IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT: 40TH ANNIVERSARY (Mirisch Company 1967) MGM/Fox Home Entertainment

Norman Jewison’s provocative thriller, In The Heat of the Night (1967) is a super-charged melodrama about bigotry and hatred in the new south. The film stars Sidney Poitier as Det. Virgil Tibbs, an out of state professional who arrives in town for leisure only to find himself personally involved in the investigation of a racially motivated murder.

The story opens in the backwood enclave of Sparta Mississippi (actually a town in Illinois) with police officer Sam Wood (Warren Oates) discovering the abandoned corpse of industrialist, Philip Colbert (Jack Teter) in a lonely alley. Ordered by his superior officer, Sheriff Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) to round up unusual looking suspects, Wood mistakenly arrests Virgil Tibbs who, having just visited his mother, is waiting at the platform for the midnight train to roll into town.

Gillespie is chagrined when he allows his own racial prejudice to assume Tibbs is his prime suspect based solely on the color of his skin. But his temper is brought to a boiling point when he is unable to solve the murder by himself. After providing invaluable leads on the case, Tibbs is ordered by Gillespie to get out of town. However, Colbert’s widow, Leslie (Lee Grant) is determined that Tibbs remain on and assist the local authorities.

But the race for the killer turns ugly when Gillespie overlooks the most obvious choice, Eric Endicott (Larry Gates) in favor of pinning the charge on an innocent man, Harvey Oberst (Scott Wilson) instead.Perhaps, the most liberating aspect of the film when viewed today is that it uses race in support of a very solid story rather than allowing the issue itself to become the modus operands for the entire piece.

The theatrical release of In The Heat of the Night cinematically marks the cusp of the civil rights movement – feeding into social frustrations of the era, yet coming down not quite so hard as one might expect with its own message. What is remarkable about the Stirling Silliphant screenplay is how it manages draws parallels between Tibbs and Gillespie – each viewing the law from opposing vantages.

Both Poitier and Steiger ignite the screen with an intensity rarely seen, making their unlikely bond and ultimate friendship all the more genuine and satisfying. Poitier is an obvious choice for Tibb’s, his easy going way initially branding Tibbs a pushover in Gillespie’s eyes.

Rod Steiger's Gillespie is a pompous ‘law man’ with more mouth than conviction. However, his burgeoning respect for Tibbs despite being immersed in the racist attitudes of his peers, is superbly portrayed by Steiger, branding Gillespie as something of a renaissance man.

Producer Walter Mirisch reportedly recognized the potential in John Ball’s novel immediately but had his misgivings about whether United Artists would be willing to pick up his tab. He had little to fear. After producing back to back hits for the studio, UA was more than interested in anything Mirisch had to offer. Their gamble and his paid off. In the Heat of the Night won Oscars for Steiger’s searing performance and Best Picture.

Quincy Jone’s jazzy soundtrack captures the immediacy and mounting tensions in Stirling Silliphant’s emotionally charged screenplay. In the late 1980s In The Heat of the Night became a successful prime time television series starring Carroll O’Connor. But by then, the tempestuousness between Gillespie and Tibbs had been largely diffused.

WHY ISN'T THIS ON BLU-RAY?
MGM Home Video 40th Anniversary re-release is the second outing for In The Heat if the Night. But this edition is superior in all aspects to the original offering. Image quality still has room for improvement, however. Colors are much more bold and pronounced this time around. Flesh tones remain slightly too pink in some scenes and garishly orange in others. Sidney Poitier’s skin tones adopt a rather curious reddish hue. Contrast levels are much stronger on this re-issued disc with deep blacks. Whites remain slightly yellowish.

Although digital anomalies have been greatly tempered from the previous release, pixelization and edge enhancement persist in two scene; Virgil’s examination of Colbert’s body at the morgue and the final confession sequence. In the first scene, a curious aliasing creates distracting halos around mortician Ted Ulam (Arthur Mallet). The end shot of this scene at the morgue also suddenly becomes blurry and out of focus as Gillespie leaves to pursue another lead on the case.

Both anomalies break apart background information and are rather distracting. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital, dated, but adequately rendered. Extras include an audio commentary by Jewison and Grant that is a direct import from the previous release. There’s also a comprehensive ‘making of’ documentary and a featurette on Quincy Jones’ contribution to the film. Recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4

VIDEO/AUDIO
3

EXTRAS
3

KNOCKED UP (Universal 2007) Universal Home Video

What would you do if you became pregnant by an oversexed bong-snorting gross pig of a human being after one drunken night of bar-hopping debauchery?

Such is the question proposed in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up (2007) a mindlessly indoctrinating, severely cliched and strained, weak-premised regurgitation of that 'what if' and 'day after' scenario. The film is populated by thoughtless/clueless individuals who wouldn’t be able to discover their own navels with two hands and a compass. This movie is as primary in its objectives and painfully obvious in its execution as any clap-trap about twenty-somethings who should never become parents.

Apatow’s screenplay bombards the audience with an endless line up of 'go for the crotch' humour with the inevitable and largely predictable 'happy ending' tacked on for good measure. The script is not only simplistic, but as much in bad taste as it left a bad taste with this critic. One vagina joke can be funny. Two is 'oh, please' and move the humor above the equator. After all, we're not all five years old who just discovered what our hoo-hoos and pee shooters can be used for.

However, Apatow’s pedestrian screenplay degenerates into an anemic backdrop, merely exploited for the insertion of the F-word into every second or third line of boring dialogue and genuinely ‘bad’ writing. Advice to future script writers: if you can't make an audience laugh without employing obscenities then your lines ARE NOT FUNNY to begin with and Knocked Up is about as unfunny as movies get.

The story opens with attractive Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl), a reporter for E!, throwing caution – and the good sense God gave a lemon – to the wind when she decides to hook up with horn-dog off his leash, Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) inside a popular L.A. night spot.

Aside: there’s a reason why managers of nightclubs universally ascribe a design strategy of loud music and dim strobe lighting to their establishments: both – in conjunction with liquor libations - dull and numb the senses.

Alison gets comfortably numb, then settles into a slightly censored sex romp. There's an overly long close-up of Ben’s exposed butt crack the next morning that is as pointless as it is unattractive.

From here, the plot becomes so predictable one could be in a coma and still figure it out – especially given the film’s title. Alison discovers she’s pregnant. Oh, big surprise! She decides to tell Ben, have the baby and hope for the best. Of course, nothing proves quite as easy as the first night’s indiscretion. Ben, a druggy dropout with no future and no hope of one, isn’t father material. He’s just a sperm donor with a potty-mouth and devil-may-care attitude about everything.

Yet, the film cannot even be honest about his character. Anyone smoking as much pot as Ben does would hardly be able to rattle off his own name, much less provide the uninterrupted angry litany of ‘crotch’ humour that philosophizes procreation into pornographic terminology - raw and unappealing.

Clearly, Apatow has no other purpose than to shock and repulse his audience with angry gross-out humour, and such a shame too, since Knocked Up does not even fulfill that basic function - having overplayed its hand in the first five minutes. Lest we forget, that funny and crude do not go hand in glove - and implied comments are always more memorable to an audience than obvious ones.

In the final analysis Knocked Up gets an 'F'. It doesn't stand for 'fantastic' or that other 'F-word'. From this critic it means, 'flat', 'flacid' and 'forgettable'! This movie is a Frisbee. Toss it with the trash because that’s exactly where it belongs. After seeing it once I hope never to see it again. I am trying to forget it now.

Universal Home Video’s transfer is adequate, but not outstanding. Although the anamorphic widescreen image can appear sharp with bright colors, overall it’s not quite as punchy as expected. Flesh tones particularly seem – at times – pasty and flat. There’s also a digitally harsh look to certain scenes; pronounced gritty and not very smooth. Contrast levels are adequately rendered.

Edge enhancement is detected in several scenes. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital and aggressive enough to encompass and sustain the abrasive dialogue. Extras include a litany of deleted/extended scenes, a guide to all the one line crotch humor and an audio commentary that, I must confess after seeing the film, I had zero interest indulging.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
0

VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5

EXTRAS
2.5

PINOCCHIO: Blu-ray (Walt Disney 1940) Disney Home Video

Walt Disney’s initial flush of success with Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937) was put to the test on his next animated project, the ambitiously mounted Pinocchio (1940). With its very adult and sophisticated themes, in many ways Pinocchio is a close cousin to James Whale’s Frankenstein; the tale by Carlo Collodi, much more a harrowing nightmare about the harshness of humanity pitted against a creature not of this world.

Like Frankenstein, all the antagonists in Pinocchio are adult male authority figures – each devious, threatening and running amuck in their own social depravity – determined even - to ensure that the oddity in their midst is not allowed to assimilate into the human world.

The narrative eventually ironed out by Ted Sears, Otto Englander, Webb Smith, William Cottrell, Joseph Sabo, Erdman Penner and Aurelius Battaglia consolidates the Collodi tale into three separate vignettes: the first, charting Pinocchio’s (voiced by Dickie Jones) abduction by Honest John (Walter Catlett) and Gideon (Mel Blanc) and his brief career as an actor in Stromboli’s (Charles Judel) traveling menagerie of puppets. However, apart from a few brief moments where the full wrath of Stromboli is revealed, this opening vignette is the most light-hearted of all three represented in the film.

The second sequence is terrifying to say the least. Pinocchio’s naïveté is ruthlessly exploited by the delinquent, Lampwick (Frankie Darro). The two boys are taken by The Coachman (Charles Judel also) to Pleasure Island – a veritable paradise of adolescent decadence. After a night of vapid debaucheries, Lampwick is transformed into a physical manifestation of the jackass he has been behaving, right before Pinocchio’s eyes.

The transformation is largely done in silhouette but is nevertheless frightening even to an adult audience. Pinocchio escapes his own complete transformation by diving off a cliff and swimming to safety – retaining a set of mule’s ears and a tail as his comeuppance. In the final sequence, Pinocchio returns home to discover that Geppetto (Christian Rub), his wood carver/father, has been swallowed by Monstro, the giant whale.

To offset the darkness of these adventures, Disney artisans developed and expanded the role of Jiminy Cricket. In Collodi’s original he is rather unceremoniously squashed by Pinocchio before the real story even begins. In the film, Jiminy (Cliff Edwards) not only survives, he assumes the function of Pinocchio’s conscience – a gift from The Blue Fairy (Evelyn Venable) who entrusts Jiminy with Pinocchio’s salvation from sin. However, Jiminy is far from innocent. At varying intervals in the narrative he is worldly, satirical and quite a scamp with the ladies – in short, a Chaplinesque creation representing man, woman and child all at once.

At a cost of $2 million, Pinocchio is technically and artistically superior to Disney's first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; its Oscar-winning ballad ‘When You Wish Upon A Star’ by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington married to stunning usage of Disney’s multiplane camera. Yet, the film only managed to recoup $3 million dollars at the box office; a colossal disappointment. In hindsight, what Walt ultimately forgot with Pinocchio is that audiences are suckers for love stories. Pinocchio has none. Today it is perhaps easier for us to appreciate the film as the immense artistic achievement it actually is.

There's no comparison between Disney's Bluray and the previously issued DVD. Color fidelity is superbly rendered on the Bluray. Fine detail is breathtaking. For the first time we can actually see brush strokes in the background paintings. The artist's care has been lovingly preserved. Age related artefacts have been eradicated for an image that is smooth and visually very film like. Film grain is very natural. This is an impeccable reference quality disc that will offer the young and old a superior home video presentation for many years to come.

If at all possible, the newly remastered DTS audio is even more of a revelation than anticipated. Mixed from mono 'sound stems' into a true stereophonic mix, the results are so life-like, so dimensional in their subtly nuanced spatial spread across the audio channels that I felt as though I was seeing and hearing the movie for the very first time.

Extras are extensive and include Disney's usual 'making of' documentary, a litany of vintage interviews, introductions by Walt, story boards and animation art, promotional materials, raw audio stems of songs and dialogue, still frame/live action footage and an immersive picture-in-picture audio commentary and theatrical trailers. This is truly the way this classic movie was meant to be seen and heard. What a fitting tribute to one of the finest films in the Disney canon. Kudos to everyone involved in this gargantuan restoration effort!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+

VIDEO/AUDIO
5+

EXTRAS
5+

FANTASIA/FANTASIA 2000: Blu-ray (Walt Disney 1940) Disney Home Video

By the late 1930s, Walt Disney faced a considerable dilemma in his fledgling animation empire. His current involvement on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had yet to be released and critics of the day were already earmarking the project as ‘Disney’s folly’ in reference to the massive amount of capital Walt had invested to bring his dream project to life.

But even more alarming to Walt in the summer of 1936 was the fact that his studio’s greatest asset; Mickey Mouse – once hailed as a star on par with the likes of Gable and Garbo - had fallen quietly out of public favor, thanks in part to Disney’s diversification into other projects that did not include Mickey. Hence, in the summer of 1937, Walt began plans to resurrect Mickey in a new short subject – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Incorporating the slant of a Silly Symphony, the short would be told entirely through music.

Unfortunately for Walt, the project quickly became far more costly in its development than any other short produced at the studio. A chance meeting with Philadelphia Symphony conductor Leopold Stokowski provided the answer. Why not make The Sorcerer’s Apprentice the centerpiece of a much larger film – a concert feature celebrating some of the most popular compositions ever written? The idea was inspiring and different to say the least. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was put on hold until after the release of Snow White.

A resounding success, Snow White earned enough money on its theatrical release to effectively put Disney Studios in the black. It also provided Walt with more than enough capital to produce his next two features; Pinocchio and Fantasia (1940). Today, Fantasia is widely regarded as one of the most ambitiously imaginative and fascinating departures in animation. However, at the time of its release it proved to be an incredible personal disappointment for Walt and a heavy financial flop that liquidated much of the studio’s prosperity.

The project was hard going from the beginning. Spurred on by initial excitement and Stokowski’s considerable involvement on the project, Walt put into development no less than twenty-four individual concepts for segments to be included in his ‘concert feature’ – only eight (Toccata and Fugue, The Nutcracker, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Rite of Spring, The Pastoral Symphony, Dance of the Hours and Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria) were fully formed in the final film.

In re-conceptualizing classical orchestrations into visual designs, Disney chose to step away from time-honored perceptions and interpretations by musicologists. However, to ensure that Fantasia would be taken seriously by the high brow set, and, to lend a certain amount of critical authority to his project, Walt employed noted music historian and critic, Deems Taylor to provide introspective narrations between each segment. Finally, to ensure the absolute integrity of the audio portion of his film, Walt also began ambitious experimentations with a then revolutionary six track stereo recording process he nicknamed ‘FantaSound.’

Indeed, the Hollywood and New York premieres of Fantasia were treated more like a night at the opera than an evening at the movies with lavish printed programs given out to guests quaffed in their night time finery. A specially designed stereo speaker system installed to reproduce the directionalized audio tracks recorded in FantaSound ensured maximum integrity in audio fidelity.

Unfortunately for Walt, the critics were all but unkind to his grand gesture. Those who had expected furry forest animals and cute cartoons a la Walt’s own Silly Symphonies were instead subjected to a fairly adult interpretation on everything from the creation of the world to demonic possession and hallowed resurrection.

Bewildered at how best to review such an ambitious and unprecedented break with tradition, many newspapers sent both a film and music critic into the theater on opening night to provide commentary; only to have the former emerge considerably alienated by the plot-less experience and the latter much insulted with Disney’s cheek in depicting hippos, minotaurs and goldfish indulging the likes of Dukas, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven.

Walt had intended that his ‘concert feature’ should always be an evolving masterwork with new segments constantly being added. However, following Fantasia’s disastrous general release all such plans were immediately scrapped. Henceforth, Disney would regard his masterpiece as a painful personal failure.

