
Finding
Your Feet (2018/Sony
DVD)/Jerry Lewis: The Man
Behind The Clown
(2016/Umbrella Region Free PAL Import DVD)/Woman
Chases Man (1936/Samuel
Goldwyn/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture:
C+/C+/C Sound: C+/C+/C Extras: C-/C/D Main Programs:
C+/B-/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Jerry
Lewis
Import DVD is now only available from our friends at Umbrella
Entertainment in Australia and can only play on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K
Blu-ray players that can handle the PAL DVD format, while the Woman
Chases Man
DVD is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.
Now
for a few more new comedy releases...
Richard
Loncraine's Finding
Your Feet
(2018) is a British comedy about getting older with a solid cast that
includes Imelda Stanton, Timothy Spall, David Hayman, Celia Imrie,
John Sessions and (sort of downplaying her glamour), the great Joanna
Lumley. Stanton plays w woman who finds out her husband of four
decades is cheating on her, so she goes to her semi-estranged sister
for help and tries late in life to rebuild. We've seen this kind of
story before, but the actors do try to make it something different if
nothing else.
Thus,
because the dialogue is not stupid or predictable, this avoids being
'old fuddy duddy' filmmaking and has plenty of smart exchanges and is
never condescending as many such film have been in recent decades.
Lumley steals the few scenes she shows up in (you can never have
enough Jo Lumley in anything you do, as fan like this writer will
attest) and the film runs about 111 minutes. See it if interested.
A
bunch of trailers for other Sony releases are the only extras.
Gregory
Munro's documentary Jerry
Lewis: The Man Behind The Clown
(2016) is yet another examination of the comic genius who never got
his due in his home country of the United States, though remained
popular, but whose legacy of comedy was sidetracked by the immense
success of his Muscular Dystrophy Telethons that he eventually
stopped hosting in his final years (the circumstances of the break-up
are still odd and unknown to this day) though another issue is that
he (by choice?) and home studio Paramount did not reissue, relaunch
or keep in major circulation his string of hit feature film comedies.
Mind
you, he had plenty even subtracting his string of hits with Dean
Martin before their split and the fact that they, then he, were
making these comedies on large-frame VistaVision film should further
show you how big they, then he, was at the box office. Running just
over an hour, this look at his work and life has interviews with
everyone from Martin Scorsese to Sean Hayes and does a great job
showing why he was a success, funny, how teaming with Martin made
them a massive sensation and includes new interview footage with
Lewis, who was not a fan of such things. Lewis even seemed to openly
doubt his legacy would be remembered, which is sad.
Umbrella
Entertainment has issued this as a Region Free PAL Import DVD that we
were lucky enough to catch and as compared to some other profiles on
Lewis, it holds its own and has limited overlap. Thus, you should
catch it once just to see how good and interesting it is.
Extras
include an on-camera interview with director Munro and two
featurettes: Jerry Lewis: The Act Of Clowning
and Dean and Jerry.
Finally
we have John G. Blystone's interesting screwball comedy Woman
Chases Man
(1936) which turns out to be one of the forgotten entries into the
great cycle, in part because it was not by a major studio, but by
Samuel Goldwyn and part of a catalog we don't see enough. Miriam
Hopkins is great as an architect who meets a rich man so unthrifty
(Charles Winninger) that he is now an ex-millionaire. However, he
has a son who is also rich and getting richer, now restricting his
father's extravagance and crazy ideas, played by Joel MaCrae in one
of his best roles and performances. Of course, its not long before
the architect has designs on the son of her new friend.
Though
not filled with giant laughs, the film is very clever, everyone is
good here and the chemistry between Hopkins and MaCrea is so good,
there's not enough of it or them in this too-short 69 minutes. She
looks great and her timing is impressive, while he really has his act
together pulling off this guy whose too distracted by money and other
concerns to see what is always going on. Broderick Crawford is among
the fine supporting cast and any serious film fan should see this
influential work at least once. Glad its in print.
There
are sadly no extras, but any upgrade should get some.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image image on Finding is
good, clean and well-shot enough for a decent HD shoot that even has
some nice location shots of England. The anamorphically enhanced
1.78 X 1 image on the Lewis documentary has some good older
footage and some that is rough, but most of the sources look good and
go fine with the newly shot HD interviews (et al) footage. The
1.33 X 1 black & white image transfer on Chases
can show the age of the materials used and is a bit soft throughout,
but this was a well shot film that deserves a restoration.
As
for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Finding (often
dialogue and joke-based) and the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on
Lewis (interviews and louder jokes) are on a simple, even
plane sonically and just fine. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on
Chases shows its age a little more than it should and could
use some restoration, which it deserves.
To
order the
Lewis
Umbrella import DVD, go to this link for it and other hard-to-find
releases at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
...and
to order the Woman
Chases Man
Warner Archive DVD, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo