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Review: I LOVE LUCY: ULTIMATE SEASON 2 (Blu-ray)

April 24, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater Entire Family, PG rated, TV Comedy Leave a comment

Grade: B+/A-

TV comedy

Not rated (would be PG for adult drinking and smoking)

I Love Lucy was one of the early TV series that made the leap from vaudeville and radio to television. It began as My Favorite Husband, a radio program starring Ball and Dick Denning. But Lucy suggested that her TV husband be played by her real husband, who was then appearing as a panelist on the game show What’s My Line? The rest is TV history. I Love Lucy was an immediate fan favorite, finishing #3 in the Nielsen ratings its first year, and #1 seasons two through four, #2 their fifth season, then back to #1 again for the sixth.

Lucille Ball set the gold standard for physical comedy and character comedy playing opposite real-life husband and band leader Desi Arnaz in a sitcom that revolved around only four characters:  Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz), his wife Lucy, and their neighbors, Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance). That is, two housewives prone to get into trouble, one fuddy-duddy who wore his pants up to his chin, and a Latin lover whose love for Lucy was sorely tested in just about every episode.

All of the episodes are fueled by Lucy’s frequent paranoia, jealousy, and her tendency to misunderstand things, to blow things out of proportion, or to scheme behind Ricky’s back to try to get her way—which often involves her best friend and her not-so-secret desire to break into show business, although she has no talent except unintentional comedy.

In 2002, TV Guide named the 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and I Love Lucy ranked No. 2 behind Seinfeld. Season 2 earned a Primetime Emmy for Best Comedy Show—one of four the show would receive over its 6-season run.

Season 2 includes one of the all-time greatest I Love Lucy episodes, “Job Switching,” and this Ultimate Blu-ray has it in both black-and-white and as a colorized bonus extra. This season the show made TV history with Ball’s pregnancy and two very funny episodes, “Lucy Is Enceinte” (when she tries to figure out how to tell her easily excitable husband) and “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” which drew the largest TV audience to date:  71.7 percent of American TV sets were tuned into the show so that people could see Lucy give birth.

To put that into perspective, more Americans watched this episode than the Eisenhower inauguration and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation combined. It was the first birth on television, though censors wouldn’t allow the show to use the term “pregnant.” “Expecting” was the preferred genteel term in January 1953, and Little Ricky appeared on TV just 12 hours after Lucy gave birth in real life. So call this a comic reenactment.

Other notable Season 2 episodes include “Redecorating,” “Lucy Wants New Furniture,” “Never Do Business with Friends,” “The Camping Trip,” “The Handcuffs,” “Club Election,” and “Lucy Becomes a Sculptress.”  And it is a treat seeing one of the all-time great episodes in color.

All of the episodes are fueled by Lucy’s frequent paranoia, jealousy, and her tendency to misunderstand things, to blow things out of proportion, or to scheme behind Ricky’s back to try to get her way—which often involves her best friend and her not-so-secret desire to break into show business, although she has no talent except unintentional comedy. A number of episodes each season deal with the battle of the sexes that was fought in kitchens and living rooms across America, and all of the episodes will now seem sexist.

Some of the episodes also include what is now called “unfortunate cultural stereotypes.” In other words, this isn’t just TV history; it’s cultural history. This was the early years of television when not every family had a television set and relatives gathered to watch together during the Eisenhower years. The values are totally ‘50s, with Ricky’s relationship to his wife so paternalistic that the episodes might spark a few family discussions about then and now. And that’s not a bad thing.

All 31 uncut Season 2 episodes are included here on five discs, housed on plastic “pages” in a slightly wider Blu-ray case. Disc contents are listed on every disc label, and episodes and brief descriptions are also printed on the inside of the paper cover (which can be tough to read through blue plastic). As with the Ultimate Season 1 release, fans have the choice of watching the episodes with or without original commercials (some tobacco, by way of warning).

Entire family:  Yes

Run time:  791 min. (31 episodes), Black-and-White

Studio/Distributor:  CBS/Paramount

Aspect ratio:  1.33:1 (4:3)

Featured audio:  Dolby Digital Mono

Bonus features:  B+

Amazon link

Not rated (would be PG, for adult smoking/drinking)

Language:  1/10—A few mild expletives, is all

Sex:  1/10—Some kissing, but that’s about it

Violence:  2/10—Any “violence” is mild by today’s standards and tied to laughs

Adult situations: 2/10—Other than beer or cigarettes, some viewers might be shocked that verbal abuse and, once, spanking was used for humor purposes, and there are those outdated cultural depictions

Takeaway:  It’s a mystery why CBS hasn’t come out with a complete series Blu-ray, unless there are negotiation issues with Desilu Productions, because I Love Lucy is a classic as classic TV gets; in fact, how’s this for a classic TV fact: Desi Arnaz was the one who invented the rerun, airing several Season 1 episodes after the birth of their son in order to give his wife time to recover

Review: FRASIER: COMPLETE SERIES (Blu-ray)

April 24, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater TV Comedy, TV-PG Leave a comment

Grade:  A-

TV comedy

Not rated (would be PG)

From 1993-2004 the king of sitcoms was Frasier, a spin-off from the popular sitcom Cheers starring Kelsey Grammer as a pompous but endearing psychologist who reveled in his intellect and haute culture tastes, but also yearned to be “one of the guys.” Frasier won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series for each of its first five seasons and 37 Primetime Emmys over 11 seasons—though ironically it wasn’t a runaway hit with audiences. Its best showing came with Season 6, when Frasier finished as the #3 most watched TV show in America, behind Friends and ER.

In Boston’s Cheers bar, Grammer made arrogance endearing as he played a good-but-jilted doctor who hung out with a dim-witted Iowa bartender, a narcissistic ex-ballplayer, a know-it-all mailman, and an overweight, professional barfly. Sometimes you laughed with him, while at other times (most of the time, actually) the humor came at the doctor’s expense—a book smarts vs. street smarts face-off. In Seattle, fresh from a divorce from his domineering wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth), Frasier found a fresh start as a Dr. Phil-style radio psychologist and acquired a new hangout: Café Nervosa, where he and equally effete brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) would indulge their cappuccino tastes and parade their knowledge in front of a generally apathetic public.

The show, with chapter tiles that played with puns, had two main sets. The first was KACL-Radio, where Frasier dispensed his psychiatric bromides and producer Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin) was a perfect “give it a rest” foil to his pompous side. Obnoxious sportscaster Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe (Dan Butler) took him down a few more pegs with his cuts and practical jokes, and restaurant critic Gil Chesterton (Patrick Kerr) was the uncomfortable mirror that showed reflections of what Frasier might be like without such irreverent and frequent shots to keep him grounded. Much of the at-work time is spent with Frasier talking to unseen call-ins with a host of problems, and much of the fun for fans is watching the end-credits to see what famous celebrities posed as the callers from week to week.

At home, the brandy-oriented Frasier met his match with his blue-collar dad (John Mahoney), a Ballantine-loving ex-cop who walks with a limp and has a live-in therapist, a Brit named Daphne (Jane Leeves). With dad and son facing off and Daphne offering her humorous third-party, third-culture take on things, it made for more dry humor. And Niles visited so often that it felt as if the four of them lived . . . and bantered there.

The Crane brothers were American bluebloods without the pedigree, lovers of the good life who aspire to be accepted by high society. It was their continuing lack of acceptance by the true snobs that make those of us in the hoi polloi tickle inside. The humor was twofold: highbrow verbal comedy delivered in droll fashion by the fussy Crane brothers, and comedy of character as the “average” viewer identified with the lowbrows in each episode that cut them down to size or highlighted their comparative ridiculousness. That was something that their father, former cop Marty Crane (Mahoney) relished pointing out with regularity. The show also heavily relied on misunderstandings and good intentions that backfired.

Not all of the show’s 11 seasons were great. By the ninth season, you can tell that Grammer and Pierce weren’t savoring their on-screen rivalry as psychiatrist brothers as much as in previous years. A number of the shows also don’t seem as crisply written as the best episodes from earlier seasons, and yet one of my favorite episodes, “Caught in the Act,” aired as Episode 15 in Season 11. In that hilarious outing, Frasier’s first wife, a kiddie show author-performer known as Nanny G, comes to Seattle and Roz begs Frasier to try to get tickets to the sold-out concert so she can take her niece. At a very funny booksigning event she and Frasier reconnect, the group gets their tickets, and the married Nanny G confesses to the doctor how unhappy she’s been. As the pair “reconnects” in a prop room at the venue, the show starts and the bed they’re in raises up to the stage via a mechanical opening. The rest plays out in typical Frasier farcical fashion.

Another very funny episode, “The Ski Lodge,” (Season 5, Episode 14) is a classic bedroom farce updated to contemporary times, as the gang goes to a lodge together with their respective mates or love interests, and all of their hopes for romance are scuttled by misunderstandings and room-hopping shenanigans.

Not all of the episodes involve sex. Some highlight the differences between father and sons, or track each son’s dating mishaps. Others revolve around their sibling rivalry and their need to out-do the other socially, whether in their snooty wine club or an exclusive country club. Others take place mostly in the studio and the various characters and call-ins that can make each day seem like a radio version of The Bob Newhart Show.

Most Blu-ray complete series are space-savers, but this set is actually a half-inch wider than the most recent DVD compilation. But this one is easier to navigate. The 263 episodes and bonus features are contained on 33 discs and housed in 11 standard blu-ray cases according to season. And those are all housed in a sturdy slipcase.  Alas, CBS disappoints again with episode titles only printed on each disc label, so finding favorite episodes won’t be easy.

Entire family:  No (‘tweens and older)

Run time:  5885 min., Color

Studio/Distributor:  CBS/Paramount

Aspect ratio:  1.33:1 (Seasons 1-9) and 1.78:1 (Seasons 10-11)

Featured audio:  DTS-HDMA 2.0 

Bonus features:  C+

Amazon link

Not rated (would be TV-PG for innuendo, some alcohol, states of undress, and some mild language)

Language:  2/10—A few mild swear words (damn, hell)

Sex:  5/10—Mostly innuendo, but “Caught in the Act” features an audience of small children and their moms as Frasier emerges in a diaper and pretends to be a baby, and in other episodes it’s clear that people are sleeping/have slept together, though the worst is seeing Frasier’s bare chest

Violence: 0/10—None

Adult situations:  3/10—mostly social drinking, though Daphne’s brother is a drunken soccer hooligan played for laughs; mostly sexual situations, with everything implied and nothing shown

Takeaway:  It’s nigh impossible to watch these episodes without thinking that Frasier has to be the most successful spin-off American TV series of all time

Review: HOGAN’S HEROES COMPLETE SERIES (Blu-ray)

April 24, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater PG rated, TV Comedy Leave a comment

Grade:  B+

TV comedy

Not rated (would be PG)

When Hogan’s Heroes first aired in 1965, it quickly became a hit. Though the show never finished higher than the 9th place it earned its first season, it fared better than most sitcoms that ran multiple years. While other shows suffered from tired or rehashed plots or felt the need to add new characters, situations, or sites to hold audiences’ attention, the writers for Hogan’s Heroes never seemed to run out of creative new ways for ranking POW officer Col. Hogan (Bob Crane) to get the best of his captors and sabotage the Nazi war effort.  Hogan’s Heroes was a success in every country but one:  Germany.

But in 2002, TV Guide released a list of the worst TV shows of all-time, and guess which show was No. 5 on the “bad” list? Yep. Hogan’s Heroes. So how can a smartly written show that was thrice nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series and earned two supporting actor Emmys end up on the same list as the consummately bad My Mother the Car and The Brady Bunch Hour? For the same reason that CBS chief William S. Paley balked at the series concept when it was first proposed. He thought the idea of Nazis as comic characters was reprehensible. Hogan’s Heroes aired three years before Mel Brooks gave us that hilarious “Springtime for Hitler” bit in The Producers. But more pointedly, Paley didn’t know the difference or draw the distinction between concentration camps and POW camps.

Paley couldn’t shake the image of emaciated human beings and crematoriums. But there was a distinction. POWs were mostly aviators shot down behind enemy lines, and they were kept in camps operated by the German air force, the Luftwaffe—not the SS, who ran the Jewish concentration camps. And as it turned out, all four actors who played the main German characters were all Jewish and more than happy to make the Nazis look ridiculous.

Political correctness aside, Hogan’s Heroes was popular then, and it’s obviously popular now, or else CBS/Paramount wouldn’t have produced this complete series Blu-ray. It’s still hovering close to 8 out of 10 on the Internet Movie Database, and I would submit that even if you haven’t heard of this show, the cast and smart writing are going to be enough to win you over.

For six seasons Hogan’s Heroes aired during the Vietnam War years, adding a little pro-Allies humor to the public consciousness. Crane was a natural as the affable but devious Col. Hogan who led a group of prisoners of war at a camp famous for never having had any successful escapes. Col. Wilhelm Klink (Werner Klemperer) held that record only because of Hogan’s help. It’s in the prisoners’ best interest to have the Germans thinking the Kommandant is the toughest in all Germany (though he’s really an incompetent,easily manipulated pushover), because it allows them to use Stalag 13 for a base of operations that would boggle the Germans’ minds, if they only knew.

