I've gotten stuck in pretty deep reviewing a couple of multi-film collections, which has taken longer than expected. As a consequence, I've started to go pretty long without an update. So that's still coming. But in the meantime, here's a quick, DVD/ BD comparison of a single catalog title I can get up a little faster. It's a film that was bound to wind up on this site sooner or late anyway; I kinda love it, it's pretty unsung and it's also kinda nuts: 1965's
The Loved One from Warner Archive.
The Loved One was directed by
Tony Richardson right after he set the cinema world on fire with
Tom Jones. It's based on the novel by
Evelyn Waugh, you most people know from
Brideshead Revisited,
but this is nothing at all like that. Rather than a stoic period
piece, this is a wacky, contemporary comedy, but also dark, with teeth
and the depth Waugh is known to bring to his work. And when I say
"contemporary," I mean for the 60s when it was made, and you know all
the hellzapoppin' zaniness 60s comedies could get up. I mean, just look
at this cast:
Johnathan Winters (in dual roles!),
John Gielgud,
James Coburn,
Liberace,
Tab Hunter,
Chick Hearn (as himself),
Roddy McDowall,
Rod Steiger and
Milton friggin'
Berle are in this. It's like a year's worth of Oscar winners and celebrity guest stars from
The Love Boat pitched together to make an art movie. and yes, Milton Berle's actually pretty great.
The slogan "the motion picture with something to offend everyone" is definitely over-stating things. This isn't
Men Behind the Sun or
Meet the Feebles.
But it doesn't play it it safe, either, as it irreverently sends up the
funeral home business, satirizing religion, capitalism, sex, Hollywood
and the way we compartmentalize death. In tone, I guess it's closest to
Dr. Strangelove. The tendency towards extreme silliness will surely put a lot of viewers off; but it's sort of a mad genius of a movie.
Warner Bros first released
The Loved One
on DVD in a nice, semi-special edition in 2006. They later reissued it
as part of the Warner Archive collection in 2013, which might've been a
DVR? I'm not sure; I've got the original '06 one. Anyway, it's same
content on both discs otherwise. In 2016, they remastered the film and
released it on blu.
 |
2006 Warner Bros DVD top; 2016 Warner Archives BD bottom.
|
Both discs are presented in 1.78:1, which is to be expected for the
DVD, but I would've thought they'd tweak it to 1.85 for the BD. I don't
know; maybe 1.78 is Richard's preference. Because the blu is clearly a
fresh scan, with additional picture along all four sides. It's got
stronger contrast and detail is definitely sharper and clearer - you can
now read the "Happier Hunting Grounds" card on Winter's desk in that
first set of shots. And the image is much more filmic with grain, which
is admittedly a little pixelated - this ain't 4k - but an entirely
different league from the DVD, which smooths all of it away.
The
DVD has the original English mono plus a French dub, with English,
French and Spanish subtitles. The blu-ray drops all the foreign
language options, but keeps the subtitles and bumps the audio up to
DTS-HD.
And
a pleasant surprise - these aren't barebones! Both discs have
the same special features, which primarily consists of one fifteen
minute-ish retrospective featurette, which interviews several key
members of
the cast and crew. You don't get a lot of extras on these Archive
discs, and they went to the trouble of gathering up not just a handful
of experts, but five of the original participants. Besides that,
there's the trailer, which is worth cheeking out just for the animation
of the crazy poster image. This one's a real essential in my
collection.
