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Category:    Home > Reviews > Comedy > Drama > Relationships > Family > Satire > Counterculture > Crude Humor > Mystery > Wit > British > Sl > Learning To Drive (2014/Broadgreen DVD)/Serial (1980/Paramount/Olive Films Blu-ray)/Sleuth (1972/Palomar/Umbrella PAL Import DVD)/Speedy (1926/Criterion Blu-ray)

Learning To Drive (2014/Broadgreen DVD)/Serial (1980/Paramount/Olive Films Blu-ray)/Sleuth (1972/Palomar/Umbrella PAL Import DVD)/Speedy (1926/Criterion Blu-ray)



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



PLEASE NOTE: The Sleuth Import DVD is now only available from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment in Australia, can only play on Blu-ray and/or DVD players that can handle the PAL DVD format and can be ordered from the link below.



Here's the latest set of comedies for you to know about...



Isabel Coixet's Learning To Drive (2014) wants to be a slice-of-life comedy with Ben Kingsley as a Hindu driving lesson teacher who lands up with upset student Patricia Clarkson trying to learn how to drive late in life, which is supposed to be a metaphor for her new life now that her marriage has fallen apart. He's trying to find happiness in an arranged marriage, but is also trying to help (partly out of religion, partly out of personality) family and friends. I expected this to be even funnier, but the script plays it too safe resulting in missed opportunities in what could have been a smart laugh riot.


I also did not buy the pat ending or some of the other results, but those who like the leads will want to see this once just to see what they think. Otherwise, it doesn't go far or do much more than we've already seen before.


A Photo Gallery is the only extra.



Bill Perskey's Serial (1980) is an attempt to be a wacky comedy in the Caddyshack, Airplane! and 9 To 5 cycle of subversive, counterculture comedies being made at the time, this on about California of the time and still-prevalent hippie culture as many had grown (or almost had grown) into adults. Perskey had two big, important TV hits with Marlo Thomas in That Girl and later, Kate & Alley. Martin Mull (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) and Tuesday Weld play a married couple that is a bit dysfunctional, but no matter their quirks, they are the 'new normal' versus their friends and associates.


Their daughter starts to get involved in a cult, their friends don't know what to do with themselves, no matter their money or success and between the sometimes crude dialogue (trying too hard to be funny and rarely working) and trying to spoof any movement, trend or political view it can along with sex items, the film is a strange time-capsule train-wreck of a mess that was never good, but has aged in unusual ways. Definitely, it wants to be a broader variant of a Robert Altman film's smart-ass side, but even such Altman films at this point (namely H.E.A.L.T.H.) were not cohering, meaning this approach had become played out.


Still, this is worth seeing once because of the great cast that includes Bill Macy, an oddly cast Christopher Lee, Tina Louise, Sally Kellerman (Altman's M*A*S*H), Peter Bonerz, Pamela Bellwood (just before Dynasty), Tom Smothers and the always watchable Nita Talbot. This deserves to be out on Blu-ray and those curious should see it once, for better and worse.


There are no extras.



Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Sleuth (1972) is the film that proves Mankiewicz had more in him long after his Cleopatra (1963) bombed so badly, pairing Sir Lawrence Olivier (a a mystery writer) with Michael Caine (his ex-wife's hairdresser) in a battle of wits and wittiness written by Anthony Shaffer (The Last Of Sheila, Amadeus) that Caine would revisit on some level later in Deathtrap, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and the odd remake of this film with Jude Law, the film's joy comes from two of the greatest actors of all time taking on each other with material up to their high talents and the highest standards.


Made by the smaller Palomar Productions, it did well enough in its time and people still talk about it, but I think the film is a bit overrated, if still really well made. Like the films that followed it like it, it takes some ideas, and just stretches them a little too far, though it is still very smart cinema and to its credit, something particularly British about it the later Caine films like it and and several imitators lack. See it, especially if you never have before.


There are sadly no extras.



Ted Wilde's Speedy (1926) is at least as much of a classic, but much funnier than I expected in what was the great Harold Lloyd's last silent film, one of his best films overall and a big hit in its time. He plays a guy trying to make it in New York City (some of it was shot there, but most of it in Hollywood with interesting results), but lands up getting in all kinds of trouble, falling into funny events, falling for a gal and trying in the spectacular end to save the last horse-drawn streetcar in the entire city.


Lloyd is in amazing form here, the supporting cast is a hoot and Babe Ruth shows up as himself in another funny turn. An influential film, its shocking how much is funny here, how much holds up and free-form the film really is. Many TV sitcoms and later comedies were influenced by it, but Lloyd was at the peak of his powers, so the energy and pace here are superior. Speedy is a real gem more than deserving of serious rediscovery for a few new generations!


Extras include an illustrated paper pullout on the film including informative text and essay on the film by Phillip Lopate, while the Blu-ray adds a new feature length audio commentary track by film scholar/historians Bruce Goldstein & Scott McGee whom both know much about this film and Lloyd et al, Goldstein's documentary featurette In The Footsteps Of ''Speedy'' about the locations used on the film, a second such Goldstein piece with stills and deleted scenes from the film, rare archival footage of Babe Ruth hosted by David Filipi, Suzanne Lloyd (Harold's daughter) narrates some rare home movies in nice shape and Bumping Into Broadway (1919), a Lloyd two-reeler silent short recently restored.



The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Drive has some weak points, but is not bad for a new digital shoot, but it could have been more consistent, while the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Sleuth looks like the same older videomaster on the film that has been kicking around for a while. Color can be good, but it is just too soft and aged, long overdue for a HD restoration.


The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Serial also has some nice shots, but the film print(s) show the age of the materials used including more grain and dirt than expected. Color is at least consistent mostly, but the film stocks used are only so good.


So amazingly, the 1080p 1.33 X 1 black and white digital High Definition image transfer on Speedy is easily the best presentation here despite the film being nearly 90 years old. A really impressive 4K restoration really shows off the actors, locales and the humor works much better when it is this clean, clear and even crisp. Some shots are going to have minor damage or show their age, but wow, this is impressive.



As for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Drive is a real disappointment with problematic soundfield, low volume transfer and weakness overall that ties for the aged sound on the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Sleuth. In both cases, be careful of high volumes and volume switching. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 lossless mix on Serial also shows its age, from a time when monophonic films were still being issued by the major studios as Dolby Stereo (as well as imitators like Ultra Stereo and old standby magnetic stereo) was only starting to catch on. The results are flat and some harmonic distortion is inherent throughout, but it is better than the DVDs.


By default because it is a much newer recording of only instrumental music, the PCM 2.0 Stereo on Speedy has the best sonic performance here by default, granted you like the music. This is silent film after all and works without it (and well), of course.



To order the Umbrella PAL-format import DVD of Sleuth, go to this link for it and other hard to get releases:


http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/



- Nicholas Sheffo


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