Lift up a bunk and a staircase drops down to the second level. Lift up the dog house inside the “vicious” guard dog compound and there’s access to another series of tunnel operations. Sections of barbed wire fence raise and lower with the convenience of blinds, and a tree trunk outside the camp opens to admit people with the regularity of a revolving door. Hogan and his men have bugged Klink’s office and listen in on a radio that’s disguised as a coffee pot—the same device they use to communicate with an Allied submarine that picks up prisoners they help to escape. Think of Stalag 13 as a WWII version of the Underground Railway. Hogan’s voluntary POWs helped other prisoners, defectors, and the local oppressed evade capture and safely get out of Germany. As it turned out, they weren’t really prisoners, because they could leave any time. They were stationed there.

The two most lovable characters weren’t even part of Hogan’s team. Just as Don Diego/Zorro had the portly and comic Sergeant Garcia to “fraternize” with, Hogan gets along so famously with Sergeant Schultz (John Banner) that they could be brothers-in-law. Schultz’s trademark “I see Nuth-thing, NUTH-THING!” became a catch-phrase as popular as Fonzie’s “He-ey!” or Jimmie Walker’s “Dy-no-MITE!” It was also his code to live by: See nothing, report nothing, and just get through the war in one piece without being sent to the Russian front. That was his strategy, and so every week that Hogan and the gang would commit outrageous acts, Schultz would develop a deaf ear or a blind eye.

Klink, meanwhile, was a man who was promoted far beyond his natural intellect or ability. Compared to the scar-faced General Burkhalter (Leon Askin) or Gestapo Major Hochstetter (Howard Caine), the monocle-wearing Klink was as much of a pussycat and ally-in-spirit as Sergeant Schultz. Having those two incompetents caught up in a world beyond their control was a stroke of genius, because it made the show acceptable.

Over the years, loonies came and went—none more so than the “what, what?” by-the-book Colonel Crittendon (Bernard Fox), who didn’t quite get the point of the operation. Romantic interests included Klink’s secretaries Helga (Cynthia Lynn) and then Hilda (Sigrid Valdis), as well as spies and underground leaders like Marya (Nita Talbot) and Tiger (Arlene Martel). Even Klink had a love interest, though it was over his dead body: Burkhalter’s sister, Frau Linkmeyer (Kathleen Freeman). But from 1942 until the end of the war, Hogan’s heroes kept doing their part and enjoying life as best they could in the process.

The complete series Blu-ray collection features all 168 episodes on 22 discs that are housed in plastic Blu-ray cases according to season, with a protective slipcase holding them together. Those who bought the DVD complete collection will find the packaging alone to be reason to upgrade, but the picture quality is also more consistently sharp.

Fans weren’t all that thrilled with the bonus features on the DVD complete series release, but CBS home video added a few more bonus features to this set, among them radio segments, Air Force recruitment spots, some funny promos, and even a home wedding video shot near the set. The video quality is marginally better, while the sound remains not very dynamic. As with other boxed sets, the Blu-ray collection does take up less shelf space than the DVDs—but only by an inch and a half. The real reason to buy this set as an upgrade is the slight upgrade in video quality; the reason to buy this set if you don’t already have it is that as novelty sitcoms go, this one was darned good.

Hogan’s Heroes was also unique because the plots weren’t just hooks to hang the jokes on. Binge-watching all the episodes, you realize that the writers worked with a formula but successfully varied it week after week. Each episode involved a convoluted scheme to sabotage the Nazis that was as much fun to watch as the ensemble characters.

Entire family:  Yes

Run time:  4281 min., Black-and-white (Episode 1) and Color (remaining episodes)

Studio/Distributor:  CBS/Paramount

Aspect ratio:  1.33:1 (4:3)

Featured audio:  DTS-HDMA Mono

Bonus features:  B

Amazon link

Clip

Not rated (would be PG)

Language:  1/10—Hell, damn, and German words like “dummkopf”

Sex:  2/10—Some less-than-passionate kissing, sexual innuendos, and flirtations

Violence:  3/10—Shooting, bombs exploding, tanks crashing buildings, but mostly done for comic or summary narrative effect

Adult situations:  2/10—Some smoking and drinking, especially in scenes in the town

Takeaway:  Though McHale’s Navy got there first, Hogan’s Heroes was the better show and also superior to other military sitcoms that came out of the sixties—shows like Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. or F Troop.

Review: EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (Blu-ray)

April 24, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, R rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

Grade:  B+/A-

Drama-Fantasy Adventure

Rated R

I’m beginning to wonder:  has a generation of gamers accustomed to living virtually on multiple levels led us to the point where many films going forward will also happen in multi-dimensions?

Although physicists and philosophers have been arguing about the possible existence of a multiverse (it’s not scientifically provable yet) since the 5th century BCE, and while the first mention of an alternate, simultaneous universe in pop culture seems to have been  back in 1961 when “Flash of Two Worlds” appeared in the Flash Vol. 1 No. 13 comic book, it has taken Hollywood decades to catch up.

But once Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse caught a wave of public approval in 2018, we’ve since gotten two non-Hollywood films about the “multiverse” and also Legends of the Multiverse (2022), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Teen Titans Go! & DC  Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse (2022), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), and a 2023 TV series, Mila in the Multiverse.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)took the multiverse to another level, winning Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Film Editing. That’s quite a haul for a film that won’t be for everyone. Some films are ahead of their time, but Everything Everywhere All at Once is a visual and narrative mind-blower that almost feels retro—like it could have come out of the late sixties and early seventies, if they had had the visual fx technology.

I’m not going to pretend that I understood everything the film threw at the wall to see if it would stick, but I think I got the gist of it.

At one point Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan) says, “So even though you have broken my heart yet again, I wanted to say, in another life I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.” He’s speaking to his wife, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), with whom he runs a Laundromat and laundry service and lives above the business with her aged father (James Hong) and their daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), with whom Evelyn butts heads.

Evelyn is having an Uncle-Billy-lost-the-money crisis—and yes, there’s a noticeable reference to It’s a Wonderful Life, as there is to 2001: A Space Odyssey and other films. Evelyn’s system of accounting is all messed up, and her own system overloads when the family has to bring all their records to a tax audit with a no-nonsense tax examiner named Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), and when her increasingly estranged daughter announces that she is a lesbian and introduces her to her “friend,” Becky (Tallie Medel).

That’s when, instead of a fantasy in which a guardian angel shows someone that his life is significant and special, a multiverse fantasy accomplishes the same purpose with Evelyn. Most multiverse movies are about superheroes, and that premise is used here to good effect, where we see Evelyn’s battles against the IRS and her daughter dramatized and explored in fantastic dimensions of alternate existence.

Is it for family viewing? The message is positive, if you can pick it out of the images and  actions that come at you as fast as the starscape in a Disney ride, and today’s youths see a similar level of violence in video games. But this film has gotten a lot of press and will spark the curiosity of a lot of children asking their parents if they can watch the film. If they’re ‘tweens and older, I would say, yes, because Everything Everywhere All at Once feels like a milestone.