It was not until the late 1960s, shortly after Walt’s death, that a general re-release of Fantasia prompted not only considerable interest in the film but ultimately a total embracement of its brilliant audacity in concept and design. Today, Fantasia is rightfully regarded as one of Walt’s most stunningly surreal and ever-lasting grand experiments – indeed a fitting conclusion to a project that only Walt and his animators had initial faith in.

Disney's Blu-ray resurrects a stunningly beautiful visual presentation of Fantasia. Restored and remastered from the original negative, the image is startlingly beautiful, crisp and with vibrant color fidelity intact. The image is so sharp we can see the artist's brush strokes in backgrounds.

Disney has gone back to the original 'Fantasound' stereophonic stems for a completely new DTS audio restoration. Although understandably dated, the recaptured fidelity in this recording is remarkable. Extras are a tad disappointing. The David Ogden Stiers documentary on the making of the film that was available on Disney's original DVD release has been omitted in favour of including three separate audio commentaries, one from film historian Brian Sibley, another featuring Scott McQueen, Roy Disney, John Canemaker and James Levine, and a third comprised of interviews conducted with Walt over the years.

There's also a pair of brief featurettes, one on the Schultheis Notebook - a reproduction of the chronicle by Herman Schultheis that documents how certain animated effects were created for the film, and another on the newly inaugurated Disney Family Museum. This Blu-ray offering of Fantasia also includes its sequel Fantasia 2000 (given its own separate review on this site) as well as DVD copies of both movies. Highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+

VIDEO/AUDIO
5

EXTRAS
3.5

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (Walt Disney 1954) Disney Home Video

In the mid-1950s, Walt stunned the Hollywood community with an ambitious diversification of his empire. A decade earlier, the studio had undertaken the duties of producing training films for the U.S. government. With war’s end, Walt re-entered the animation market to great critical acclaim. He also dove headlong into the fledgling new medium of television and succeeded there where other studios had miserably failed. Furthermore, Walt was nearing completion on his most ambitious project to date – the theme park; Disneyland.

Indeed, the Disney name seemed to be everywhere – its marketability and longevity sustained by the kindly words and wisdom of a visionary who continued to lay the responsibility for the whole massive enterprise squarely on the diminutive shoulders of a mouse named Mickey.

So, perhaps in hindsight, it only seems natural that Walt would also eventually get around to tackling live action movies. His earlier efforts in combining live action and animation (Song of the South 1946, So Dear To My Heart 1948) had been met with sustained enthusiasm. Yet, he longed to make a more adult film.

With director Richard Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954) Disney achieved that goal with a grandly amusing revision on Jules Verne’s classic futurist novel. The book presents a series of disjointed vignettes in undersea adventure, but without a narrative thread to link them all together.

In re-conceptualizing Verne for the movies, screenwriter Earl Felton introduced a trio of unlikely comrades who would serve as the constant travelers in the filmic journey; harpooner Ned Land (Kirk Douglas), marine biologist, Prof. Pierre Arronax (Paul Lukas) and his associate, Conseil (Peter Lorre).

Fascinated by tales of a sea monster reeking havoc on merchant vessels, Arronax, Land and Conseil survive their own brush with death when their ship is struck broadside. They later realize that the creature responsible for their ship’s destruction is actually a submersible iron and steel creation built by isolationist Captain Nemo (James Mason). The prodigal reject of tortuous experiences in a salt mine, Nemo is determined that man’s corruption and inhumanity on land shall not conquer the sea. To this end, he has set himself and his crew on a path in which the most telling casualty has been his own soul.

At first, Nemo is perfectly content to let Ned and Conseil drown. However, he rethinks his murderous act and instead opens his home – the Nautilus submarine – to Arronax, whom he respects as a scientist, and his compatriots. The three men are taken below as Nemo’s forced guests, Ned resenting the captain almost from the start and plotting an escape at every opportunity. Eventually, the men learn to regard one another with more than mere contempt – a sobering acceptance that humanizes Nemo, but ultimately leads to his own demise.

Well aware that his reputation as a purveyor of legitimate live action drama was at stake, Walt chose to populate his feature with intense dramatic talents. Mason is superb as the embattled tragic figure lost at sea even as his ship has afforded him a God-like autonomy from the rest of the world. Douglas and Lorre have a genuine chemistry that provides much needed humor to lighten the mood and tone of the story. Lukas is perhaps the least engaging of the film’s stars – his private battle with memory loss leading to many a troubled moment on set throughout the production.

In an era of big scale grand entertainments, Walt realized that 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea could not merely be large scale to compete – it had to be ‘epic.’ As his own studio facilities were not large enough to house the project, work progressed with an ambitious location shoot in the tropics. Disney further hedged his bets by renting stages at 20th Century Fox and by constructing a special sound stage at the Disney Studio with an ‘effects lab’ to orchestrate and coordinate the climactic squid battle.

This spectacular attack by a giant octopus that threatens life and limb of the crew of the Nautilus is one of the finest SFX achievements ever put on film. Yet, bringing it to life proved problematic to near impossible. After an unconvincing first attempt set against a picturesque fiery sunset, the Disney artisans restaged the entire sequence at great expense during a violent storm at sea, with rain and wind effects concealing many of the shortcomings inherent in the uncooperative mechanical apparatus.

Director Fleischer, the son of Disney’s early rival in animation, Max Fleischer, was at first apprehensive about accepting the assignment. He was convinced by his father to take the job and the result remains one of the Disney’s most satisfying undertakings in the realm of live action. As Disney’s ambitious caprice, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea became the most expensive film ever made by a major Hollywood studio – topping the production costs on David O. Selznick’s Gone With The Wind (1939). It would continue to hold that dubious distinction until Fox’s Cleopatra (1963).


WHY ISN'T THIS ON BLU-RAY YET?
Disney DVD delivers the goods on a 2-disc Special Edition. The anamorphic Cinemascope image is breathtaking with vibrant, beautifully saturated colors, perfectly balanced contrast levels and fine details fully realized throughout. Occasionally, a hint of edge enhancement intrudes on an otherwise near flawless visual presentation that will surely NOT disappoint.


The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital of the original six track magnetic stereo and, despite inherent shortcomings, provides a very visceral fidelity that is both engaging and enveloping.Extras on disc 2 include an extensive retrospective documentary with a ship full of extra footage included aborted first attempts at the squid sequence, as well as interviews with surviving cast and crew.


There’s also several vintage featurettes, short subjects, a ‘juke box’ selection of musical cues, press and promo junket materials and the film’s original theatrical trailer to sink into. This effort from the Disney stable comes highly recommended!


FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4

VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5

EXTRAS
5

OLD YELLER (Walt Disney 1957) Disney Home Video

Based on Fred Gipson’s poignant novel, Walt Disney’s Old Yeller (1957) is a heart-wrenching drama about two brothers, Travis (Tommy Kirk) and Arliss Coates (Kevin Corcoran) and their intimate relationship with the family’s faithful golden retriever – Yeller (slang for ‘yellow’).

Arliss is always getting into trouble – engaging wild bears, skunks and other critters in the brush, only to be saved in the nick of time by Yeller. When the boys’ father, Jim (Fess Parker) leaves on an expedition, mother Katie (Dorothy McGuire) becomes the head of the household. Set against a rugged wilderness of desperadoes, wild animals and other natural disasters, the story unfolds in poignant and bittersweet vignettes that recall the coming of age from boys into men.

This is one of Disney’s first attempts at capturing the truth of youth rather than ‘Disney-fying’ it through idealism run amuck (as had been done in Song of the South 1946 and later in Pollyanna 1960). Frank, charming – yet, at times dark and haunting, Old Yeller is perhaps one of the finest examples of storytelling to emerge from the Disney stable – or, for that matter, Hollywood in general. It deserves an honorable place in the echelons of family entertainment.

WHY ISN'T THIS ON BLU-RAY YET?

