Dean Martin Double Feature: Who Was That Lady?/How To Save A Marriage
(And Ruin Your Life) (Sony)
Picture: B- Sound: C+ Extras: C- Film: C+
Sony has
once again delved into the Columbia pictures catalog and come up with two
decent films from the studios past, this time from the solo star period of Dean
Martin. The two comedies show how Martin
survived his split with Jerry Lewis and how well he fared after leaving
Paramount and going over to then-smaller Columbia. In both, he tries to fix other couples’
relationships, only to cause more harm than good.
Who Was That Lady? (1959) offers Martin as a good
friend of an assistant chemistry professor (Tony Curtis) caught kissing another
woman at work by his wife (then real-life wife Janet Leigh at the time she was
doing Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho) and
is ready to leave him. Mike (Martin)
concocts a plan to convince Ann (Leigh) that David (Curtis) is really working
for the FBI and the kiss was undercover.
When the real FBI gets involved (including James Whitmore as a good guy
agent) and a couple of East Bloc spies (amusing turns by Simon Oakland and
Larry Storch that could have been expanded and made more interesting) cause all
to go out of control. Another gag is
that Mike has friends at CBS-TV, where they get some of the props to play
FBI. With a strange ending that is
stranger thanks to 9/11 and Director George Sidney’s lite touch, the film is
worth a look if not a spectacular comedy.
How To Save A Marriage (And Ruin
Your Life) (1967)
is a tad better as David Sloane (Martin) becomes interested in a department
store worker (Stella Stevens) to the extent that he intervenes in the marriage
of a friend thinking the worker is a mistress via lies from a higher-up (Alan
Oppenheimer) who is harassing her. He
spends the film dealing with her, when he is parking up the wrong tree. It won’t be long before he gets more involved
with her than the situation, but despite the formula and predictability, is a
pleasant piece thanks to capable Director Fiedler Cook and a supporting cast
that includes Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Jack Albertson and Betty Field.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Lady
and 2.35 X 1 real anamorphic Panavision image on Save are from new digital High Definition transfers, though the
films are a bit different. Lady is a nicely shot black and white
film with cinematographer Harry Stadling, who had been shooting monochrome
stocks since the silent era. He had also
lensed several such Hitchcock films at the time, but this was made late in his
career where he also became known as a master of color with Auntie Mame, Gypsy, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly, On A Clear Day
You Can See Forever and The Owl
& The Pussycat. Note that those
last few films are early Barbra Streisand hits.
Save was also shot by a
cinematographer at the end of a long career, Lee Garmes, who also worked with
Hitchcock, in color (Gone With The Wind)
and black and white Film Noirs and classics like the original Howard Hawks Scarface in 1932. This film was in PathéColor (which Columbia
was using at the time all over the place) and is very color consistent
throughout. This would sadly be his last
feature film.
These
films have not looked this good in decades, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
for both are as clean and clear as can be expected for optical mono theatrical
releases form their time. Besides Martin
singing where applicable, André Previn provides the score for Lady, while Save sports a score by Michel Legrand, two composers known best for
their romantic works though they have scored other genres of film.
Extras
are just about nil, save a few previews for other Sony DVD releases. Also, you have to restart the DVD all over to
get to the second/other film since the menus oddly do not provide a transitional
icon.
- Nicholas Sheffo
