The DVD Report #92

The legion of fans of the much admired actress can rejoice now that Warner Bros. has finally released some of her most requested films in its Natalie Wood Collection.

Two of the titles in the set, Splendor in the Grass and Gypsy ,have been re-mastered for better picture and sound quality over their previous releases while four others, Bombers B-52, Cash McCall, Sex and the Single Girl and Inside Daisy Clover, are new to DVD.

The oldest film in the set, 1957’s Bombers B-52, directed by Gordon Douglas, plays like one of those service dramas of the 30s and 40s updated to the cold war of the 50s. Karl Malden is a veteran non-com and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is a hot shot test pilot who each despise one another. Natalie is Karl’s daughter who’s in love with Efrem. Marsha Hunt co-stars as Natalie’s mom. Nice aerial photography, but all of the actors have been used to better advantage in other films.

Natalie didn’t get to play romantic comedy often. 1960’s Cash McCall, directed by Joseph Pevney, is probably the best film she made in that vein, but she is merely window dressing as the emphasis here is on James Garner in the title role. Garner’s charm completely wins over both Natalie and the audience as a corporate raider in love with the daughter of the owner of one the companies he’s trying to get his hands on. Nina Foch has an absurd role as an older woman who makes a fool of herself over Garner who isn’t the least bit interested, but veterans Dean Jagger, Henry Jones, E.G. Marshall, Otto Kruger and Roland Winters have juicy supporting roles they play to the hilt. It’s a most enjoyable time killer.

A star since childhood, Natalie’s career took a new turn with Elia Kazan’s 1961 film Splendor in the Grass in which her portrayal of the emotionally broken small town 1920s Kansas girl proved that she could play emotionally complex adult characters with the best of them. Her highly publicized off-screen affair with co-star Warren Beatty, making his film debut, made the film a hot ticket at the time. Audiences clamoring to see their sizzling on-screen chemistry weren’t disappointed. Pat Hingle as Beatty’s father and Audrey Christie as Natalie’s mother provide strong support and there are good roles for Barbara Loden and Zohra Lampert as well. Sandy Dennis and Phyllis Diller made their screen debuts here in minor roles. Natalaie received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress and her other film that year, West Side Story,won ten Oscars including one as the year’s Best Picture.

After the success of Splendor in the Grass and West Side Story, Natalie’s next film, 1962’s Gypsy, directed by Mervyn LeRoy,was met with great anticipation with poster art and the trailer for the film making it look like Natalie was the star of the film or at least on equal footing with Rosalind Russell who had the larger, more important role of Gypsy Rose Lee’s mother.

The stage version of Gypsy had been a major triumph for Ethel Merman whose supporters were so crushed that she was not asked to repeat her performance on screen that they went to great lengths to spread stories that Russell’s performance couldn’t hold a candle to Merman’s and that her singing voice had to be dubbed. In truth, Russell, who could actually sing as she proved in Broadway’s Wonderful Town, did have trouble hitting the high notes and her singing voice was in fact skillfully blended with that of Lisa Kirk to the point where you can’t tell which of the two is singing at any given moment.

In the years since the film was released, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone have all mounted successful revivals of the original Broadway production and there was even a TV version with Bette Midler. It’s fair to say Merman no longer owns the role and Russell’s performance can at last be viewed without the baggage of the unfair comparison to Merman hanging over her head. It’s a wonderful performance and Natalie in the secondary role of vaudevillian Louise Hovic who becomes the legendary Gypsy Rose Lee is almost as good, but it’s Roz’s film and that’s as it should be.

Natalie won another Best Actress nomination for 1963’s Love With the Proper Stranger, a Paramount film which has yet to receive a DVD release.

Following several years of highs, Natalie’s 1964 film, Sex and the Single Girl, was a disappointment in terms of quality but was nevertheless a huge hit thanks to the built-in notoriety of the title taken from Helen Gurley Brown’s non-fiction book. Although Natalie’s character in the film has the name of the author, the smarmy screenplay has nothing at all to do with the book but is instead the story of smut magazine editor, Tony Curtis, romancing psychologist Natalie. Mel Ferrer, Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall add a little class but the whole thing is mildly amusing at best. It was directed by Richard Quine.

The newest film in the collection is 1965’s Inside Daisy Clover, directed by Robert Mulligan. The story of the rise and fall and rise again of a Hollywood star patterned after Judy Garland isn’t particularly good, but there are good things in it including Natalie’s belting of the song, “You’re Gonna Hear From Me”, and the performance of Ruth Gordon as Natalie’s dotty old mother. It was Gordon’s first film in 22 years and she was rewarded with a Golden Globe as well as an Oscar nomination for her efforts. Robert Redford also won a Golden Globe as Best Newcomer for his portrayal of Natalie’s first husband even though he had been making movies for five years by then. Natalie won a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy.