Unfortunately for us all, this disc isn't Disney's best attempt by a long shot - despite being advertised as part of their 2-disc (but short lived) “Vault Disney” series. In fact, visually it's not even close to what a film like Old Yeller truly deserves.The print is very softly focused, while oddly enough still managing to be riddled with edge enhancement, aliasing and shimmering of fine details.

There is a lot of pixelization throughout the image that breaks up fine detail. Color is poorly balanced, betraying the lushness of many of the outdoor scenes, with greens in grass and trees shifting color from brownish beige to muddy beige. Flesh tones are never natural but appear too, too orange. Fine detail is generally lost in the darker scenes.

The audio has been remixed to stereo but is very strident and forward sounding. At times, it’s painful on the ears and really does not hold up to the fidelity of this period in Disney’s film making.Disney does get top marks for their supplemental materials; very thorough documentaries, isolated scores, vintage advertising and short subjects, a gallery of stills, trailers and television spots and interviews with the surviving cast members. What more could anybody ask for? A better print of the film, sadly!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO
2.5

EXTRAS
5

SLEEPING BEAUTY: Blu-ray (Walt Disney 1959) Disney Home Video

One of the studios’ most elaborately conceived and lavishly produced animated features – if not the most elaborate of all time – in retrospect Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959) was a $6,000,000.00 catastrophe 6 years in the making. Although Sleeping Beauty was the second most successful film release in 1959 (behind only MGM's Ben-Hur) its enormous production costs threatened to close the studio. Determined to top all previous efforts the animators dove headstrong and ink and pen first into the ornate artistic trappings of this delicate fairytale.

In spirit at least, the story favours previous Disney successes, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Cinderella (1950). Sleeping Beauty’s narrative is derives from another Charles Perrault fairytale; this one concerning the Princess Aurora (voice by Mary Costa) who, after pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel must await true love’s kiss to awaken her from deep sleep. Although the artistic conception of Sleeping Beauty proved superior to anything the animators had achieved on film, the fundamental failing on the project was Walt’s own lack of input during the film's lengthy gestation period.

One could hardly blame Walt. Throughout the 1950s he was increasingly embroiled in several groundbreaking ventures, not the least, his opening of Anaheim's ‘Disneyland’. His weekly television series (The Mickey Mouse Club, The Legend of Zorro, and Davey Crockett) required constant supervision. His foray into live action film making (20,000 Leagues, Swiss Family Robinson) had surprised the industry with an initial critical and financial success.

However, as with most situations where all pistons fire simultaneously, the strain proved too great. As a result, Sleeping Beauty was a film that Walt gallantly passed on – at least for the most part – to his trusted animators and director, Clyde Geronimi. It was Disney’s second widescreen feature to date; his first in Technirama (Technicolor’s patented response to Fox’s Cinemascope which Disney had licensed for Lady and the Tramp).

Today, the most impressive aspects of Sleeping Beauty are its linear character designs by Marc Davis and mind-boggling detailed backgrounds painted by scenarist Eyvind Earle, whose angular modernist approach is a startling departure from any animation attempted before or since. So too, is the film blessed with a terrifying villainess: the gargoyle/sorceress - Maleficent.

Yet, in the grandeur of 70mm Technirama, in every way Sleeping Beauty’s shortcomings become bigger rather than better. The three good fairies, Flora (Verna Felton), Fauna (Barbara Jo Allen) and Merryweather (Barbara Luddy) are featureless creations, easily interchangeable and only rarely engaging. Aurora and Prince Philip (Bill Shirley) are overshadowed, or perhaps even eclipsed by the need for big scenes with lots of stunningly beautiful artwork to ogle when the narrative lags or simply dissolves into the background.

The most spectacular sequence in the film is Philip’s escape from Maleficent’s castle and subsequent battle with a terrifying fire-breathing dragon. But this moment comes too late in the story to overpower all the passive entertainment that has gone before. In the final analysis, Sleeping Beauty was regarded as an expensive footnote rather than a penultimate triumph.

Disney's Blu-ray is breathtaking. Colors are vibrant and bright, allowing the original artistry to shine through. The image is exceptionally sharp, quite smooth and utterly captivating.The newly mastered DTS audio delivers a robust aural experience not to be missed – particularly during the climactic battle with the dragon.

Extras are memorable and plentiful. We get the previously released ‘Once Upon A Dream’ featurette and the all new 'making of' documentary as well as a picture-in-picture audio commentary, outtakes, extensive gallery of artwork, sketches, promotional materials and so on, the original theatrical trailer and other intros from Walt. Once again, the Disney organization has done an exemplary job of fleshing out the historical record on a classic Disney animated feature. This is a comprehensive package that will surely NOT disappoint!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO
5+

EXTRAS
5+

POLLYANNA (Walt Disney (1960) Disney Home Video

Removed from the stigma of saccharine and sweetness that followed the 1913 publication of Eleanor H. Porter’s classic novel, Walt Disney’s Pollyanna (1960) is an exuberant, life-affirming portrait of turn of the century America, extolling the virtues that Walt himself held so dear and brought to the screen with introspection and poignancy.

Director David Swift auditioned over 300 young girls before discovering 13 year old Haley Mills – the virtual unknown who had dazzled critics opposite her father John Mills in Tiger Bay (1959). The casting of Haley in the aforementioned seems to have been quite accidental. However, the choice of Mills for Pollyanna was as exacting as it was deliberate.

To say that Walt fell in love with Haley’s effervescence is not an overstatement. Following her audition for Pollyanna, Disney would place the diminutive child under an exclusive 5 year contract. With the understanding that words alone do not a great motion picture make, director/writer Swift’s screenplay greatly tempered much of the prosaic prose in Porter’s beloved original. Instead, the film plays to Haley's strengths as an actress, her intuition and uncanny charm. Effortlessly she puts forth and sells the concept of this girl who is ‘too gosh darn glad’ about everything and everyone.

The story opens with Pollyanna Whittier’s (Haley Mills) arrival to the town of Harrington, ruled by her Aunt Polly (Jane Wyman). It seems the Harringtons all but built the town and Polly’s stature in the community is wildly regarded, or at the very least feared, by the town’s folk. She even exudes influence over the church and Reverend Ford (Karl Malden). Precocious and pleasant to a fault, Pollyanna most definitely does not seem to fit in. She is relegated to the attic of Polly’s formidable mansion but does not remain there for very long.

Working her polite optimism into the hearts of curmudgeonly Mrs. Snow (Agnes Moorehead) and Mr. Pendergast (Adolphe Menjou), Pollyanna quietly aligns herself with Aunt Polly’s former suitor – Dr. Edmund Chilton (Richard Egan). Seems Polly’s wounded heart after her bitter break up with Chilton has largely been the cause for her austere façade. Eventually, Pollyanna breaks down her Aunt’s defenses, but not without considerable expense to her own well being.

In the Porter novel, Pollyanna is struck by an automobile and brought back to Aunt Polly’s by Dr. Chilton who informs the household that she will never walk again. The film presents a more dramatic and, on the whole, satisfying conclusion. Having been instructed by Polly not to attend the town’s festival, Pollyanna defies her edict, is the belle of the evening, then tragically falls from the tree outside her bedroom window as she attempts sneek back in undetected.

Swift’s revision makes Aunt Polly a direct accomplice to Pollyanna’s demise. As the audience, we dislike her more and are therefore even more miraculously moved when Polly finally realizes what a fool she has been with her cold ambivalence in the face of such buoyant human kindness.

At its very heart, Pollyanna is a movie imbued with adult situations. Yet it illustrates how the basic naiveté of an innocent can teach the more cynical adults around her the fundamental power of believing in the goodness of all mankind. Indeed, that very quality of sustained purity must have been what had attracted both Walt and director Swift to the project. However, and in spite of an all star cast that includes such accomplished thespians as Donald Crisp and Edward Platt, the principle accolade most deserving for the film’s continued success belongs to Haley Mills.

