My
Favorite Year
(1982/MGM*)/Passport To
Pimlico (1949**)/Robin
Williams: Comic Genius
(Time Life 5-DVD version)/Thelma
Todd & Zasu Pitts: The Hal Roach Collection 1931 - 33
(MGM/MVD/Sprocket Vault DVD)/Titfield
Thunderbolt (1953/**both
Film Movement Blu-rays)/A
Touch Of Class (1973/Avco
Embassy/*both Warner Archive Blu-rays)
Picture:
B/B/B-/C+/B-/B Sound: B-/C+/B-/C+/B-/C+ Extras:
C+/C+/B/C+/B-/C- Films: C/C+/B/C+/B-/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The My
Favorite Year
and A
Touch Of Class
Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for a new group of classic big screen comedy you may not have heard
of entirely, but you can now see for yourself...
Richard
Benjamin's My
Favorite Year
(1982) is a film at the time that rightly got raves for the
performance by Peter O'Toole as a one-time name actor who has fallen
on hard times and has become an alcoholic. Enter a young TV
executive (Mark Lynn-Baker) who wants to get him on live TV (circa
the mid-1950s) on a hit TV show he works on as a writer, who is also
a fan. Easier said than done, so the madness begins.
I
like the cast and they get the period correct enough, but the
screenplay sometimes becomes too much like a sitcom and thus, the 92
minutes are not spent as well as they could be. Benjamin, a good
actor, can direct and his work is not bad here either, it is just
that script. However, the supporting cast that includes Jessica
Harper, Joseph Bologna and William Macy (just coming off of his hit
TV series Maude,
who just passed away as this disc was issued) are welcome. Either
way, the film has a following and if you have not seen it, this Mel
Brooks-produced work is one you should see at least once to see it
for yourself.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary track by Director Benjamin
and an Original Theatrical Trailer.
Henry
Cornelius' Passport
To Pimlico
(1949) is one of the first Ealing Studio comedies, a big hit about a
small part of England just after WWII where they are still
occasionally finding bombs that have not been properly disarmed. One
afternoon when some of the local kids are playing not far from the
site of one such discovered weapon, they accidentally loose control
of a spare wheel, which promptly rolls into the bomb area, setting it
off!
No
major injuries, but one of the locals (Stanley Holloway, My
Fair Lady)
falls in under amusing circumstances, he sees a hole in the ground
that reveals a hidden room. When he gets back down their under more
dignified circumstances, he finds treasure and paperwork that the
residents are on foreign land. When a professor (Margaret
Rutherford, a later Miss Jane Marple, et al) confirms the
authenticity of the documents, the court rules that this section of
town is not part of the U.K. and all chaos breaks loose.
Residents
suddenly become entrepreneurial, especially since they do not have to
pay taxes on anything. Though it plays well today, it works best
when you understand the history that was very large in mind at the
time of rationing that was still going on in the country (and may
soon return) that made life their much tougher. Hermione Baddeley
leads the rest of the decent cast in what is at least a minor classic
for some of British Cinema.
Extras
include an illustrated booklet on the film including informative text
and an essay, while the disc adds an on camera interview with BFI
curator Mark Duguid, Stills Gallery, Restoration Comparison clip and
Locations Featurette with Film Historian Richard Dacre.
All
of Robin Williams' classic HBO specials have been brought together in
this epic 5 disc set from Time Life that fans won't want to miss in
Robin
Williams: Comic Genius.
The features included are the following:
Off
the Wall
(1978)
An
Evening with Robin Williams (1983)
An
Evening at the Met (1986)
Live
on Broadway
(2002)
Weapons
of Self Destruction
(2009)
It
is interesting to see a raw uncensored side of Robin Williams in his
early days and see his metamorphosis over his long career. His
kinetic energy and wit is unmatched and completely unique, and that
is certainly captured here in this collection. If you've only seen
him in movies, then you'll definitely want to check out this other
fun side of Robin Williams.
Robin
Williams: Comic Genius
is presented over five DVDs in standard definition with full frame
and 16:9/1.78 X 1 presentations depending on the year of production.
While compression issues are evident, it's original 2.0 Stereo sound
mix (lossy Dolby Digital in all cases) suits the material fine. It
would be nice to have had the set in HD but the upscale is passable
for the nature of the program.
Special
Features include:
Rare
Archival Footage of Robin's Early Standup
Raw
footage from HBO's promo shoots and press interviews
People's
Choice Awards honoring Rob and E! Press Room Footage
Newly
produced featurettes
and
Exclusive new interviews with Lewis Black and Robin's manager, David
Steinberg.
