David Lean Directs Noel Coward (In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit, Brief Encounter) (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
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In the 1940s, the wit of playwright Noel Coward (Design for Living) and the craft of filmmaker David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia) melded harmoniously in one of cinema’s greatest writer-director collaborations. With the wartime military drama sensation In Which We Serve, Coward and Lean (along with producing partners Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan) embarked on a series of literate, socially engaged, and enormously entertaining pictures that ranged from domestic epic (This Happy Breed) to
David Lean Directs Noel Coward (In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit, Brief Encounter) (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
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My Cousin Vinny [Blu-ray]
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Two carefree pals (Ralph Macchio and Mitchell Whitfield) traveling through Alabama are mistakenly arrested, and charged with murder. Fortunately, one of them has a cousin who’s a lawyer – Vincent Gambini (Joe Pesci, Lethal Weapon 3, Home Alone), a formerWhen two Italian-American boys from New York are falsely accused of murder in a small Alabama town, they call for a lawyer–but the only lawyer they know is their cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci), who made six attempts before he passed his bar exam. My C
My Cousin Vinny [Blu-ray]
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Could have been 5 – had they added anything,
I believe this to be one of those 90s comedies we all love, so the BD transfer was a nice addition to see come over. Playing it in the store today reminded everyone how fun the film was, but the obvious preservation work made for a nice sell on how these older films should be done.
The colors and clarity were actually cleaned up well, with the artifact being random to where there was no real detraction. The credit sequences looked solid, which for some of these 90s block letter credits the BD transfers can leave in horrible grain. With how they did Tomei’s makeup in this, there could have been plenty of chances for a dull saturation look, but in actuality it turned out looking great.
The sound is what sold me though. They mixed and re-amplified it into a 5.1 DTS that rocked the channels. The train scenes were excellent and that owl made customers do a double take. The supplements suck though. They included a variety of trailers from theater and TV, but in that it does show how the original stock looked compared to this upgrade. The commentary was fine, but I was hoping for some visual treats. Instead, the film will have to stand alone for buying the Blu. The menu shows a cleaned up reel also and the navigation was simple. Enjoy.
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|South Brooklyn meets The South,
Subtly employing the city mouse/country mouse theme, MY COUSIN VINNY is a light-hearted courtroom comedy. While it occasionally stoops to some stereotyping, the movie doesn’t do so mean-spiritedly. In any event, both sides get equal skewering.
Vinny Gambini, brilliantly portrayed by Joe Pesci, is a Brooklyn boy who has finally passed the Bar (after repeated failures) and now finds himself defending his nephew and his nephew’s friend against murder charges in the Bible Belt. Along with his too beautiful fiancee, played by Academy Award Winner Marissa Tomei, Pesci investigates the southern style of life, as he fathoms southern courtroom procedures and tries to get some sleep. The resulting clash of cultures is sometimes predictable, but honestly, is very inventive for the most part.
The comedy of the court room scenes is heightened by the late Fred Gwynne who plays the presiding judge. His by-the-book habits and short-fused temper are a perfect foil to Vinny’s laconic style. It is their interaction that feeds most of the cultural clashing. But there is also a clash of the sexes that underlies the film, as Vinny stubbornly refuses the help of his fiancee. This confrontation is also highlighted in the courtroom when the DA refuses to believe that she could possibly be considered an expert in automechanics, even though her brothers, her father, her uncles, and just about everyone else in her family are expert mechanics. (The DA becomes convinced in a wonderful cross-interview scene.)
MY COUSIN VINNY was both critically well-received and a huge box-office success. There’s a reason for that: it is a well-written, well-directed and perfectly acted comedy that stands up well even after repeated viewings. See it for yourself and you’ll understand why, too.
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|David Lean & Noel Coward,
The Criterion Collection has released DAVID LEAN DIRECTS NOEL COWARD, a four-disc boxed set containing the quartet of films that the two artists made together during the first half of 1940s. The collection is being released in both Blu-Ray and DVD editions. This reviewer’s remarks are based on the DVD set.
All four films, two of which are in Technicolor, have been magnificently remastered. The colors are brilliant and balanced; the black-and-white images sharp and solid.
I’m not going to use much space talking about the individual movies, since anybody who decides to purchase this collection will, undoubtedly, be well familiar with them.
IN WHICH WE SERVE (1942) was co-directed by Coward and Lean and deals with a ship of the Royal Navy, sunk in the Mediterranean during the early days of World War II. This event occurs at the start of the picture, thus most of the narrative is told via flashback as the survivors cling to a life raft, being strafed by German planes while they await rescue.
Coward plays the ship’s captain, and we follow his story, as well as the histories of several crew members. Among the cast in this stirring film, nominated for a Best Picture Oscar,are John Mills, Bernard Miles, Celia Johnson, Kay Walsh, Michael Wilding and Richard Attenborough.
THIS HAPPY BREED (1944) is the story of an average middle class British family seen over a period of twenty years, from the end of The Great War to just before the beginning of World War II. It is a tale of the vicissitudes of life.
The Technicolor film stars Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, John Mills, Kay Walsh and Stanley Holloway.