It is her unflinchingly frank, honest and above all else – genuine – performance that continues to add texture and meaning to a character rather simplistically drawn in the Porter book. Reportedly, Haley’s father, John pulled her aside on the first day of shooting to suggest she was a “great white cabbage” – by that, he meant that her acting was dull! Evidently, this minor scolding – if one was, in fact, needed – seems to have been taken to heart. Mills is a sheer delight, her every nuance colored to subtle perfection.

Pollyanna was part of the studio’s short-lived ‘Vault Disney’ Collection. The 2-disc DVD transfer is problematic on several levels. First, the opening credit sequence appears to have been formatted and framed incorrectly, with some of the titles running off the top and bottom of the screen. Despite being advertised as a digital restoration, the image remains thick, with a considerable loss of fine details, soft focus and desaturated and rather pasty color fidelity throughout.

An obvious amount of pixelization and edge enhancement also intrudes for a visual presentation that is not very smooth. The curiosity of these shortcomings is that on disc 2’s ‘making of’ featurette – and on the restoration comparison - snippets of the actual film (incorrectly reformatted in full frame) nevertheless appear to have a more refined visual characteristic wholly absent of all the aforementioned shortcomings inherent in the film presentation itself.

The audio on Disc 1 has been remixed to stereo but exhibits an obvious dated quality. Extras on disc 2 are extensive to say the least, encompassing any and all aspects of the film’s creation; offering rare audio outtakes, recordings, vintage stills, press and promotion material, theatrical trailers and behind the scenes footage never before made available to home video. As far as the extras go – Disney gets top marks. The quality of the film, unfortunately, falls far from expectation.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4

VIDEO/AUDIO
3

EXTRAS
3.5

SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (Walt Disney 1960) Disney Home Video

Walt Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson (1960) is perfect family entertainment; a grand scale action/adventure film that quite simply overwhelms the first time viewer with its spectacular locations and compelling melodrama. A gargantuan undertaking that took cast and crew half way around the world to the remote island of Tobago, Walt was determined - at considerable expense - to make a superior adaptation of Johann David Wyss’ novel.

First published in 1812, the book had already been interpreted on film in 1940 but with limited appeal. To succeed, Walt understood that director Ken Annakin’s remake would have to be a much needed visual improvement on the original.

Unfortunately for cast and crew, the prospect of shooting on an island paradise quickly evaporated into bouts of inclement weather and an outbreak of typhoid that made cast and crew sick and threatened the production schedule. The shoot was further complicated by a menagerie of uncooperative live animals and a very cranky British crew who complained incessantly about their working conditions.

Expensive delays were exacerbated in post production as well, when it was discovered that superfluous background noise necessitated the post syncing of virtually the entire movie's dialogue once cast and crew had returned to the relative safety of Burbank.

The story begins with an epic wreck. En route from their native Switzerland – to flee the Napoleonic wars and make their way in New Guinea, the Robinsons; mother (Dorothy McGuire), father (John Mills) and their three sons, Fritz (James MacArthur), Ernst (Tommy Kirk) and Francis (Kevin Corcoran) find themselves at the mercy of a perilous storm. To avoid an imminent pirate attack, the captain and crew abandon their ship, leaving the Robinson’s to drown.

Fortunately, the ship runs aground off the coast of a deserted island. After acquainting themselves with the wild life and perils of isolation, Father, Fritz and Ernst salvage remnants of the vessel and together the family builds a lavish house in the tree tops. However, the time comes when Mother must face facts; that they may never be discovered unless the family takes initiative to seek out their own rescue. Reluctantly, she allows Ernst and Fritz to take a man-made canoe and chart the course of the island.

The boat, alas, is not sea worthy and the brothers find themselves once more at the mercy of marauding pirates led by Kuala (Sessue Hayakawa). They rescue ‘Bertie’ (Janet Munro) a captive from another ship they assume is boy, only to realize much later that he is a she; Roberta – the daughter of the captain. This discovery sets up what is essentially the last act of the story; a romantic triangle between Fritz, Ernst and Roberta.

Those believing that many of the integrated conflicts between man and beast were staged with stunt doubles or fake animals should reconsider that assessment. Not only were all the animals featured in the film real, but at one point in the film, James MacArthur had to battle a real live anaconda in a mercilessly polluted swamp. Furthermore, the tethered tiger languishing in his pit for another sequence involving a trap set for the pirates evidently had enough of his caged surroundings one afternoon, lunging full force into the camera and crew before temporarily escaping into the jungle.

Despite these harsh uncivilized surroundings, the lush cinematography of Bacolet Beach in Tobago delivers an eye-appealing set of circumstances – as evergreen and fragrant as any smart holiday in the tropics. Lowell S. Hawley’s screenplay provides for the prerequisite Disney diversions while pruning down the Robinson family tree by one; in Wyss’s novel there is also a son named Jack.

Swiss Family Robinson is part of the now defunct 2-disc ‘Vault Disney’ collection. The quality of its anamorphic image leaves something to be desired. The opening title sequence appears to be formatted incorrectly. It registers in conventional – if slightly cropped - Cinemascope while the rest of the film is reproduced in a Todd A-O ratio – neither remaining faithful to the Panavision identifier references in the opening credits.

Though color fidelity can be nicely rendered, there are several key sequences in which the dense green foliage of Tobago suddenly renders muddy and undistinguishable brownish beige. Flesh tones are often too orange. There is a considerable amount of video noise in background information and a slight shimmering of fine details. Age related artifacts unexpectedly crop up from time to time and prove rather distracting. The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital remastering of the original Panavision 6-track stereo masters – adequate but not outstanding.

Extras on disc two include a superbly produced ‘making of’ documentary, personal reflections from James McArthur, audio outtakes, song recordings, a vintage reel, biographies on the stars, audio commentary and theatrical trailers. Once again, Disney DVD gets high marks for its extras, but its visual representation of the actual film falls miserably short of expectations.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5

VIDEO/AUDIO
3

EXTRAS
3.5

THE PARENT TRAP (Walt Disney 1961) Disney Home Video

Based on a German novelette, David Swift’s The Parent Trap (1961) is a most delightful petty larceny – a light-hearted family entertainment that convincingly sells its star, Haley Mills as two people; twin sisters Sharon and Susan McKendrick. Sharon has been raised in Boston by her straight-laced mother, Margaret (Maureen O’Hara); Susan, as something of a tomboy by her outgoing father, Mitch (Brian Keith) in sunny California.

Neither girl has any idea that they have a twin living on the other side of the country until a chance meeting at summer camp leads to a fortuitous life-altering decision.The twins will switch identities – not only to experience life with the other parent they’ve never known, but in the hopes of reuniting mom and dad into one happy family once again.

One problem; Mitch is engaged to Vicki Robinson (Joanna Barnes), a ravenous fashion-plate who cannot wait to get her hands on Mitch and his money. The girls make a pack to destroy their father's relationship by making him see just how shallow and unattractive Vicki really is.

Director David Swift is quite adept at handling both the comedy and melodrama in this sincere, if lighthearted romp. There’s a remarkable weight and an emotional swell to the bittersweet first meet between Sharon and Susan at summer camp, and also, to those initial scenes where each girl meets her estranged parent for the first time since birth.

That the rest of the screenplay degenerates into fluffy lampoon and mild screwball comedy is not insurmountable to the film's overall enjoyment. Although it may be Ub Iwerks magnificent usage of the split screen process and optical printer that effectively manages to make two Haley Mills out of one on the screen, the film clings together primarily because of Mills’ masterful and convincing performances as both siblings. We believe that Haley is two separate people with conflicting personalities.

Brian Keith and Maureen O’Hara are old pros. They have genuine on screen chemistry as the feuding couple destined to get back together. Stellar performances from veteran actors, Cathleen Nesbit (as grandmother Louise), Charles Ruggles (grandpa Charles), Una Merkel (Verbena, the housekeeper) and Leo G. Carroll (Rev. Dr. Mosley) round out this charming childhood classic on a high note.

The Sherman Brothers contribute two great musical compositions to augment this tale: the chart topping teen pop hit ‘Let’s Get Together’ and the more enduring romantic ballad ‘For Now, For Always’ regrettably only heard in its truncated version at the end of the film.