I don’t know what was more impressive:  the acting, or the visual effects. The multiverse gimmick (yes, I went there) gives the main actors the chance to explore their characters across a wider range of emotions and personalities than a one-dimensional film, and all of them rise to the occasion. They go all out, and every scene is fun to watch because of that.

But this film doesn’t happen without the visual effects, and, hard as it is to believe, the team that created the effects wasn’t professionally trained. They taught themselves how to do it by looking at various Internet sources and tutorials. How impressive is that?

Then again, the film is such a wild ride with strobe-like effects and multiple cuts that the editing was just as impressive as everything else.

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won a well-deserved Oscar for their rock solid  (ahem) direction, pulling career performances out of Curtis and Quan, for whom the film was the first since he appeared in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies as a child actor. My only complaint is that some of the fantasy battles that Evelyn faces with her demons and nemeses can start to feel a bit long and repetitive as the third act of this 139-minute film rolls downhill to its conclusion. But that’s my only criticism.

As I said, Everything Everywhere All at Once won’t be for everyone. It’s a strange film that pulls so many visual images, pop culture allusions (hot dog fingers? pet rocks?), and alternate selves (and therefore, realities) out of Evelyn that you can fully imagine people in the psychedelic sixties “grooving” on it. But ultimately the film left me (and no doubt others) with one impression:  if we are the heroes of our own stories, then maybe, just maybe, the multiverse is different for each of us . . . and a product of our own imaginations.

Entire family:  No (‘tweens and older)

Run time:  139 min., Color

Studio/Distributor:  Lionsgate

Aspect ratio:  1.85:1

Featured audio: Dolby Atmos

Bonus features:  B+

Includes:  Blu-ray, Digital

Amazon link

Trailer

Rated R for some violence, sexual material and language

Language: 5/10—close to double-digit occurrences of the f-word, plus some lesser swearwords, though they frankly don’t stand out with all the frenetic action and images

Sex:  510—Phallic symbols and dildos, some object humping in the background of one shot, and a comic scene with a sex dungeon that isn’t explicit except for the props; the most extreme scene is a dildo-shaped trophy that ends up inside a man who sits on it, while others insert one manually and any nudity is pixelated (though bizarre)

Violence: 5/10—Lots of fantasy fighting and plenty of blood, but the images are often comic or surreal (a man’s head blows up into confetti? another person gives themselves deliberate paper cuts? an animal is punted like a football?), which blunts the violence

Adult situations:  3/10—Some smoking and vaping

Takeaway:  The pace of this film is breakneck, and if that’s any indication of how the upcoming TV series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is going to play out, you’d better yourselves; with Daniel Kwan directing, it could be a wild ride

Review: THE OFFICE: COMPLETE SERIES (Blu-ray)

April 24, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater TV Comedy, TV-14 Leave a comment

Grade:  A-

TV comedy

Not rated

Maybe it’s because the series is in perpetual rerun. Maybe it’s the popularity of Steve Carell ever since he turned up on moviegoers’ radar with The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Or maybe, like all classic comedies, it’s because the ensemble cast is fantastic from top to bottom. Whatever the case, younger viewers have discovered the American version of the popular British TV show, and Parrot Analytics reported that the audience demand for The Office (US version) is a whopping 36.3 times more in demand than the average TV series in the US.

The Office also might be the most successful American TV adaptation of a British television comedy ever—and that’s saying something, since Veep, Shameless, Sanford and Son, Three’s Company, and All in the Family were all based on Britcoms. It’s certainly the longest running, with 188 episodes first airing from 2005-2013.

Two years before this documentary-style sitcom was removed from the Netflix lineup in 2021, The Office was the most watched show on the streaming service. Even recently a Cosmopolitan writer intoned, “How dare you, Netflix?” Fans hold grudges, especially when they no longer know where they can see the show. Cosmo reported that the first five seasons of The Office are now free on Peacock, but you’ll need Peacock Premium/Plus (a paid level) to watch the rest of the show.

Or, if you don’t want to keep jumping from streaming service to streaming service like an Office groupie, you could just plunk down the cash to get the entire series on high-definition Blu-ray. It looks terrific and comes with a bundle of fun bonus features.

Everyone who punches in at the Scranton branch office of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company is a bona fide character. In 2007 and 2008 the show won for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series from peers at the Screen Actors Guild, but if it were up to fans they would have had a lot more trophies to put in their case. The series began with a solid core that established the character types and dynamics that would persist throughout the series’ long run, even with cast changes:

Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) was the regional manager and a walking illustration of the Peter Principle—which theorized that members of any hierarchy are promoted until they reach the level at which they are no longer competent. Michael was well intentioned but clearly starved for love and adulation. He was also the reason a company needs an HR officer, because he had a habit of making outrageous and insensitive remarks.

Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) was a salesman and also assistant to the regional manager, a name-only title that Michael created for his favorite disciple, who happened to be Amish and also ran a beet farm with his reclusive and equally odd brother.

Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) was the girl-next-door type who worked as a receptionist and, though shy and reserved, could be persuaded to help with office pranks. For six years or so her and Jim’s mutual office attraction added a romantic tension.

Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) was a salesman who was both a quintessential nice guy and an inveterate practical joker, with Dwight his favorite target and Pam the object of his affection.

Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker) was a salesman who made his quota and nothing more, with a dry sense of humor directed at anyone who disrupted his blissful routine. He also easily tired of Michael’s constant references to him being African American.

Phyllis Lapin (Phyllis Smith) appeared older and more reserved than she actually was, and her full figure was often the target of Michael’s unintentional insults—misplaced assurances that she’s actually attractive.

Meredith Palmer (Kate Flannery) was the wild one in the office, an openly flirtatious and promiscuous supply relations representative who could throw innuendos like others throw shade.

Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey) was just the opposite of Meredith, an ultra-religious conservative and cat-lover who sometimes smuggled one of her cats into her desk.

Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) was the sweetheart of the group, a large, not-terribly-bright man whose humor, as with Michael’s, tended toward the juvenile.

Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) was a gay Latinx man trying to keep a low profile, for the most part, though often Michael wouldn’t let him.

Creed Bratton (Creed Bratton) was the quality assurance guy who was a little on the shady side—or at least his eyebrow-raising suggestions suggested as much.

Other characters introduced later who logged a lot of episodes included Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling), Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak), Andy Bernard (Ed Helms), Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein), Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson), and Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper). Robert California (James Spader), Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate), Jo Bennett (Kathy Bates), and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) also had recurring roles, and Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell) appeared briefly.

A day at The Office could turn into just about anything:  challenges, drills, Olympics, debates, mandatory meetings, sensitivity training, demonstrations that had little to do with selling paper, “bonding” experiences, outings, romances—everything except for actual work, it seemed.

