Shared Darkness

If
it’s true that “it takes all kinds,” as the saying goes, one can
reasonably extrapolate that it’s probably also true that comedy is even
more subjective than drama. For proof, witness this loosely grouped
collection of five disparate, catalogue comedy titles from Warner
Brothers, each available separately on DVD for the first time.

The Loved One,
from 1965, kicks things off, a jolting wake-up call for those that
think farcical broadsides are an invention of particularly the last
decade of the 20th century. Based on novelist Evelyn Waugh’s outlandish
lampoon of American entrepreneurial spirit and avarice, the film is a
death-mocking farce set in and around a dreadful California funeral
parlor. Directed with fitful pluck by Tony Richardson (Tom Jones),
at just under two hours the movie unfortunately doesn’t have the pacing
to match its shrill, piercing tone. Out-there performances from a
tangled ensemble cast — including John Gielgud, Rod Steiger, Jonathan
Winters, Tab Hunter, Milton Berle, Liberace (!) and James Coburn — make
this a kooky treat.

Next up is the following year’s A Fine Madness, directed by
Irvin Kershner. Set and filmed on location in New York’s swinging East
Side, the movie stars Sean Connery as Samson Shillitoe, a womanizing,
lothario poet and disenfranchised carpet cleaner (surely there’s some
subtext there) who rages against the pressures and demands of the
modern world. Joanne Woodward costars as his frustrated wife Rhoda, and
Jean Seberg is a fling, the wife of a scheming psychiatrist (played by
Patrick O’Neal) who attempts to extract revenge on Samson by
prescribing brain surgery for him. While A Fine Madness is
tonally to and fro, Connery lets loose of all his coiled 007 charisma
in interestingly goofy fashion; for those that think he’s more screen
personality than actor, this is an attention-grabbing test of theory.

Two movies from 1968 follow — Peter Sellers’ I Love You, Alice B. Toklas and filmmaker Richard Lester’s Petulia,
which is a bit of a classification stretch as a pure comedy by most
standards. In the former, a satire of the hippie generation, Sellers
plays Harold Fine, an uptight lawyer who turns his tunnel-visioned
dedication to turning on, tuning in and dropping out when he falls in
love. It’s a movie mostly for devotees of the actor. Petulia,
on the other hand, is a quite fine if frequently forgotten film about
an erratic, unhappily married San Francisco socialite (Julie Christie)
who spites her husband by indulging in an affair with a newly divorced
surgeon (George C. Scott). It’s a demanding film that flits back and
forth in time, challenging many storytelling conventions of the era,
but one whose superlative and engaging lead performances mark it as
definitely worthwhile.

Lastly there’s 1971’s The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,
a silly mash-up of tin pan alley slapstick antics and goosed-up Mob
clichés, with “Hey!” and “What could I tell you?” substituting for
“Fuggadaboutit.” Midnight Cowboy and Serpico
screenwriter Waldo Salt’s colorfully lenient adaptation of legendary
newspaperman Jimmy Breslin’s comic novel about a Brooklyn turf war
traverses overly comedic and ironic ground by now familiar to anyone
who’s seen Analyze This, Analyze That, The Last Don, The Sopranos
or any other number of underworld-fueled dysfunctional family shows,
but Dave Grusin’s musical contributions, though, help keep things light
and airy. The story centers on Kid Sally (Jerry Orbach), a scheming
small-timer who targets crime boss Baccala (Lionel Stander) for
toppling, and includes a young-ish Robert De Niro in a supporting role
as Mario, one of Kid Sally’s cohorts. Fantasy Island’s Herve Villechaize also stars.