WHY ISN'T THIS ON BLU-RAY YET?
Released as part of the short-lived ‘Vault Disney’ series, The Parent Trap has been remastered with less than stellar results. Although the anamorphic widescreen DVD can exhibit a rather refined image with bold vibrant colors, many scenes – particularly those in which the crude split screen technique illustrates both sisters in one shot – exhibit an excessively grainy image with muddy colors and more than a hint of pixelization.

Overall, the image is not very smooth. Age related artefacts are prevalent and occasionally distracting. The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital remix, exhibiting a strident sonic characteristic. Extras include a detailed ‘making of’ documentary with interviews from surviving cast and crew, isolated music tracks, short subjects and vintage featurettes.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4

VIDEO/AUDIO
3

EXTRAS
4

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIANS (Walt Disney 1961) Disney Home Video

Sigmund Freud would probably make much of the fact that the greatest of all Walt Disney’s animated movies derive at least part of their enduring legacy and fame from a keenly wicked villainess. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) is no exception.

After a rather bland and coyly romantic opening involving dalmatian Pongo’s (voiced by Rod Taylor) quest for a perfect partner for his human – struggling song writer, Roger (Ben Wright) - we are introduced to arguably the most perversely evil of all Disney’s wicked witches with a capital ‘b’ – Cruella de Vil (Betty Lou Gerson).

Based on the novel by Dodie Smith, One Hundred and One Dalmatians central narrative is tailor-made for a Disney adaptation; simple, affecting and fun. Pongo and Roger meet Anita (Lisa Davis) and her dalmatian, Perdita (Cate Bauer) while on a frenetic jaunt through the park. After some initial badinage, Roger and Anita are married – setting up house in a modest London flat.

Enter Cruella de Vil, Anita’s old college chum. After spying Pongo and Perdita’s stunning spotted fur, the old gargoyle gets a novel idea. Why not make a coat from their skins and those of their, as yet unborn, puppies? Naturally, Rogers is against the idea. So, Cruella hires a pair of clods; Horace (Frederick Warlock) and Jasper (J. Pat O’Malley) to kidnap the pups and bring them all back to her dilapidated country estate – Hell Hall where ostensibly she’ll have them ‘poisoned, drowned and bashed in the head.’

From start to finish the film is a charming and refreshing departure from Walt’s usually formulaic fairytale fodder. Indeed, One Hundred and One Dalmatians ventures farthest into the 20th century of any Disney film to date. This is the first of Walt’s animated masterpieces to forgo a musical program with the exception of Mel Leven’s sportingly grim ‘Cruella de Vil’ and ‘Dalmatian Plantation’ (both sung by Taylor).

These two songs serve as the bookends on an otherwise ‘song-less’ feature. Also, employing a Xerox process instead of traditional ink and paint, allowed for the Disney artisans to reproduce virtually hundreds of spotted puppies for mass exodus sequences without the added hindrance of obvious eye strain.

Apart from its stylist backdrop of swinging London and a central narrative that degenerates into one gigantic and fascinating race against time, the most appealing aspect of the film is its glib poke at television – then still relatively new and most certainly the movies arch nemesis.

Perhaps Disney, who had embraced the new medium a decade before with his own line of successful product was more attuned to the differences rather than similarities between the movies and T.V. and wanted to share his reflections on the latter as a sublime colossal joke.

In the final analysis, One Hundred and One Dalamatians was a huge box office hit –foreshadowing the future of Disney animation. In the many lean years that were to follow, the artisans at the studio would stray from traditional fairytales of yore before returning full circle two decades later with The Little Mermaid.

Disney's Platinum Edition DVD rectifies a multitude of sins committed on their single disc offering from some years ago. The image this time around is refined with bold colors and a smattering of fine detail that makes the rough pencil drawings even more graphically harsh. The stylized artwork really shines through, with a moody elegance that seems fresh and alive with each renewed viewing. The audio has been remixed to Dolby 5.1. Extras are plentiful this time around and include a comprehensive making of documentary, games and trivia, an audio commentary and rather extensive galleries of artwork.  Bottom line: highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4

VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5

EXTRAS
0

MARY POPPINS (Walt Disney 1964) Disney Home Video

Forty years later and still ‘practically perfect in every way,’ Mary Poppins (1964) remains Walt Disney’s crowning technical and artistic achievement; an effervescent and eclectic blend of animation/live action and special effects that idyllically encompass P.L Travers’ enchanting best seller. Not that the author agreed…at least, not initially.

In fact, it became something of a thirty year struggle with Walt to secure Travers’ participation on the project... and even then, P.L. had approval over the final cut. To her credit, Travers was not particularly fond of Hollywood in general. She had even less kind things to say about how other literary masterworks had been transcribed for the big screen. And Poppins was already well received as a novel on two continents. What could any film company do to improve on the book?

Eventually, Walt won Travers over with his charm and assurances that he would remain faithful to her pert and practical nanny. Moreover, Disney's relatively faithfulness to other source material he had turned into movies was what finally impressed Travers the most. That, and of course, Walt’s persistence.

As Travers reluctantly agreed to let Walt have a go at her beloved story, Julie Andrews’ London stage performance in Camelot so impressed him that he immediately began talks to secure her for the film. In the interim, Andrews had also appeared on television in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s adaptation of Cinderella. Yet, despite this breakthrough she remained a relative unknown to American audiences. However, by the time shooting commenced on Poppins, Andrews had also played Eliza Doolittle on the Broadway stage in My Fair Lady.

That she was casually overlooked by Jack Warner for the lead in his filmic adaptation of ‘Lady’ remains a mystery. But Lady’s loss was Poppins' gain. Andrews delights in the title role as the too-good-to-be-true nanny with just enough playful larceny lurking beneath her properly quaffed locks and bonnet. She takes charge of the Bank’s household and whips the family into shape; Suffragette wife Winifred (Glynis John); stoic banker husband George (David Tomlinson) and their two children, suspicious Michael (Matthew Garber) and precocious Jane (Karen Dotrice).

Seems Jane and Michael have been giving their previous nannies a hard time. Actually, they’re just a pair of forlorn children who desire the love and attention of their father. A lowly chimney sweep, Bert (Dick Van Dyke) helps provide Mary and the children with one of those supercalafragalisticexpialadocious bits of escapism set to magic; a fantastic frolic in the animated countryside, complete with carousel ride, fox hunt and horse races. Yikes, tally-ho!

But George Banks is not about to let his children fly off – literally and figuratively – into what he considers mindless daydreams. After a gaggle of chimney sweeps transform his home into a gregarious saloon, George decides that Jane and Michael must be taught the relevancy of a prim and proper education. Hence, he takes them to his bank to deposit their savings, but with disastrous results.

Mary Poppins exercises Walt's great affection for bygone eras – this time, King Edward’s England – a cultured place of respectability where the most fantastic vignettes occur. We take our ‘Jolly Holiday’ with Mary and company, ‘Feed the Birds’ and, when all else seems to fail, ‘Go Fly A Kite.’

The songs by resident Disney composers Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman represent the height of their musical prowess at the studio. While most studios throughout the 1960s were playing it safe by transposing already pre-sold stage musicals to the big screen, Walt took dead aim at a total original and hit the bull’s eye on every creative and artistic level. Mary Poppins was, is and will always remain Walt Disney's crowning achievement!

WHY ISN'T THIS ON BLU-RAY YET?

Disney’s deluxe, 2-disc DVD is ‘jolly good’. At long last, anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions, the transfer is quite smooth, solid and will surely please. Colors are rich and vibrant. Blacks are solid and deep. Whites are generally clean. Occasionally there is a hint of age related artifacts as well as some minor pixelization that breaks apart background information, but these distractions are kept to a bare minimum.The audio mix is brand new and very engaging 5.1 for the home theatre aficionado.