These
discs are also offered in a larger, more expensive, more extensive
DVD box set with 22 discs and the same title you can read more about
at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15305/Detectorists:+Complete+Series+(2014+-+2017/Ac
Our
oldest comedy entry here are a collection of live action short
distributed a long time ago by MGM. Thelma
Todd & Zasu Pitts: The Hal Roach Collection 1931 - 33
has the two funny ladies (who go back to the later silent era) in 17
'two-reelers' finding themselves in various wacky situations and
encountering other obstacles in a group of works that are hit and
miss, but work a little more often than not. Seems the studio was
trying all kinds of things (semi-experimental even) to see what would
work best and though they were not the massive success of Our
Gang/The
Little Rascals
series.
Made
before the Hollywood Production Code of censorship kicked in, they do
get away with some interesting items here and there, but nothing is
too shocking (especially by today's standards) and these are
interesting enough that they should be more well known and have had
much better circulation over the years. Roach knew what he was doing
and seeing any of his lesser-known productions is always worth the
time it takes to check them out.
Extras
include stills & poster gallery, plus audio commentary by various
fans/film scholars on the shorts throughout.
Charles
Crichton's The
Titfield Thunderbolt
(1953) is another Ealing Studio comedy hit, this time dealing with
another small town, but this one wants to keep its soon-to-be
cancelled train route of the title. In the face of city hall, they
decide they want to take it over and run it, plus make sure it is not
nationalized, but some greedy locals, a bus company and others do not
want them to have this independent success, so the fight begins.
A
man of some wealth (Stanley Holloway) agrees to back this and after a
court fight, they are off to get the train going, including a luxury
bar and comical conflict follows that includes personality clashes,
dangerous games of chicken and more. The cast is great here, but
unless you've seen them in other ealing films, you might not know
John Gregson, Hugh Griffith, Sidney James or Gabrielle Brune, plus
the great Jack MacGowran (Fearless
Vampire Killers)
is here and there's no credit here for him, old or new, save on the
film print. The trains and other mechanicals are also great, even if
the bad matte work with blueish haloing can be a bit much. There are
enough laughs here that you should catch this one.
Extras
include an illustrated booklet on the film including informative text
and an essay, while the disc adds an Original Theatrical Trailer,
Stills Gallery, Restoration Comparison clip and Locations Featurette
with Film Historian Richard Dacre, Lion Locomotive featurette, Making
Of featurette, Douglas Slocombe Home Movie Footage with interview
audio and Slocombe on Crichton with stills.
Finally
we have a comedy about adultery, Melvin Frank's A
Touch Of Class
(1973) with George Segal in full comedy guy mode meeting Glenda
Jackson with her children in the park when he is playing a game with
friends in a park in the U.K., which leads to them talking... and
deciding to have an affair. Too bad he is a bit toxic and
dysfunctional, plus she might not be as together as she thinks.
The
film (co-produced by the Brut Company, the one that makes men's
colognes) has its moments and the leads are good together, but this
becomes repetitive, we wonder if they really love each other and it
is a comedy that can only do so much to make infidelity funny,
something that is problematic from the get go and the makers know it.
It handles the subject with maturity at times, but it is still never
going to be outright funny. Paul Sorvino and Hildegard Neil make up
the solid supporting cast, but the film puts itself into a
counterculture corner (no matter how upscale it is or tries to be)
and the film ultimately does not work. Still, you should see it just
to see what they tried.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.
As
for playback quality, the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition
image on Year,
the 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Passport
and 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Class
(issued in three-strip, dye-transfer 35mm technicolor prints at the
time, you can see some of that quality here) can show the age of the
materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous
releases of these films and look fine for the most part throughout.
With only very minor issues, they tie as the best performers here.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Thunderbolt
can show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a
transfer to all previous releases of the film except that it has a
slight yellow cast in too many shots despite that it often looks
accurate for being a film originally produced and issued in 35mm
dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor. It was Ealing's first color comedy. Why
the yellow, I don't know unless it is a internegative issue, but it
is fine otherwise.
The
1.33 X 1 black and white image on the Zasu
DVD set can vary in quality, but they look fine overall, while the
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on all the shorts can vary in quality as
well, they fare better than expected for their age.
Class
and Year
offer DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes and Passport
and Thunderbolt
offer PCM 2.0 Mono sound, all films issued in theatrical monophonic
sound, but Year
and Thunderbolt
fare best sonically, if not spectacularly, while Class
and Passport
sound more aged. With all that considered, I doubt any of the four
films here on Blu-ray could sound much better.
To
order either of the Warner Archive Blu-rays, My
Favorite Year
and A
Touch Of Class,
go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases
at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James
Lockhart (Williams)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/