BLITHE SPIRIT (1945), also in color, is a sparkling comedy about a man (Rex Harrison) who must explain to his present wife (Kay Hammond) why his late wife (Constance Cummings) has decided to haunt them. Margaret Rutherford plays the wacky medium who has brought the poor fellow’s problems about. The players are all in top form. A delightful fantasy, adapted from Coward’s popular stage play.
BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945) is one of the finest romantic films ever produced, an absorbing love story, adapted from Coward’s play, STILL LIFE.
The plot is very simple. Married doctor Trevor Howard and suburban housewife Celia Johnson happen to meet on a train platform and enter into a quietly passionate, ultimately, doomed, love affair.
This collection includes a fabulous cornucopia of extras. Among them are new interviews on all the films with Noel Coward scholar Barry Day, a 2010 interview with cinematographer/screenwriter/producer Ronald Neame, documentaries on the making of IN WHICH WE SERVE and BRIEF ENCOUNTER, a 1971 television documentary on David Lean, a 1969 audio conversation between Coward and Richard Attenborough, a 1992 British television show about the life and career of Coward and much more, including a 46 page booklet filled with essays about the various movies and the talented men who made them.
© Michael B. Druxman
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|Criterion’s celebration of David Lean and Noel Coward may be the year’s best box set,
Criterion, who probably makes more film fans happier than any other company, has just released David Lean Directs Noel Coward. An odd pairing, at first glance—the man who directed such epics as Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and The Bridge on the River Kwai—with the premier light comedy actor/author/composer of the twentieth century. Even odder is the choice of material: A world class war story about the sinking of a ship; a world class romance about lost love; a world class picture of the British lower-middle class; and the world class comedy fantasy of the last century, respectively In Which We Serve, Brief Encounter, This Happy Breed and Blithe Spirit. Perhaps even more surprising is that all four were made during a period of about three years, from 1942 to 1945.
Briefly, all four films are extraordinary examples of propaganda at its best. Lean and Coward were both fervently patriotic, and England was the underdog at the time in a war. Lean was just beginning his astonishing career; Coward had just finished a dozen or so years of incredible success on the stage, but considerably less success, or even attempts, at a film career. In 1941, Germany bombed London for 57 consecutive evenings.
Coward wrote and Lean directed these films, with Coward playing the lead for In Which We Serve. Coward also produced, wrote the screenplay, composed the score, and officially codirected, though he handed the reigns to Lean in his directorial debut.
Coward was entertaining the troops during the shooting of the other three films, yet his mark is clearly visible in each films. The cameraman for the quartet was Ronald Neame, perhaps less a household name, yet later the director such gems as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, I Could Go on Singing and The Horse’s Mouth.
In Which We Serve is the story of a ship, sunk off the coast of Crete during the war. Based on incidences in the life of Coward’s great friend Lord Louis Mountbatten, flashbacks tell the story of the few remaining survivors, clinging to a lifeboat, waiting for rescue. In lesser hands, this narrative technique would be worse than banal, but the creators, relying so very strongly on flashbacks, allow the audience to see war through the eyes of the women left at home, waiting, not knowing when or if their sons, husbands or boyfriends will return.
Brief Encounter is based on a slight one-act play Coward wrote for Tonight at 8:30 entitled Still Life. A man and a woman, both more or less happily married to other people, meet quite by accident in a train station. To the overused strains of Rachmaninoff, they fall hopelessly, helplessly and enormously in lover. Again, in lesser hands, this stiff-upper-lip-do-the-right-thing sort of drama could be cloying and irritating, but the moral quandary this couple feels somehow slips into the audience’s brain, and the horrible realization that although love is usually just nifty, it can cause extraordinary heartache and pain. Parenthetically, Andre Previn has just turned this text into an opera.
This Happy Breed, an ordinary story about an ordinary family living an ordinary life just before the war, grabs the audience with its specificity and universality, until the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the small pains and pleasures of everyday life insinuates into the audience’s psyche. Based on an early play of Coward and drawing on his own lower-middle class background, the triumph here is really Robert Newton and Celia Johnson as the father and mother experiencing the trials and triumphs of everyday life.
The final film, Blithe Spirit, is perhaps the most well known. Rex Harrison stars as an author, re-married after the death of his first wife, hiring psychic Margaret Rutherford to perform a séance so he can learn the lingo of the telepathic trade for his new book. Alas, Madame Arcarti, Rutherford’s character, somewhat ineptly brings back the ghost of his first wife, with hilarity and confusion ensuing.
Criterion’s restruck prints are wonderful, the extras are pretty astounding, with the complete South Bank show on Coward and some lovely interviews with author and critic Barry Day who has made Coward very much something of his own cottage industry. Day resembles someone who might be in an unexpurgated Alice in Wonderland, but has that fuzzy British charm which can be so endearing. All in all, we owe a deep debt of gratitude to Criterion.
Now, if we could get them to clean up and release the nearly unavailable films Coward acted in, such as The Scoundrel, The Astonished Heart, and perhaps even the television version of Blithe Spirit?
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