Each season in this set comes in its own Blu-ray case, and the nine cases are housed in a colorful slipcase. The 188 episode titles and two-line descriptions are printed on the insides of the covers, visible through the blue plastic cases—not the most convenient, but better than nothing.

Bonus features include in-character productions such as Dwight’s music video, Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin ad, Dunder Mifflin PSAs like “Rabies: The More You Know,” plus extended episodes, blooper reels, Office webisodes, original cast audition tapes, table reads, cast farewells, and commentary tracks. There’s a lot here for fans to enjoy.

Entire family:  No (younger kids won’t respond to the largely adult humor)

Run time:  4136 min. Color (counting bonus features, 75 hours run time)

Studio/Distributor:  Universal/NBC

Aspect ratio:  1.78:1

Featured audio:  DTS HDMA 5.1 (Season 1) and Dolby Digital 2.0 (remaining seasons)

Bonus features:  A

Amazon link

Not rated (would be TV-14)

Language: 4/10—The worst profanities are bleeped out, but there are plenty of lesser swearwords

Sex:  4/10—Innuendo and sex jokes in most episodes, plus some censored sex toys, censored/blurred topless flashing and male butts, talk of having sex, and references to all types of sex; some characters also make out on camera and have sex (we are led to believe) off-camera or behind a door, etc.; males are depicted shirtless and in boxer shorts from time to time. It was a network show, though, so everything made it past censors

Violence:  2/10—Wrestling, some punching, an attempt to beat up Jim that’s thwarted by pepper spray, and various accidents (getting hit by a car in the parking lot, parkour rough landings, a car driving into a pond, a shotgun being fired, etc.)

Adult situations: 3/10—Some vomiting, drinking, smoking, and drug references, with several characters implied to over-imbibe, politically incorrect stereotype humor,

Takeaway:  The British version of The Office only ran for 14 episodes, while this American version was just getting warmed up by then; the long run is a tribute to this comedy of character

Review: FRIENDS: THE COMPLETE SERIES (Blu-ray)

April 17, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater TV Comedy, TV-14 Leave a comment

Grade:  A-

TV Comedy

Rated

So no one told you life was going to be this way?

Your job’s a joke, you’re broke

your love life’s D.O.A.

It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear. . . .

In February 1994, those lyrics kicked off a series about six unmarried friends in their 20s and early 30s who shared apartments and hung out together all the time, often offering emotional support and sometimes hooking up. Monica (Courtney Cox) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) were high school friends, just as Monica’s brother Ross (David Schwimmer) and Chandler (Matthew Perry) were also friends from the same area school. To that mix was added the streetwise but flaky Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and ladies man wannabe actor Joey (Matt LeBlanc).

Friends struck a chord with young adults because they could identify with characters who were out of school and in the “real” world, though they didn’t feel like real adults just yet because they were between being college students and being settled in jobs and marriages. A 2019 survey revealed that a whopping 19 percent of respondents age 18-34 had watched everysingle episode of the show, which ran for 10 years, while another 30 percent said they had watched most episodes. 

Given how many channels and streaming options there are, that’s pretty amazing. But the 35-54 year olds were even more devoted, with 17 percent saying they had watched all the episodes and 41 percent most of them. A Childwise report also noted that the comedy was the favorite program of young people in the UK, though few of the 5-16 year olds polled were even alive when the show was first broadcast.

Friends was rated #21 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest Shows of All Time. It finished #1 in Season 8 and placed in the Nielsen Top 10 every other year, though Emmy voters were slower to warm to the show. It finally won Outstanding Comedy Series that 8th season, when Aniston also won for Outstanding Lead Actress.

Thinking about how wildly successful the series has been, I can’t help but wonder if it’s in part because the show seems to check ALL eight characters of comedy, as described by Scott Sedita, even though there are only six characters in the show: 

Ross, with his Ph.D., is “the logical smart one” whose humor is usually tongue-in-cheek or ironic.

Chandler, with his man-child insecurity and bad luck with women, is “the lovable loser” who takes refuge in self-deprecating humor.

Neat-freak and control-freak Monica is “the neurotic,” given her OCD nature and how she can tell instantly upon entering a room if anything has been moved even slightly.

Joey is “the dumb one,” who often doesn’t know what’s going on, though Phoebe might also qualify at times.

“The womanizer or manizer” is clearly Joey again, who, unlike the other males Friends, has no trouble picking up women.

Rachel is “the materialistic one,” the spoiled one who came from money, has rich tastes, and seems to be more driven by money and nice things than the others.

Phoebe is “in their own universe,” a flaky hippie-style character who has her own ideas and ways of thinking and looking at things that can be a little “out there.”

All of which is to say, Friends is first and foremost a comedy of characters that are easy to love, supported by some very smart writing, rapid fire gags, situations that are actually comedic, and plots that are both self-contained in every episode but still progressive from episode to episode and from season to season. 

Friends: The Complete Series on Blu-ray includes all 234 episodes (plus two variations) on 21 discs, housed in three Blu-ray cases (#1—Seasons 1-5; #2 Seasons 6-10; #3 Bonus disk), tucked into a slipcase along with a full-color 36-page booklet that includes a list of episodes for the whole run and annotations to jog your memory. Twenty hours of bonus content is included, one-fifth of which is original and new to this release. Among them are the “Super-Sized” episodes from Season 7.

Fans of the show will enjoy this Blu-ray release, and if you haven’t gotten it yet, here are two reasons to do so:  1) You won’t be at the mercy of whatever streamers decide to make available, and 2) By upgrading your DVD collection with this Blu-ray set you will be able to watch Friends in high definition and save shelf space. The single-season DVD collections span 11.5”, while this compact Blu-ray complete series only takes up 2.75”. If you’re a collector or love having a home video library that you can watch commercial and hassle free, whenever you want, this set is a great investment. It looks great on Blu-ray. And yeah, no buffering every time extreme weather screws up the signal.

Entire family:  No (‘tweens and older)

Run time:  5192 min., Color

Studio/Distributor:  Warner Bros.

Aspect ratio:  1.78:1

Featured audio:  Dolby Digital 5.1

Bonus features:  B

Amazon link

Trailer

Rated TV-14

Language:  4/10—I may recall one F-bomb, but the majority of swearwords are milder curse (hell, damn, crap, damn, ass, etc.)

Sex:  6/10—Lots of innuendo, some references to sex parts, strip poker, characters in underwear, lots of sexual references and escapades, but after all is said and done very little is show—only implied, as people are under the covers, etc.