Extras include the all new 50 min. documentary on the making of the film that is comprehensive and delightful. There are also some self congratulatory audio commentaries from the film’s stars and ‘A Musical Journey’ with composer, Richard Sherman.

The rest of the extras are typical Disney fluff, catering to the tot’s fanfare; a trivia game, special effects junket and some music videos and short subjects. All in all, this is a very nicely packed special edition from the Disney stable and one that’s been long overdo. So get out your umbrella or go fly a kite; because Mary Poppins is shear magic for the young and young at heart!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

5

THE JUNGLE BOOK (Walt Disney (1967) Disney Home Video

The Jungle Book (1967) is Walt Disney’s final animated gift to the world. Disney died of lung cancer before its completion but his indelible mark of quality and invested personal guidance are obvious in every frame of hand drawn art.

Based loosely on the tales of Rudyard Kipling, Wolfgang Reitherman’s retelling follows the coming of age of man cub, Mowgli (voiced by Bruce Reitherman – the director’s son) as he forever leaves the innocence of childhood behind to embark on his destiny in the human world.Raised by wolves in the wild, Mowgli is escorted to the man village by one of the pack’s most respected members; black panther Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot).

En route, the stubborn Mowgli rebels – is nearly eaten by Kaa, the python with hypnotic eyes (Sterling Holloway); is kidnapped by the diabolical orangutan, King Louie (Louis Prima) and finally, is stalked by blood-thirsty Bengal tiger, Shere Khan (George Sanders).

Many critics of the day and since have been quick to point out that as a film relies heavily (too heavily perhaps) on vocal characterizations – much more, in fact, than it does on narrative plot – taking many artistic liberties with Kipling’s work along the way and, in some cases, throwing out the original text all together in favor of the ‘expected’ Disney embellishments. Yet, on the whole, and gratefully so, The Jungle Book works its magic because of these vivid vocalizations.

George Sanders, for example, is an inspired bit of casting – his suave devious tone providing a sublime underpinning that is far more sinister in its insinuations than in any of the character’s actions. Phil Harris’ gregarious turn as Baloo the bear, typifies that character’s devil-may-care saunter and bubbling child-like optimism minus the good sense God gave a lemon.What most of these same critics fail to concede is that The Jungle Book, in hindsight, represents something of a precursor and foray into the current trend in animated films where celebrity talents continue to dominate the vocal mélange.In other respects, The Jungle Book is indeed deserving of further artistic scrutiny.

After nearly a decade of clean, polished and flawless animation in films like Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959), The Jungle Book’s characters do indeed have a more rough draft quality about them, perhaps intentionally so, since the coarseness of jungle terrain is hardly as refined or silken as the confines of an elegant palace. In the final analysis, The Jungle Book is marvelously entertaining – a delightful romp through the wilds from the safety of one’s ‘high’ and/or ‘rocking’ chair.Disney DVD released The Jungle Book as a ‘limited edition’ back in 2001.

The new Platinum Edition rectifies minor imperfections in the aforementioned picture quality. Colors on the whole are more vibrant and slightly different in this incarnation. All age related artifacts have been cleaned up for a picture element that is smooth and satisfying. The audio has been remixed to 5.1 surround. The original mono is also provided. Extras include a thorough documentary on the making of the film; games specifically designed with the ‘tot’ set in mind, the film’s original theatrical and re-issue trailers, and an audio commentary. Recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4

VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5

EXTRAS
4

THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE (Walt Disney 1967) Anchor Bay/Disney Home Video

The last of the studio’s live action films to bear Walt Disney’s personal hallmarks in meticulous craftsmanship also proved to be one of his most poorly received. At the time of its release, critics found The Happiest Millionaire (1967) maudlin, overly sentimental and coyly unappealing; a claptrap of wasted opportunities.

The film is based on real life industrialist and self-appointed U.S. military advisor, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle – a man whose wealth and fortitude provide for a colorful backdrop to an otherwise leaden musical excursion. That the final ‘road show’ engagement proved overly wrought with perfunctory star performances and unappealing songs was indeed a great mystery and personal disappointment for Walt who had embraced the project as his own.

To be sure, Walt was a visionary of the highest order. Occasionally however, that vision was marred by Walt’s own inability and lack of foresight to see into changing audience tastes.

By the mid-60s the Hollywood musical was on its way out as a popular form of entertainment. Though musicals continued to be made throughout the decade – and occasionally succeeded in capturing the public’s fancy, and, all important box office revenue to sustain and make the exercise profitable – more often than not musicals were falling short of their own fiscal expectations.

So too was family entertainment – with its finger firmly on the pulse of wholesome cleanliness – finding less of an audience who were now staying home for their daily diet of serials like ‘Leave it To Beaver’ and ‘Andy Griffith.’ Instead, the movies were arguably ‘growing up’ with a new focus on sex, violence and social depravities (drug abuse, rape, prostitution et al). Hence, The Happiest Millionaire was very much Walt’s last ditch attempt to reverse the hands of time and deliver a more gentile reflection on a time when American life was not quite so crassly reflected as cutthroat.

The pity of this exercise is that, perhaps, at 80 minutes director Norman Tokar's The Happiest Millionaire could have been a tune-filled – if antiseptic and sexless – salvageable musical. Instead, at its lengthy 144 min. road show it remains an over-inflated spectacular that, quite simply fails to dazzle.

The film begins in earnest with eccentric, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle (Fred MacMurray) who runs a combination Bible/physical-fitness College out of his fashionable Bostonian mansion. Biddle’s two passions are boxing and alligators; the latter kept in his solarium adjacent the dining room. When newly landed Irish immigrant John Lawless (Tommy Steele) becomes Biddle's butler he finds this rather odd. Not that Lawless isn’t odd himself. It’s just that unlike Biddle’s quirkiness, which can be grating to the point of distraction, Lawless is a genuinely loveable reprobate of congenial good humor, thanks to Steele’s remarkable performance.

Threadbare to the point of nonexistent, the plot next shifts to Biddle’s only daughter Cordelia (Lesley Ann Warren). She’s a tomboy desperate to be feminine and sent off to a lady’s finishing school where she becomes engaged to New Yorker Angie Duke (John Davidson). Mrs. Duke (Geraldine Page) is a social snob, but Angie doesn't share her values or views. He wants to forgo the family business and build automobiles in Detroit.

True to Disney form, everything works out in the end with Angie and Cordelia, driving off toward an unintentionally apocalyptic matte painting that depicts the Motor City as something of a cross between Blade Runner and Mary Poppins glowering roof top jungle of chimneys, blackening the skies in aftershocks of modernity.

The film is a potpourri of old time talent. Yet, many of these fail to make even a minor impression. As Cordelia’s mother, Greer Garson is given extremely little to do. One of Disney’s good luck charms - Hemione Baddeley has even less of a say. Equally curious in the narrative construction is the fact that after the film takes great pains to introduce Biddle’s two sons Tony and Livingston (Paul Petersen and Eddie Hodges) – even giving them a song – it jettisons both characters entirely from the plot.

All these oversights would be largely forgivable if the Sherman Brothers had come up with a score worthy of their best endeavors. Regrettably, the songs do not live up to expectation. There are no memorable showstoppers to leave one with a sudden urge to buy the soundtrack or even depart the theater humming. Hence, the lasting impression of The Happiest Millionaire is that it is an undeniably well intentioned and good-looking film that nevertheless fails to entertain.

The Happiest Millionaire comes in a fairly attractive DVD transfer, despite not being enhanced for widescreen television displays. Colors are bold and refined. Blacks are deep and solid. Two versions of the film are available – one from Anchor Bay, the other from Disney. The image quality is almost identical, but the Disney release contains a hint of pixelization that was not present on the original Anchor Bay release. Anchor Bay’s disc is a flipper. Disney’s is not. The audio is a 5.1 remastering effort with a rather impressive and bombastic acoustic spread. There are no extras, not even the trailer.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3

VIDEO/AUDIO
Anchor Bay 4
Disney DVD 3.5

EXTRAS
0

BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS (Walt Disney 1971) Disney Home Video

Not quite the valiant successor to Mary Poppins, although undeniably enchanting throughout most of its 142 minute running time, Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) reunites much of the creative brain trust behind Poppins' illustrious creative success for this warm and endearing story about an apprentice witch who desires to bring peace to a world on the brink of another war.