Coming off career highs with The Omen and Superman, director Richard Donner chose as his next film, the character study Inside Moves about a suicidal Vietnam War veteran who finds new meaning in life when he walks into a bar frequented by other handicapped souls. John Savage, in a natural follow-up to similar roles in The Deer Hunter and Hair, is mesmerizing as the broken man slowly finding himself. David Morse, in his screen debut, is equally fine as the volatile bartender in need of a knee operation to make it in the world of basketball. Diana Scarwid has a small but memorable role as one of the women in their lives and won a surprise Oscar nomination for this barely released 1980 film. Harold Russell, in his first film since The Best Years of Our Lives, is wonderful in a small but pivotal role as one of the bar’s patrons.

The commentary by Oscar winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River) is alternately nostalgic and perplexing. Donner’s knowledge of Oscar history is seriously flawed. First, he had Russell winning his double Oscars for From Here to Eternity, then corrected himself, but went on to say Russell was given his Special Oscar for The Best Years of Our Lives because he was deemed an unlikely winner in the supporting actor category against Charles Laughton. Laughton wasn’t a nominee. He must have been confusing him with Charles Coburn, Claude Rains or Clifton Webb who were. He later credited Savage with an Oscar nomination for The Deer Hunter which he hadn’t earned.

John Steinbeck was one of the finest writers of the twentieth century. Great films were made of several of his works including Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. He wrote screenplays for such memorable films as Lifeboat and Viva Zapata! and even appeared as himself as the on-screen narrator of 1952’s O. Henry’s Full House. His only major work not to be filmed prior to his death in 1968 was Cannery Row, which was eventually made into a film in 1982.

Sad to say, David S. Ward’s film of Cannery Row, taken from both Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, does not measure up to the films made of Steinbeck’s other works. Nick Nolte as marine biologist Doc, Debra Winger as floozy Suzie, and various other actors play their roles way too broadly for it to work, but the film, despite near unanimous critical pans, has developed a cult following whose wishes to have the film released on DVD have now been granted.

One of Disney’s most enduring films, 1964’s Mary Poppins, has been given its third DVD release. The film transfer and most of the supplements are identical to those that graced the 40th Anniversary Edition five years ago. What’s new are the three features on the stage version of the musical intended to boost sales for the touring show. They are surprisingly low-key and bland and not apt to sell any tickets not already under consideration. The best supplement is still the get-together between composer Richard Sherman and stars Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.

The week’s best new film release on DVD and Blu-ray is Peter Sollet’s Nick & Norah’s Infinte Playlist, a congenial romp through New York City’s nighttime music scene. Nominated for three Satellite awards for Best Picture: Musical or Comedy, Best Actor (Juno’s Michael Cera) and Best Actress (Charlie Bartlett’s Kat Dennings), the film follows one day and night in the lives of a young musician/composer and an acquaintance of his ex-girlfriend who has taken a liking to his music mixes. Throw in the boy’s best friends and fellow band members who just happen to be gay and the girl’s best friend who specializes in barfing in her favorite restaurants and convenience stores, the conniving ex-girlfriend, and you have the film’s main characters. The story’s hook is the search for a one-night-only secretly-held concert by a legendary rock band that both the boy and girl love. The charm is in the execution. Fans of Sollet’s Raising Victor Vargas will not be disappointed.

Comedies have not seen lots of releases on Blu-ray until now. That is being remedied with the release of four recent classics in the genre.

Peter Sellers had his last great role as a simpleton mistaken for a genius by the rich and powerful in 1979’s Being There directed by the underrated Hal Ashby (Shampoo, Coming Home). Sellers received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor and the great Melvyn Douglas won his second Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as the dying tycoon who befriends imbecilic Sellers. Shirley MacLaine and Jack Warden co-star. Illeana Douglas, Melvyn’s granddaughter, reminisces about her grandfather’s career and the making of the film on the film’s bare-bones extra.

Bill Murray had perhaps the best role of his career as the weatherman who gets to live one day over and over until he gets it right in 1993’s bittersweet Groundhog Day directed by Rick Moranis. Andie MacDowell co-stars as the object of his affections in the film that quickly became a favorite of psychiatrists and religious groups alike for its profound look into the human psyche while delivering non-stop hilarity to tell its highly moralistic tale.

An Oscar winner for Best Screenplay, 2004’s Sideways, directed by Alexander Payne, won more than ninety other awards including a Golden Globe for Best Picture: Musical or Comedy. Oscar nominees Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church play a couple of misfits on a road trip through California’s wine country in the days before Church’s planned wedding. Oscar-nominated Virginia Madsen, and director Payne’s then wife Sandra Oh play the women they meet along the way. Payne, who won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay with Jim Taylor was nominated for Best Director and the film itself was nominated for Best Picture.

An Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor Alan Arkin as well as Best Screenplay, 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine, co-directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, was a huge box office success in the summer of that year. Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin is perfectly delightful in a breakout performance as the young would-be junior beauty contestant whose family takes her across half the country to perform in the pageant. Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear as her parents, Paul Dano as her brother, Steve Carell as her uncle and Arkin as her grandfather are all terrific. The film was also a Best Picture nominee.

Last but not least, Universal has released The Bourne Trilogy on Blu-ray for those who need an excuse to blast their speakers and add more Blu-ray demonstration action flicks to their library. Matt Damon stars in all three films: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.

-Peter J. Patrick (February 3, 2009)