Violence:  2/10—Some adult bullying, reference to bullying, comic fighting, and the occasional punch

Adult Situations:  4/10—Lots of drinking, some smoking, suicide references, infertility, parental abandonment, sex changes, awkward adult situations, etc., as well as references to drugs and getting high—but little in the way of actual drunkenness that I can recall; people get married, they get pregnant (not necessarily in that order), they are surrogate mothers,

Takeaway:  Smart TV somehow manages to have it both ways:  classic and current, and Friends was a perfect example; recently Aniston said a “whole generation of kids” finds Friends offensive, but morality and sensitivity is ever-changing. Yes, there were episodes that were insensitive to people with weight issues, etc., but I hope we never get to the point where humor is so socially corseted that there’s no room for laughter

Review: THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (Blu-ray)

April 17, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Entire Family, PG rated Leave a comment

Grade:  B+/B

Comedy

Rated PG

People who grew up watching Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, In Search of the Castaways, Summer Magic, The Moon-Spinners and That Darn Cat! no doubt think of Hayley Mills as a Disney actress. But other than those early films and much later sequels to The Parent Trap, Mills made far more movies and TV shows with other studios. And the coming-of-age comedy The Trouble with Angels (Columbia, 1966) still stands as one of her best ‘tween and teen films.

Mills gets second billing behind Rosalind Russell (His Girl Friday) in this story of students sent to live and study at the St. Francis Academy for girls, which is located in a convent and staffed by nuns. Russell plays the droll longsuffering Mother Superior, who, like Peter Pan’s shadow, seems to be everywhere the girls are, no matter what hijinks they’re trying to pull. And this is most certainly a hijinks film.

It opens on a train headed for St. Francis, with an openly rebellious Mary Clancy (Mills) lighting up a cigarette despite the no smoking rule. Onboard she meets Rachel Devery (June Harding), who seems “simpatico” and delighted to have found a friend. From that moment the two become inseparable . . . and insufferable as they begin their first year at St. Francis Academy.

The film documents their antics over the four years that they spend in the nunnery, whether it’s pranks and practical jokes, defiance of rules, or the kind of simple shenanigans that many teens pull when they haven’t prepared for class or are trying to get out of P.E. Mary and Rachel aren’t bad girls, mind you, but they behave more like hares than the tortoise approach Mother Superior seems to take, clearly hoping that over time she might make some difference in the girls’ lives. As a result, The Trouble with Angels has more depth than the typical light comedy, and viewers are encouraged to see things from both sides. It’s a surprisingly subtle transformational film in the Going My Way mold.

Columbia certainly picked the right director for the job. Not only was Ida Lupino one of the few female directors working in Hollywood, but she was also a bit of a rebel herself. She bucked the studio system by refusing roles and films she thought were not strong enough—so much so that she was frequently suspended by Warner Bros.

So how does a 1966 film about Catholic schoolgirls hold up today?

It’s still fun and entertaining becauseof the depth, the subtlety, the intelligent writing, and the crisp pacing. There’s also something inherently timeless about a wise adult who tries to mentor semi-resistant young people, whether we’re talking about Yoda and Luke Skywalker or a nun and a Catholic schoolgirl she identified as the ringleader. The pranks and antics keep it fun, while the relationship between the nuns and the girls keep it interesting.

In the irony department, famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee turns up as an outside instructor that Mother Superior hired to teach the girls graceful movement. Russell had played Lee’s mother in the musical biopic Gypsy in the film she made immediately before this one, and film buffs will find such additional layers fun. Some familiar faces turn up, too, like Mary Wickes, who also donned a habit in the Sister Act films and played the secretary to TV’s mystery-solving priest, Father Dowling.

Collectively, this group of nuns is as entertaining as the ones from The Sound of Music, with individual personalities (eccentricities?) that shine through their habits—whether it’s teaching the girls how to swim, how to play an instrument, or any of the subjects that make school a beneficial burden.

Mills was 19 when Angels was shot, and perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is that the actress who plays Sundance to her Butch was 28 years old at the time—older than some of the actresses who played nuns. But the two work well together and are plenty convincing that they are in need of both maturity and understanding. The Trouble with Angels remains good fun and a great choice for family home theaters.

Entire family:  Yes

Run time:  111 min., Color

Studio/Distributor:  Columbia/Sony

Aspect ratio:  1.85:1

Featured audio:  DTS-HDMA 2.0

Bonus features:  D (only a trailer)

Barnes & Noble link

Trailer

Rated PG for mild thematic elements

Language: 0/1—Nothing here to report

Sex:  1/10—Some revealing band uniforms, girls en masse shopping for bras (and trying some on over their blouses) and brief allusion to one parent having an affair

Violence:  0/10—Nothing at all; you were expecting rulers across the knuckles?

Adult situations:  3/10—Several instances of juvenile smoking (cigarettes and cigars)

Takeaway:  The Trouble with Angels remains current because the Catholic church remains constant in so many ways, and the characters under Lupino’s direction aren’t caricatures

Review: THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW: COMPLETE SERIES (Blu-ray)

April 17, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater Entire Family, Family, PG rated, TV Comedy Leave a comment

Grade:  B+/A-

TV comedy

Not rated (would be PG)

It’s hard to believe people ever lived slower lives—especially at a time when folks can’t seem to spend a single moment without multitasking or yakking on cell phones in walk-and-talks that, despite their content (“I’m on my way to the grocery store now”), are conducted with West Wing importance. If you need a refresher course in slowing down, watch The Andy Griffith Show.

If Frank Capra had worked in television, I’m guessing he would have produced something along the lines of this folksy, feel-good, homespun situation comedy that offered an idealized portrait of small-town life. Never once during its eight-season run did the series finish outside the Nielsen Top 10, and its final season the show ended as the No. 1 watched show in America. I Love Lucy and Seinfeld were the only other shows to accomplish that feat.

The series, which ran on CBS from 1960-68, was ranked No. 9 on TV Guide’s list of 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. One thing that contributed to the show’s success was that it appealed to both rural and (sub)urban people, and white-collar as well as blue-collar workers. The writing was much sharper than other rural comedies that aired on television before or after it, and the aw-shucks sheriff without a gun solved problems with common sense and wit that was broadly entertaining.

The Town of Mayberry, North Carolina was a sleepy little backwater where Sheriff and Justice of the Peace Andy Taylor (Griffith) doesn’t drink, refrains from using harsh language, and seldom raises his voice. Before The Cosby Show got all sorts of love for modeling a kinder, gentler parenting style, the widowed Sheriff Taylor was showing an earlier generation a better way to raise kids and relate to people. With an aw-shucks demeanor, a bushel full of aphorisms, and a smile that could disarm all but the most hardened criminals, Andy spent much of his time dispensing common-sense advice to family, friends, residents, visitors, and yes, sometimes even criminals.

