues to be unpredictable. They go and stay (under false pretenses) at an apartment complex in an isolated, early version of a suburb, but it is immediately a small hell that helps none of them, though their landlady (Florence Stanley from Barney Miller and Fish) becomes a happy voyeur in all of it.

Columbia gave this one a good, if not great, later summer release and it is not Nichols' strongest films, but it is meant to be broadly comic and we would only see him do this again with Working Girl and to some extent, The Birdcage. From the amazing talent behind the camera (writer Carole Eastman, Production Designer Richard Sylbert, Composer David Shire) to a fun supporting cast that includes John Fiedler, Scatman Crothers, Ian Wolfe, Brian Avery, Richard B. Shull and Christoper Guest, this is a smart comedy that deserves a much bigger audience and should get it with all the talent in great form here.

Extras include another illustrated, informative booklet on the film with an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc only adds an isolated music and sound effects track, with sung songs presented only as instrumentals.

Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story (1942) is the writer/director's satire of marriage in a Screwball form that also goes for additional absurdity as soon the the confusing opening scenes begin. Who is the woman Claudette Colbert has gaged and tied up so she can run and marry Joel McCrea? Why is the maid constantly fainting? Why the odd freeze-frames? This is a film immediately telling us it is up to wild things, though that is not apparent as the storyline slows down and settles for a while, in a matter of speaking. When we flash-forward, the married couple is having some financial issues (he is trying to sell an idea (pre jetliners) of landing airplanes on a giant net in the sky above skyscrapers!) that may have them leaving their beautiful apartment when a hard-of-hearing old man gives her a giant amount of cash on hand. It is then they start fighting and she wants a divorce!

This turns the film into a roadtrip film where she is gong to go to Palm Beach for finalization and he decides he disagrees with her and will follow. This leads to a wild train trip and her landing up with a young man (Rudy Vallee, a big singer of the period in his first film) who turns out to have a secret involving some serious wealth of his own the film loves sending up. This gets wilder when they get involved and she meets his sister (Mary Astor, who puts the film over the top and almost saves it from its problems, though she apparently was unhappy in how she was directed) who is a riot of her own.

Sturges' fifth film was likely more hilarious in its time, but some of its absurdities now seem too silly, preposterous and like a TV sitcom, including a twist or two that take it out of the Screwball realm. Add its political incorrect moments, good and bad, and you have a film still worth a good look, especially with a supporting cast that includes Sig Amo, William Demerest, Frank Pangborn and Frank Morgan that work well throughout.

Extras include an illustrated paper pullout on the film including informative text and an essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek on the film, while the Blu-ray adds Bill Hader trying to explain why he likes the film, film historian James Harvey really delivering a great analysis of the film and Sturges career, Sturges 1941 WWII propaganda short film Safeguarding Military Information and the March 1945 Screen Guild Theater radio adaptation of the film (in under a half hour!) with Colbert, Valley, Randolph Scott in McCrea's role and Mel Blanc.

Finally we have Woody Allen's The Purple Rose Of Cairo (1985), another limited edition Blu-ray of one of his hits from the Orion Pictures period that people still talk about. Inspired by Buster Keaton's silent comedy classic Sherlock Jr. (1924) where the characters in the movie in a movie house come off the screen and those in 'real' life can enter it, the title of the film is also that of the RKO comedy and film within this film that a waitress (Mia Farrow) unhappy with her marriage to a street guy (Danny Aiello) she can't wait to see open at the local bijou.

Set in the 1930s Depression, she dreams of a better life when suddenly the explorer hero of the film (Jeff Daniels) comes off of the screen during a paid performance and starts taking to her. Things get more interesting when she runs into the real-life actor (also Daniels) who plays the character. From there we get some good jokes, funny moments and interesting (if sometimes obvious) moments that make this a worthy tribute to the keaton film, as well as big screen movies and the era in which they were produced. Now celebrating 30 years, the film also stars Edward Herrmann (who sadly just passed away), Dianne Wiest and Van Johnson makes this on worth revisiting. Wish it were longer!

Extras include another illustrated, informative booklet on the film with an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray disc only adds an isolated music and sound effects track, with sung songs presented only as instrumentals.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Fortune, 1080p 1.33 X 1 black and white digital High Definition image transfer on Beach (from a new 4K transfer) and 1080p 1.85 X 1 image on Cairo rarely show the age of the materials used and are a pleasure to watch with their share of demo shots for better HDTVs. In England, Fortune may have even had dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor 35mm prints struck and Director of Photography John A. Alonzo, A.S.C., (Chinatown) uses the very widescreen frame (as usual) to its fullest extent. Beach shows the money on the screen from Paramount's early glory days and is yet another example of how great monochrome can look in HD. Cairo was lensed by the also-brilliant Gordon Willis, A.S.C., combining the full color 'real' world and black and white of the world of the film within a film mimicking the kind of classy RKO film of the time. Without any digital work whatsoever, it is still seamless after all these years.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Bet is a soft mess only adding to the torture of viewing it.

As for sound, the films on Blu-ray are all theatrical monophonic releases with Fortune and Cairo presented in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 lossless sound and Beach in PCM 2.0 Mono from the magnetic soundmaster. Expect sonic limits under the circumstances, but they sound fine for their age and likely will never sound better, with Allen one of the last filmmakers to stick with monophonic sound. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Bet is the newest recording by 40+ to 93+ years, yet is a dull mess with some bad mixing choices and even compression issues.

To order The Fortune and Purple Rose Of Cairo limited edition Blu-rays, buy them while supplies last (along with many other such exclusives) at this link:

www.screenarchives.com

- Nicholas Sheffo