DVD Reviews

I did a bad, bad thing. I discovered Deep Discount DVD.

I’ve had good luck with them so far, although my copy of The Court Jester, which is backordered, still hasn't come yet. The prices are great, great, great and they are reasonably prompt and don't charge your credit card until your order ships. It’s not like I need The Court Jester tomorrow.

Just some notes on recent things:

My Favorite Year--one of my favorite movies. (For the uninitiated, the premise: a young writer on a TV variety show in 1954--a thinly disguised version of Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows--agrees to take care of his hero, a tipsy fading actor famous for his swashbuckling films, until he can appear onstage live Saturday night; the incident was based loosely on the experiences of Mel Brooks "babysitting" Errol Flynn before his appearance on Caesar's series.) The DVD comes with an extra bonus, Richard Benjamin's commentary, with all sorts of nice goodies about the making of the movie. My favorite was the story of the scene in Central Park between Alan Swann and Benjie. As written, the story contained a series of jokes for this scene. Peter O'Toole read the script, then suggested that instead of the scene as written, he would like to do a story about what really happened to an actual actor. Hence the charming "Clarence Duffy" scene.

M*A*S*H, Season 3--which was less expensive at DDD than at Sam's Club, a real shocker. It is lucky I'm buying M*A*S*H simply because it's one of my favorite series and I want all the episodes uncut--so many funny bits have been butchered by excise for extra commercials. Certainly if I were doing it for the quality I'd have to be disappointed in this third set. When I got the Season 1 set, I remember thinking M*A*S*H had never looked so good. The masters (??) they used for Season 3 aren't anywhere near as good--a bit grainy and dust speckled. Still, the missing scenes make up for everything. I didn't even remember there had been a tag to "The General Flipped at Dawn," let alone what was in it.

Anne of Green Gables--which I actually got at Sam's because DDD didn't have it. I'm wondering why...it certainly may be the quality. I'm astonished that Kevin Sullivan, with all the care and detail he put into this production, allowed it to go to DVD so miserably. I have only watched bits of it, but the picture is definitely grainy and any time Anne or any of the other characters is wearing a small-checked fabric, there is a definite moire effect that is distracting and hard on the eyes. Mollifying this bad transfer slightly: a short TV spot about the series, Megan Follows' audition tape, and some excised scenes, a couple of them bloopers (listen to the plane flying overhead as Gilbert talks to Anne!), the majority featuring Christiane Kruger, who played Mrs. Allen. These latter scenes were restored to the series when it played in Germany, since Kruger is a noted actress there.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 3:31:00 PM

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