A Weekend with Lulu Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

A Weekend with Lulu Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown August 1, 2024

How does a flawed, nearly forgotten little early '60s film like A Weekend with Lulu earn a smartly presented Blu-ray release from the likes of Sony? Rights reign and Sony, unlike Warner, the granddaddy of classic cinema (literally, in terms of the volume of sheer classics in the WB library), only has so many movies in its catalog. For completists and connoisseurs of old films, it's a rare win; a release of a movie that, for all intents and purposes, no one was asking for yet one that has received the full bells-n-whistles treatment of a more seasoned classic. For most, though, one thing will become painfully clear about A Weekend with Lulu: it may be a sixty-plus-year old flick, but "old" does not a "classic" make. Primed for laughs, it's a comedy that meanders, mugs and misses far more often than it hits. It merely raises the specter of better films of the era, clinging to the 1950s in a terse, desperate manner that would've felt dated even in 1961. You can imagine how it plays in 2024. Does that make it a bad movie? Not exactly. Just woefully average; one that could've remained lost in time and memory without taking much of a toll on the integrity of film preservation and appreciation.

It's you that's common! You take us back to Folkestone else I'll write to British Railways. It's coming to something... first they take you to where you don't want to go, then they keep putting the fares up! So I will not come with you. You'll have to learn control, you French. You won't catch me putting my nose outside this caravan today!

A Weekend with Lulu all but pauses for a laugh track with each yuk yuk, and you can almost hear the nervous laughter in the theater as people feel the prompting to laugh without having the material to draw out real guffaws. The setup? Four eccentric Britons -- husband Timothy (Leslie Phillips), wife Deirdre (Shirley Eaton), their pal Fred (Bob Monkhouse) and Dierdre's uninvited mother Florence (Irene Handl) -- have a series of misadventures in France in a caravan nicknamed "Lulu", hauled by Fred's ice cream truck. (One key subplot involves Fred's plans to sell ice cream to locals over the weekend.) Soon, though, the foursome find themselves without money or passports, stuck in the heart of France without a viable way home. Cue hilarity. Directed by John Paddy Carstairs (The Saint in London) and penned by Ted Lloyd, the film also stars Alfred Marks, Sid James, Kenneth Connor, Sydney Tafler, Eugene Deckers, Graham Stark, Tutte Lemkow, Judith Furse, Denis Shaw and Russ Conway.

The aw shucks nature of A Weekend with Lulu (or whatever the British equivalent of "aw shucks" might be) is an impediment to the comedy, with wholesome looky lou-ing clashing with beats involving brothels and other distinctly European pitstops. It was the 1960s, after all, even though you wouldn't be entirely wrong to declare Lulu a relic from a bygone age. Carstairs cut his teeth as a television director, and Lulu plays like a '50s UK sitcom through and through, without much in the way of cinematic heft, stakes or quality tee-ups and punchlines. Straight-man/mother-in-law Florence is the source of most of the humor, or at least at her expense, but dear Timothy is too bland to make clashes feel as funny as they should. Eaton and Handl are the scene-stealers here, even if Monkhouse is meant to be the comedian. It's just a shame they aren't given a sharper script to run with. Ice cream sales are hardly the stuff of legend and little is done to give Fred's hijinks much heft. The rest simply falls into tired, predictable place without so much as a real story to tell or conflict to resolve beyond Florence's unwanted presence.

A Weekend with Lulu Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

At least A Weekend with Lulu receives a five-star treatment. Backed by a striking 1.66:1 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer, the film looks every bit the part of a classic, no matter how distinctly un-classic it turns out to be. Contrast is excellent, with nice, crisp whites matched by the richness and depth of the deepest black levels. Gray tones gradate smoothly and beautifully, lending Lulu a filmic appearance free of inconsistent, surging grain and home to a veneer of a natural, unobtrusive field. And without any specks, blemishes or film damage to speak of, it's a restoration that's as clean as it is unhindered by the techniques used to preserve the original negative's best traits. Detail is spot on, with sharp, halo-free edges and wonderfully resolved fine textures, and the only softness present is inherent to the photography. Moreover, banding and blocking are completely MIA, leaving only a proficient, perfectly precise presentation that has no real flaws or missteps to speak of. This is another fine catalog transfer from Sony, who continues to honor older films regardless of their stature or status.

A Weekend with Lulu Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Weekend with Lulu earns a solid two-channel DTS-HD Master Audio mono mix, though there isn't much to say in terms of its power or presence. Light as a feather, the track handles dialogue and canned comedic sound effects with ease and efficiency, priding itself in fidelity above all else. The resulting soundscape is certainly a product of the era, with all the telltale signs of the time in which it was recorded and mixed, albeit without allowing its lesser qualities to abscond with the film. This is presumably as good as Lulu has or ever will sound, and there isn't much at all to really complain about.

A Weekend with Lulu Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Blu-ray release of A Weekend with Lulu doesn't offer any special features. There isn't even a main menu. Sony continues to cause confusion and consternation with such moves, relegating yet another older film to a disc that plays like a bootleg.

A Weekend with Lulu Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tickets? I'll give you tickets. I'll set Gaylord on you!

A Weekend with Lulu isn't classic cinema. It's barely good cinema, and that's saying something for someone who tries so hard to find anything worth praising in an out-of-date, nearly forgotten film of yesteryear. The best I can muster is it's not exactly a bad flick either. It means well, as do its filmmakers and actors. It just doesn't do much, pull off much, or earn anything remotely resembling a belly laugh. It's obvious and plodding, and that's about as bad as it gets for what's meant to be a light-as-air comedy of errors and misadventures. Still, Sony gives Lulu the A+ treatment with a perfect video presentation and decidedly decent lossless two-channel mono track. Ignore the complete lack of extras (and lack of menus for that matter) and you'll find an AV package that looks like it belongs to a far more classic film.