Based on the novel by Mary Norton (a precursor in many ways to J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter books), the film’s plot concerns Pepperidge Eye recluse, Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury). Eglantine has been involved in a correspondence college witchcraft program for several months. For the most part, her spells are harmless and temporary. However, the college’s graduation ‘bonus spell’ ‘Substitutiary Locomotion’ promises to bring inanimate objects to life. Tragically, Eglantine receives word that the college is closing down due to the pending conflict in Europe.

In the meantime, Eglantine is told by Mrs. Hobday (Tessie O’Shea) that she will be required by law to harbor three refugee children in her home; Carrie (Cindy O’Callaghan), Charles (Ian Weighill) and Paul Rawlins (Roy Snart) for an indefinite internment to protect them from Hitler’s bombing raids in London. At first, the association between the children and Eglantine is strained. However, after discovering that Eglantine is a witch, the children unite to help her search for the college’s head master, Prof. Emelius Browne (David Tomlinson) in the hopes of acquiring the bonus spell.

As they had done on Poppins, resident composers Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman were assigned the task of writing songs for Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Importing a discarded number from the Poppins catalogue ‘The Beautiful Briny’ serves as one of Bedknobs’ highlights with other charmers including Portobello Road and Eglantine.

Unfortunately for the Shermans, the Christmas release of Bedknobs at Radio City Music Hall – with its yearly live stage show preceding every screening – necessitated the excision of most of their hard earned efforts, including two of Angela Lansbury’s best songs - ‘Nobody’s Problem’ and ‘A Step in the Right Direction’ left on the cutting room floor. Hence, when the film premiered it was missing crucial numbers that contributed to the overall empathy and development of the film’s characters – sequences already shot and edited into the finished release – then edited back out for time constraints.

In retrospect and in many ways, Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a hand-me-down project rather than a genuine Disney original. Walt had put Poppins and Bedknobs into preproduction simultaneously – the acceptance of P.L. Travers for Disney to proceed on the former forcing Walt to shelve plans for the latter until much later – too late, in fact for Walt, who died in 1966.

The preliminary songs written by the Sherman’s in 1964 for Bedknobs – particularly Eglantine – did not meet with Disney’s approval and there is little to suggest that had he lived to produce Bedknobs himself, they would have survived the finished film. Nevertheless, the Sherman score does manage to capture much of that ‘dance hall’ flavor of the period.

The armor used in the film’s climactic storming of the English coast was actually designed for El Cid (1961) and had been reused for the filmic adaptation of Camelot (1967). Finally, there is something vaguely pedestrian about director Robert Stevenson’s handling of the material in totem – as though he is viewing it all in the shadow of, or, at the very least, in direct competition with Poppins. Again, these evaluations of the film by this critic are made, perhaps unfairly, in light of its historic record. In the final analysis, butchered continuity not withstanding, Bedknobs and Broomsticks was a rousing success at the box office.

Disney DVD has chosen to celebrate the 30th Anniversary with a refurbished and restored print – reinstating much of the excised footage lost in 1971. Unfortunately, Angela Lansbury’s superbly rendered ‘Step in the Right Direction’ remains a missing piece of the film – included as an audio supplement with still images accompanying. For the rest, the image quality throughout varies greatly.

Footage from the original ’71 release appears to have survived in relatively pristine condition with only minor, though nevertheless obvious, age related artifacts present. However, the reinstated sequences are a rather mixed lot. At times, and despite valiant restoration efforts, color fidelity suffers considerably – or at least obviously – distracting from the performance. The image can also appear quite ‘thick’ at times with a considerable amount of grain and loss of fine detail.

Overall, this isn’t a stellar presentation but it is passable given the circumstances. The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital repurposing of the original mono mix. It is strident in spots though the musical sequences benefit greatly from the efforts put forth by restoration expert, Scott McQueen. Extras include an odd ‘making of’ documentary that begins as a tribute to the Sherman Brothers, then haphazardly meanders into a Q&A with Angela Lansbury before becoming a featurette on how the film was restored. There’s also several trailers and a trivia and games section to indulge in.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO
4

EXTRAS
2.5

ROBIN HOOD (Walt Disney 1973) Disney Home Video

In 1973, the Disney animators were to sidestep the studio’s tradition of looking forward with an unusual ‘remake’; Robin Hood. Aside from the memorable Errol Flynn epic produced at Warner Bros. in 1938, and countless scores of less than ambitious interpretations put forth on celluloid in the interim, Walt had himself made a live action version of the famed tale in 1952: The Story of Robin Hood and His Merry Men.

In his prime, Disney would never have courted the idea of revisiting a concept he had already done to his own satisfaction. Too, there were those amongst the critical set who felt that many of the studio’s subsequent animated movies were becoming dependent on vocal characterizations increasingly supplied by ‘stars’ rather than unknowns – a concept first utilized in the last animated feature Walt supervised; The Jungle Book (1967).

To be certain, Robin Hood is a film driven by vocal performances. British actor Brian Bedford supplies the convincing voice of Robin; Phil Harris (Little John); Peter Ustinov (Prince John); Andy Devine (Friar Tuck) and so on. Yet, even in their animated styling – and particularly when viewed side by side with The Jungle Book – there is an alarming amount of copycatting going on throughout.

Little John the bear is actually Baloo (also voiced by Harris) from the aforementioned Jungle Book, merely wearing a green smock and cap to superficially conceal such direct comparison. In movement and tone, Sir Hiss (voiced by Terry-Thomas) is a verbatim reincarnation of Kaa (Sterling Holloway). Alas, there is a deliberate, all pervading sense of bastardized homage to the exercise that borders on guiltless ennui – all this has been done before.

The film’s narrative is largely episodic and strung together by a loose voice over from the minstrel/rooster, Alan-A-Dale (Roger Miller). We see Robin and Little John – masquerading as female fortune tellers - tricking the naïve and ineffectual Prince John out of his tax money. The focus then shifts to Nottingham, where its manipulative Sheriff (Pat Buttram) pinches the poor for their last farthing.

Robin, disguised as a blind peasant, brings much needed funds and hope to the town’s bedraggled inhabitance, eventually meeting the Prince’s young charge, Maid Marian (Monica Evans) and her Lady in waiting – Kluck (Carole Shelley). Together with John, Robin enters an archer’s match –easily winning first prize, but alas exposing himself to Prince John’s henchmen. After a spirited battle, Robin and his band escape with Marian and Kluck in tow to celebrate their freedom in Sherwood Forest.

In the final analysis, Robin Hood is delightfully spry in its execution. It moves effortlessly from one vignette to the next, paying little attention to continuity while remaining relatively faithful to the fabled hero’s origins and the ’38 Flynn swashbuckler. Director Wolfgang Reitherman and screenwriter Ken Anderson deliver a winning and witty combination of sight gags and dialogue. Still, from a purist’s perspective, this Robin Hood does tend to teeter dangerously close to self-parody rather than exist as its own timeless capsule of high adventure.

Owing to its place as ‘lesser than’ some of the studio’s other animated contributions, Disney DVD’s ‘Most Wanted Edition’ is an economized single disc offering with remnants borrowed from other 2-disc Platinum Series. We get fun and games, trailers, an alternative ending and stills – but NO making of documentary or featurette.

The filmic elements have been slightly cleaned up from their previous assembly on a bare bones single release. However, color fidelity from one cell of animation to the next continues to appear inconsistently rendered. Occasionally, the shimmering of color is more obvious than slightly distracting. A slight hint of edge enhancement is also detected for an overall visual element that is not as smooth as one would have hoped for. The audio has been remixed to 5.1 Dolby Digital with obvious sonic limitations inherent from the original recording.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3

VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5

EXTRAS
4