Classic comedies debut on Blu-ray this month

By Christopher P. Jacobs
Movies Editor

At the beginning of this month, the classic 1963 slapstick comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” made its Blu-ray debut. Beloved by numerous fans (now almost at cult status) and ridiculed by many critics, the film was noted as a rare epic-scale comedy departure for director Stanley Kramer, noted for his powerful social dramas and for its cast that included almost every movie comedian still alive at the time it was shot. Running over three hours at its premiere, the film was cut for its general release to the 159 minutes seen on this Blu-ray.

The simple plot follows a group of people racing across southern California to locate a gangster’s buried treasure before anyone else gets to it, while a crusty, old police captain (Spencer Tracy) keeps tabs on their progress. The movie itself is still silly and overblown but reasonably entertaining and a lot of fun to watch for all the guest stars and early 1960s/late 1950s cars and scenery in HD.

This film was shot in Ultra-Panavision on 70mm film with a picture 2.75 times wider than its height. Every video edition before this not only looked soft and fuzzy, but cut off much of the image sides. Seeing the Blu-ray projected eight feet wide and just under three feet tall from about six to eight feet away, it looks quite impressive. Minor instances of Digital Noise Reduction (which can soften the image) and edge-enhancement (which puts haloes around everything) are visible but so minor as to be barely noticeable. Colors sometimes look slightly contrasted and intense like an old magazine photo, but the picture is still quite sharp. The nice DTS-HD stereo soundtrack has a lot of the original screen separation of dialogue, pleasant music score reproduction, and good low-frequency rumbles in the explosions.

Bonus features include a 1991 retrospective documentary running just over an hour, nearly an hour’s worth of extended scenes (both in fair standard-definition transfers) and the original and re-release trailers in high definition. The documentary is an entertaining and interesting tribute to the film, featuring the director and many of the original stars who have since died. The extended scenes, apparently taken from a beat-up 70mm workprint, are of interest to fans but seem to be arranged randomly and certainly don’t follow the chronological order of the story. They’re still fun to watch if you’ve already seen the movie.

As with most recent Fox/MGM releases, the lack of a main menu is annoying (only a pop-up menu makes the disc’s features accessible). However, it’s commendable that the overture and exit music actually play over a black screen (while the theatre’s curtain would be closed) instead of with some artificial title-card intended to reassure viewers who never heard of road-show presentations that they don’t have a faulty disc or bad video connection. Currently available exclusively at Walmart, the Blu-ray is certainly well-worth the bargain $10 price.

“IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD” on Blu-ray – Movie: B / Video: A- / Audio: A / Extras: B

Buster Keaton made a very brief cameo appearance in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” filmed at a time his classic silent comedies were being rediscovered by audiences, and coincidentally, Keaton’s last silent feature was Monday’s final film in MSUM’s Summer Cinema series. Also new to Blu-ray this month is “Buster Keaton: The Short Films Collection 1920-1923” from Kino International. This wonderful three-disc set of all 19 comedy shorts Keaton made for his own independent studio is arranged chronologically, letting viewers watch Keaton’s techniques and character evolve before he switched to the feature-length comedies that immortalized him along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd.

Well-known classics like “One Week,” “Cops,” and “The Play House” can be seen in the context of lesser-known titles like “The Scarecrow” and “The Frozen North.” The set demonstrates that much of Keaton’s style was almost fully-formed in his first starring productions and that many of the gags and experiments he tried during the three years of these shorts would become revised and refined in later films.

Most of the transfers look amazingly clear, with only a few titles having disappointing quality due to the surviving material. Silent comedies, including Keaton’s, often are shown in poor copies made from other poor copies, but Kino was able to find original 35mm prints for the majority of the films on this set. The resulting sharpness, despite obvious wear, is generally outstanding, and many films include shots missing from other copies (although one is still missing its last sequence, recreated with still photos on the disc). Music scores are by a variety of accompanists and all range from good to excellent.

Besides a brief but informative pamphlet enclosed in the set, eighteen “visual essay” featurettes spread across the three discs present fascinating background on the films, locations, restoration, scoring, and more. There’s a very brief “alternate/deleted scenes” section, two complete bonus shorts (most notably Lupino Lane’s “Only Me”), and clips from several other films by comics inspired by Keaton. While not as high a quality as the main shorts, the bonus shorts are also all in high-definition.

This set of Keaton shorts (modestly-priced at about $37 and often on sale) is one of the best Blu-ray releases so far this year, and makes one anticipate Kino’s upcoming Keaton Blu-rays all the more.

BUSTER KEATON Silent Shorts Collection on Blu-ray – Movies: A+ to B / Video: A to C- / Audio: A / Extras: B+

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