The writing for this character-driven comedy also featured some very funny lines, and a killer ensemble cast delivered them with verve. When you saw bumbling Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife (Don Knotts) and Floyd the Barber (Howard McNear) week after week, it was almost like living in a small town. You felt as if you knew them, and the show had a comfortable feel to it. Andy’s son, Opie, is played to perfection by a very young Ron Howard, while Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) is introduced in the first episode as the one who raised Andy and will now do the same with Opie. Fans of Father Knows Best were treated to Elinor Donahue (“Princess” from that earlier TV series) as a druggist and possible love interest for Andy in a five-episode arc.

This first season Griffith played Sheriff Taylor more folksy than he would in later years, and more than a few episodes ended with him sitting on the front porch with his guitar, serenading his “kinfolks.” In one classic episode, a state police task force uses the sheriff’s office as headquarters for an operation to catch an escaped convict, and they exclude Andy and Barney. But Andy plays a hunch and he and Barney end up catching the fellow, with the help of Andy’s leaky rowboat. Of course, the state officer in charge changes his tune about Andy and small town “sheriffin’.” That pattern would repeat itself with fun variations over the next seven years.

It’s tobacco country, so there’s occasional smoking, and fictional Mayberry is in the foothills of Appalachia, so there are poor folks who are accustomed to making their own liquor, no matter what the law says. But to underscore how relatively innocent it all is, in an episode titled “Alcohol and Old Lace” Barney and Andy follow a moonshine trail that leads them straight to a pair of sweet little old ladies. Meanwhile, town drunk Otis lets himself in and out of the jail, and Andy treats him as he is: a friendly neighbor who happens to have a problem with alcohol. Over time, even Otis becomes more than a town drunk, and viewers begin to embrace him as much as the other characters in this endearing ensemble.

For the first several seasons the producers clearly tried to give the show a boost by featuring a string of guest stars that included Bill Bixby (The Incredible Hulk), Buddy Ebsen (The Beverly Hillbillies), Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeannie), Alan Hale Jr. (Gilligan’s Island), Edgar Buchanan (Petticoat Junction), and Arte Johnson (Laugh-In). They were interesting, but in truth unnecessary. Fans would have kept tuning in regardless, just to see the Mayberry regulars.

After two solid seasons, CBS added more Mayberry characters, among them dim-witted mechanical wizard Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors), schoolteacher/love interest Helen Crump (Aneta Corsaut), the rowdy, bluegrass-playing Darlings (real-life bluegrass band The Dillards), and rock-throwing, poetry-spouting nut-case Ernest T. Bass (Howard Morris).

The 249 half-hour episodes (plus a faux pilot episode of Andy on The Danny Thomas Show and Opie on Gomer Pyle: USMC) are on 32 discs, with each season having it’s own Blu-ray case and a slipcase holding them all together. The first five seasons aired in black-and-white, and that’s how they’re presented here. The introduction of color coincided with Knotts’ departure, so it felt like an attempt to compensate fans for the loss of the three-time Emmy winner. As if to reinforce how much he meant to the series, Knotts earned two more Emmys for a pair of guest appearances that he made, bringing his total—and the show’s—to five.  

This show would easily have been an A-/B+ had Knotts stayed and had Nabors not left the show to star in his own spin-off, replaced by a game George Lindsay as Goober, not nearly as interesting a character as Gomer. But the series had a knack of elevating minor characters so that they had the kind of depth that made people care about them, and that helped the show continue to evolve and stay relatively fresh over the years.

For fans, it will be a real pleasure to pop in a disc and sit back and watch 6-9 episodes per disk, plus eclectic bonus features that include behind-the-scenes clips, the Howards’ home movies on the set, opening clips, and original sponsor ads. Blu-ray is a visible improvement over the DVDs, and can be enjoyed even when streaming signals or Internet connections are spotty.  I have only two complaints, and they have nothing to do with the show or quality of presentation. One is that the boxed set includes no master list of episodes or any annotated descriptions. All we get are lists of hard-to-read titles on the discs themselves. That’s it. My other complaint is that the plastic “pages” that hold each disc have pretty flimsy points of attachment. When my set arrived, at least two discs from each season case were loose. When you pay over $100 for a set, you expect better. Paramount/CBS, are you listening?

When you watch these episodes you’ll see so many that you don’t remember, simply because relatively few of the episodes are shown on TV in rerun. It’s like discovering the show all over again.

Entire family:  Yes

Run time:  6343 min. (249 episodes, 105.7 hours), Black-and-white (Seasons 1-5) / Color (Seasons 6-8)

Studio/Distributor:  CBS Home Entertainment

Aspect ratio:  1.37:1

Featured audio:  LPCM 2.0 (Season 1) / DTS-HDMA 2.0 (Seasons 2-8)

Bonus features:  B+

Amazon link

Not rated (would be G or PG for adult drinking and smoking)

Language:  1/10—Only occasional sanitized versions, like “dad gum it”

Sex:  1/10—Wholesome as can be, though there is a bathing suit contest in one episode

Violence:  1/10—Some “wrasslin’” and scufflin’, some black eyes, but the actual violence is mostly off-screen, just as guns are pulled but fired only occasionally

Adult situations:  2/10—Some adult smoking, drinking, and drunkenness

Takeaway:  This complete set came on the heels of the Blu-ray release of The Andy Griffith Show: Season 1; while those who bought that set might think they wasted their money, savvy classic TV fans know that when a studio tests the waters, if fans don’t respond there might not be another Blu-ray release

Review: The Truth About Spring (Blu-ray)

April 10, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Entire Family, Family, PG rated, Romance Leave a comment

Grade:  C+/B-

Family Adventure-Romance

Not rated (would be PG)

In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, two young Disney stars were among the most popular on the planet: Mouseketeer Annette Funicello and British actress Hayley Mills, whose debut with Disney (Pollyanna, 1960) earned her the last special Juvenile Oscar awarded. A year later she starred as separated twins trying to reunite their divorced parents in The Parent Trap, and a song she performed, “Let’s Get Together,” reached No. 1 on the charts in the U.S.

For a decade, Hayley was big—even bigger than Annette. Stanley Kubrick offered her the title role in Lolita (which her father, Sir John Mills, turned down), and her performance in the 1961 British film Whistle Down the Wind (an adaptation of a novel written by her mother) earned her a BAFTA Best British Actress nomination. She also was voted the biggest star in Britain that year.

The Truth About Spring(1965) was the third film Mills made with her famous thespian father—fourth, if you count the elder Mills cameo as a golf caddy in The Parent Trap—and this star vehicle plays very much like an affectionate last daddy-daughter hurrah before the later leaves the nest, as Hayley would. Just a year later her father would direct her Sky West and Crooked and she would marry adirector 33 years her senior from The Family Way, in which John Mills had only a minor rle. So there’s something inherently poignant in the Mills pairing in The Truth About Spring.

If you don’t look at the credits, you’d swear that this film was made by Disney, with the familiar musical cues, structure, characters, tone, and direction—except that it’s not. Universal made this one and tried the Disney formula, with disappointing effects.