Each title comes housed in a regular Amray case, and all the films
have been newly re-mastered and are presented in 16×9 enhancement for
widescreen televisions. Theatrical trailers stud each release, rich
evidence of just how much the art of the cinematic sales pitch has been
refined over the course of several decades. Other DVD extras are pretty
sparse, including brief new making-of featurettes on Petulia and The Loved One. A Fine Madness,
meanwhile, features a six-minute period piece featurette, entitled
“Mondo Connery,” which touts the “juicy, jumping world” of the movie’s
narrative. Solemnly narrated showman’s prose is interspersed with
randomly culled on-set footage (Woodward knits!), to often
unintentional comedic effect. It would’ve been great to hear Connery’s
present-day thoughts on the movie in the form of an audio commentary
track or even interview but, alas, I guess that wasn’t in the cards. B- (Movies, Collectively) C+ (Discs)

Just as Raging Bull
was, in retrospect, anointed the title of best film of the 1980s by
many critics despite its Oscar shut-out in the major categories (it would be Robert Redford’s Ordinary People that cleaned up that year), so too is maybe Richard Linklater’s little indie that could, 1993’s Dazed and Confused, perhaps the best film of the 1990s, or at least one that certainly merits inclusion in the discussion.

What?
Yes, I said it. After all, is there a more confident, graceful, crisply
characterized and terrifically funny evocation of adolescent time and
place than Linklater’s slice of life circa 1976? Charting both a group
of rising seniors and incoming high school freshman over the course of
the last day of school and that evening’s subsequent keg-fueled party, Dazed and Confused
is smart, inquisitive and superbly cast. Ironically, for a film that
Linklater says studio suits at the time felt that they couldn’t sell
since it had no “name actors” in it, the movie would serve as a
repository for a number of future stars and recognizable faces,
including Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Joey Lauren Adams, Milla
Jovovich, Jason London, Rent’s Anthony Rapp, Parker Posey, Cole
Hauser, Rory Cochrane, Adam Goldberg, Nicky Katt and — if you squint at
a key extra in a parking lot scene — Renee Zellweger.

Shot for $6 million, Dazed and Confused is marked by
Linklater’s keen sense of detail (students while away time in their
last class of the year listing episodes of “Gilligan’s Island”) and
digressive frame of mind, which director of photography Lee Daniel
abets with smooth handheld work that follows our burn-outs, bookworms
and jocks to and fro. Music also plays an important part in the film,
and Linklater’s choices (from Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion,” which opens
the movie, to Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Peter Frampton and
Foghat) are all inspired and pitch perfect, well worth their
significant apportion of the movie’s budget. Perhaps the best gauge of
the brilliance of Dazed and Confused though, comes in the form
of young Wiley Wiggins, who plays object-of-upperclassmen-torture Mitch
Kramer with such precise exasperation — part fear, part swallowed awe —
that it almost sends one hurtling back to adolescence themselves.

Criterion’s double-disc DVD release of the film finally gives fans the full reverential and reflective treatment that Dazed and Confused
so richly deserves. Packaged in a unique and colorful cardboard
slipcase with punched-out holes that spotlight character pictures, the
movie is presented in an all-new, high-definition 1.85:1 anamorphic
widescreen transfer, with Dolby digital and DTS 5.1 soundtracks and a
warm feature-length audio commentary from Linklater, wherein he
recounts inspirations for various scenes and the nervousness he felt in
making the movie. A robust collection of deleted scenes includes
several that give the movie additional philosophical (not surprising)
and political (surprising) undertones, including one in which Benny
O’Donnell (Hauser) argues with Randall Floyd (London) over the outcome
of the Vietnam War.

The second disc houses a superlative 50-minute documentary by filmmaker Kahane Corn on the making of Dazed and Confused,
and rare on-set interviews and behind-the-scenes footage is also
included, as well as material from a 10-year anniversary celebration.
Some of the audition footage is a hoot, but the off-disc extras only
get better, as they include a black-light reproduction of Frank Kozik’s
original poster and a 72-page booklet that includes an essay by Chuck
Klosterman, amusing character biographies and a reproduction of John
Spong’s excellent retrospective interview article from the October 2003
issue of Texas Monthly. Among the revelations therein: Affleck couldn’t (and perhaps still can’t?) drive stick and Posey, on As the World Turns at the time, was able to book the movie only after her character there was rendered into a coma. A+ (Movie) A+ (Disc)