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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Publishing > Melodrama > Comedy > Big Business > Women > Marriage > France > War > Infidelity > Mumble > The Best Of Everything (1959/Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Count Your Blessings (1959/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Red Knot (2014/KimStim/Icarus DVD)

The Best Of Everything (1959/Fox/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Count Your Blessings (1959/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Red Knot (2014/KimStim/Icarus DVD)


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



PLEASE NOTE: The Best Of Everything Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, is limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies last, while Count Your Blessings is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.



Here's three mixed portraits of romance, two from the past (and same year from the same director!), one from now...



Jean Negulesco's The Best Of Everything (1959) is a Fox melodrama familiar to us. We have covered the film on DVD and a CD soundtrack from the Film Score Monthly FSM label when they were still doing soundtracks. You can read more about both at these links...


DVD

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2294/The+Best+Of+Everything+(1959/Fox+DVD-Video


Limited Edition CD

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1019/Best+Of+Everything+(Limited+CD


Still an interesting film, we now look at it post-Mad Men in a new Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray that offers the best of both pervious releases and upgrades them. I think the film holds up well, if not perfectly, its cast and the money and look Fox gave it helps. This was the decline of such films (melodramas in big scope productions thanks to the arrival of TV) but Hope Lange, Diane Baker (Silence Of The Lambs), Suzy Parker (also now known for horror thrillers), Joan Crawford (whose career was revived by them), Martha Hyer, Louis Jordan (the recently passed-away romantic lead also known as the villain in the 1983 Bond film Octopussy), Brian Aherne and future film producing mogul Robert Evans (with all of his stories) make this time capsule look at the publishing industry more of a curio than ever.


Extras include another nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and an essay by Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray repeats the great feature length audio commentary track by historian Sylvia Stoddard & Rona Jaffe, Original Theatrical Trailer and Fox Movietone Newsreel. The other new extra is the Isolated Music Score track.



Negulesco's Count Your Blessings (1959) is a more problematic, dysfunctional tale about a woman (Deborah Kerr at her box office peak) getting quickly married to a French solider (Rossano Brazzi) who goes away to war and despite them having a son, does not come back for 9 years! Then the film wants to be an apologist tale for the husband/father who has been sleeping around on her and totally neglecting his fatherly duties. Then we get Maurice Chevalier as Brazzi's uncle trying to explain why this is 'normal' behavior.


As a distraction, the child is demonized as wanting the be the center of things as if he is a bad person, when he is a child and they cannot act like adults for the most part. Made by MGM, this is surprisingly sexist, obnoxious and worse saying (brainwashing us?) to accept any such behavior just to keep a family unit together. It was phony then and rings false now, even after the 1980s brought this kind of sick thinking back. The actors are wasted and this is a comedy? I never laughed once. It is a lame melodrama and I can see why it is lucky to get a Warner Archive release. Kerr is the only reason I got through this one.


An Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.



Scott Cohen's Red Knot (2014) proves that 55 years later, such misery endures, but now it is with less money, sets and dialogue that is mumblecore flat. The appealing Olivia Thurby is married to seemingly good guy Vincent Kartheiser and they go out on a boat trip all the way to the Antarctic quickly after a New york marriage. Unfortunately, they are not ready for any of this as their relationship is quickly challenged by their own dysfunction, his dishonesty, her insecurity and an inability to communicate.


However, I did not buy this, the acting is badly directed and gutted out oddly, the early sex scene is shot out of focus as if this film is afraid to be honest about male/female relationships early on and then the mumble often as the motives, psychology and entire interaction never render honest or true. Billy Campbell is also here, but he does not to much, but here, who does?


We're left wondering how these people ever got married and the ending tries to be profound, but seems as desperate as everything else with the Cohen saying things only he apparently knows the meaning of and tripping up almost every step of the way. 55 years later, more bad behavior we are supposed to accept as acceptable and just as phony. One wishes the Abominable Snowman had shown up just to perk things up, especially as he might have had better ideas about romance!


A paper foldout with an essay and some illustrations, plus an Original Theatrical Trailer and four behind the scenes interview featurettes on the DVD are the extras.



The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Best can show the age of the materials used despite being a new transfer master, but it is a little on the bluish side which we figure might come in part from the DeLuxe Color aging a bit. Still, this is better than the DVD transfer (which was good, but old) and the 35mm CinemaScope image is the best on the list.


The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Count was shot in the same exact format, but used MetroColor instead, which also has its agedness and limits, with neither format holding up as well as three-strip Technicolor. However, this looks decent on DVD and holds its own against the newly digitally shot, anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Knot is no better with its shooting limits and some style choices that do not help it.


The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Best is a well mixed and presented upgrade of the original 4-track magnetic stereo off of the original 35mm prints as well as the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 form the DVD, besting the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Count which is a little on the weak side (be careful of volume switching and high playback levels) and lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Knot with its inconsistent soundfield, quiet and weak moments.



To order The Best Of Everything limited edition Blu-ray, buy it and many more exclusives while supplies last at these links:


www.screenarchives.com


and


http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/



and to order the Count Your Blessings Warner Archive DVD, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:


http://www.warnerarchive.com/



- Nicholas Sheffo


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