In his autobiography, John Mills wrote, “If the picture had turned out to be half as good as the food, the wine, the time and the laughs we had on that location it would have been a sensation—unfortunately it wasn’t.”

Though it’s also an adventure with some romance involving a young girl initially dressed as a boy, The Truth About Spring wasn’t nearly as successful as Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson (1960), in which the elder Mills played the father of a family marooned in the early 1800s on an island paradise. That film had real pirates and a lush tropical setting full of all sorts of animals and a cast of characters that provided plenty of side stories.

This adventure allegedly took place in the Caribbean. But the scenery was actually the barren rocky coast of southern Spain, and the pirates are contemporary—pirate in spirit and function, not dress.  There may be a treasure hunt, but it somehow seems nothing more than a plot device.

Other than two groups of “pirates,” The Truth About Spring also has only the two Mills and Swiss Family Robinson veteran James MacArthur (perhaps most famous for his role as Danno on TV’s Hawaii Five-O) for plot possibilities. For much of the film they’re aboard a small sailing vessel where the free-spirited con-artist Tommy Tyler (J. Mills) lives with his daughter, Spring. Into their lives comes William Ashton (MacArthur), a newly minted young lawyer who’s on his uncle’s yacht for a vacation before starting his job in Philadelphia.

Looking to work another con, Tommy invites him to jump ship to do a little fishing on their sailboat, and the next thing you know Ashton is accepting an invitation to spend a few weeks on their boat. Contrived? Certainly. But once you get past a hokey title sequence, there’s a wholesome charm to this coming-of-age film that remains all these years later.

Entire family:  Yes

Run time:  102 min. Color

Studio/Distributor:  Universal / Kino Lorber

Aspect ratio:  1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen

Featured audio:  DTS 2.0

Bonus features:  C+

Amazon link

Not rated (would be PG for some peril and social drinking)

Language: 1/10—I didn’t hear a single word, but I’m listing it as a 1 just in case . . .

Sex: 1/10—A first and second kiss, and a playboy uncle surrounded by cougars

Violence:  2/10—Guns are pulled, but no one is shot; there’s an explosion, but no one is hurt; and the fight against pirates involves punching, pushing, and whacking them with a mop

Adult situations: 1/10—Cocktails are held aboard the yacht, and Tommy channels his inner Popeye by smoking a pipe (and cigars)

Takeaway:  Hayley Mills still has a loyal following, and that fan base will be happy to have this seldom-broadcast film in their Blu-ray collections

Review: LITTLE MISS MARKER (1934) (Blu-ray)

April 10, 2023

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Drama, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

Grade: B-/C+

Comedy-Drama

Not rated (would be PG)

Child actor Shirley Temple became a household name in the 1930s and was considered to be 20th Century-Fox’s greatest asset. When she was only seven years old, the studio assigned a team of 19 writers to develop original stories for her. Discovered at age three, she became the inspiration for stage mothers all across America who pushed their own small children to become singers and dancers. Her signature song (“On the Good Ship Lollipop”) sold 500,000 copies on sheet music—presumably to those same stage mothers—while her likeness was used to sell such merchandise as dolls, clothing, plates, and glassware. She even had a drink named for her, and was the first performer to receive a special Juvenile Oscar.

By the time a six-year-old (but looking younger) Temple appeared in Little Miss Marker (1934)—the film that established her as a star—she had already acted in 13 film shorts and nine feature films. By contrast, Dorothy Bell, the female lead who plays a nightclub singer in this Damon Runyon adaptation, had only one film short and a single feature to her credit.

Runyon was a journalist whose published short stories celebrated the denizens of Prohibition-era Broadway: hard-boiled newsmen, gamblers, bookies, singers, racketeers, reformers, and other colorful characters that inhabited his little corner of Brooklyn. They were people who frequented racetracks and clubs, had colorful nicknames, yet had a soft spot. If you’ve seen Guys and Dolls, you’ve seen the most famous adaptation of two of his short stories. But “Little Miss Marker” comes in second, having spawned this film and three remakes.

In Little Miss Marker, bookie Sorrowful Jones (Adolphe Menjou) accepts an unusual I.O.U. “marker”: the daughter of a desperate man looking to get back on track with a racing win. When the man never returns to get her and pay his debt, the bookie is forced to take the child home. Soon he, his associates, and everyone under the thumb of racketeer Big Steve (Charles Bickford) find themselves being charmed by her. That includes the racketeer’s girlfriend, club singer Bangles (Dell), who envisions a more respectable life when she looks at the orphan.

Of Temple films, then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “It is a splendid thing that for just 15 cents, an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles.” But not everyone could forget their troubles. America wasn’t exactly equal, and films from this era, with their unfortunate racial stereotypes, are a reminder of that. Willie Best, like Stepin Fetchit, played a lazy, simpleminded, easily spooked character whose eyes bug out and words meander in a slow exaggerated drawl. But at least he received credit for his work, as did Wong Chung for a single walk-on line spoken again as an stereotypical caricature of what white America thought Asians sounded like when they spoke English. Mildred Gover, who plays the club singer’s maid, isn’t even credited . . . though at least her delivery seems less caricatured as the film progresses. At one point we even catch her having a drink and putting her feet up on the furniture when the missus isn’t home.

So yeah, a few unfortunate cultural stereotypes mar a film that otherwise is entertaining in a hokey sort of way. Hardened men and women become like putty in the hands of “Marky.” When they realize they’re having as much of a negative effect on her as the positive effect she’s having on them, they resolve to do something about it—even if it involves sabotaging Big Steve’s plan to use the girl as “owner” of a racehorse that they plan to use to fix a race, or holding an elaborate dress-up party to refuel the child’s belief in fairy tales. And even if it means kidnapping a doctor when, like Pollyanna, Marky needs emergency care.

Shirley Temple was America’s screen orphan and her movies were a mainstay on family-oriented TV movie series of the ‘50s and ‘60s. But these days the safest ones to watch with your small children remain those that are the least outdated and have the fewest unsavory characters in need of transformation.

Those would be Heidi (1937), The Little Princess (1939), Bright Eyes (1934, “The Good Ship Lollipop” film), and Captain January (1936), in that order. But Wee Willie Winkie (1937, Temple’s favorite) and Little Miss Marker aren’t far behind. While this Little Miss Marker might lose by a nose to Bob Hope’s Sorrowful Jones (1949), it remains far superior to the 1980 adaptation or looser remakes like Little Big Shot (1935) or Forty Pounds of Trouble (1962).

Entire family:  Yes

Run time:  80 min. Black & White

Studio/Distributor:  Universal/Kino Lorber

Aspect ratio:  1.37:1

Featured audio:  DTS 2.0 Mono

Bonus features:  C+

Amazon link

Clip (spoiler)

Rated “Passed” (would be G today)

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