Age of Consent / Cactus Flower Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Age of Consent / Cactus Flower Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 25, 2018

'Age of Consent' and 'Cactus Flower' have been reviewed separately but are currently only available as part of this two-film release from Mill Creek.

Age of Consent
Score: 3.5/5.0
A disgruntled, but world-renowned, New York-based artist named Bradley Morahan (James Mason) has returned to Queensland, Australia, the place of his birth. He moves into a small oceanside cabin, a place of natural beauty and relative solitude, in hopes of rediscovering his artistic roots. He quickly meets Cora Ryan (Helen Mirren), a young girl who sells fresh food and eventually becomes enamored with the idea of being Bradley's subject and lover. Several local interruptions complicate the burgeoning relationship, including one of Bradley's old friends looking for a loan and Cora's drunken grandmother, the only caregiver she has ever really known, meddling in their lives.

Cactus Flower
Score: 3.5/5.0
Toni (Goldie Hawn in her cinema debut) is a love-struck and suicidal 21-year-old who attempts to kill herself by inhaling poisonous gasses from her stove. She's upset for being scorned by her "married" lover, a dentist named Julian (Walter Matthau). Her suicide attempt thankfully fails when her neighbor Igor (Rick Lenz), smelling the gasses, breaks into her apartment and resuscitates her. Toni reveals all the details of her disappointment to him, including that she has written a letter to her lover announcing her suicide, a letter she no longer wishes for him to receive. She pleads with Igor to call Julian before he receives said letter. But Julian receives the note, anyway, rushes from his office, and confronts Toni. He promises to marry her and divorce the "wife" he doesn't actually have but has pretended exists as part of his courtship with Toni. But she nags him repeatedly to allow her to meet his wife, to make sure that she and her children will be fine; she doesn't want to be a "home breaker." Desperate to satisfy her demands, Julian recruits his longtime nurse, Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman), to pose as his wife and speak with Toni, which ultimately only creates a larger pile of lies that several people must keep straight in an effort to save Julian's relationship with Toni.

Age of Consent / Cactus Flower Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For full video reviews, please click through the links below:

• Age of Consent
• Cactus Flower

Age of Consent / Cactus Flower Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For full audio reviews, please click through the links below:

• Age of Consent
• Cactus Flower

Age of Consent / Cactus Flower Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No special features are included.

Age of Consent / Cactus Flower Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Age of Consent was reportedly censored in the US and the UK when it released, trimming the runtime by several minutes, but Mill Creek has released what appears to be, based on the runtime, the restored, uncut version. Cactus Flower was based on Abe Burrows' Broadway play (which was itself based on a French production) and the film doesn't betray its stage roots, remaining very much a product of the scene, allowing for plenty of breathing room for the actors to develop the story in carefully paced, but very humorous, segments. It's a fun romp of lies and deception in the name of love that boasts an agreeably assembled A-list cast. Both films feature solid video (minus some severe edge enhancement in Age of Consent), adequate two-channel uncompressed audio, and no extras. Recommended.