Brighton Beach Memoirs Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Brighton Beach Memoirs Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson April 5, 2019

Brighton Beach Memoirs is the beginning of what is known as Neil Simon's autobiographical trilogy, which continued with Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound. This trio also encompasses the most personal phase of Simon's artistic career as it follows his alter-ego Eugene's humble early years in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn to Army base life in Biloxi, Mississippi (where he encounters antisemitism and racial bigotry) and concludes with Eugene and his brother's experiences in comedy writing for radio and TV. On Broadway, Brighton Beach Memoirs garnered Tony Awards for Best Director (Gene Saks) and Best Featured Actor (Matthew Broderick). It also was the recipient of the Drama Critics Circle Award as Best Play of 1983 and the Outer Circle Critics Award as Best Play. It's one of eighteen plays by Simon that was either adapted into a big-screen movie or telefilm. The 1986 Universal Pictures adaptation reunited several of the players from the stage. Simon's frequent collaborator Gene Saks directed again and Brian Drillinger and Lisa Waltz reprised their roles as Eugene's older brother, Stanley Jerome, and Eugene's cousin, Nora. Jonathan Silverman took over the central part of Eugene Jerome for Broderick on Broadway and went on to play him for more than 400 shows on the "Bright Beach" National Tour, according to The Atlanta Constitution's Eleanor Ringel. So with Broderick's busy movie schedule, it was natural for Silverman to step into Eugene's shoes on the silver screen as well. (During this same period, Silverman also played Jerome at a later age in the stage version of Broadway Bound.) Universal's press notes tout that Brighton Beach Memoirs was licensed for over 500 professional and amateur productions throughout the US.

Fifteen-year-old Eugene Morris Jerome (Jonathan Silverman) and his extended family live in a two-story house within a lower middle-class Brooklyn neighborhood in 1937. Eugene has aspirations to either become a pitcher for the Yankees or a full-time writer. While he enjoys playing street baseball with his friends, his literary gifts make him seem better suited to blossom as a writer, which is the much more realistic occupation. For now, though, he's a gofer for his disciplinarian mother, Kate (Blythe Danner). She often sends her younger son to Greenblatt's, the corner grocery, at least a couple times a day. Jerome dreams of eating ice cream while staring at pictures of nude girls. With his telescope, he's a Peeping Tom, gazing at a nubile woman across the way through a hole in the wall in an upstairs room. He has a proclivity to drop his napkin under the dining room table during supper so he can look up the skirt of his 16-year-old cousin, Nora (Lisa Waltz). Eugene seems infatuated with female anatomy and consults older brother Stanley (Brian Drillinger) about his wet dreams and first-time experiences. Stanley works at a haberdashery but gets into trouble when he stands up for a black employee and brushes sawdust on the feet of his boss. Stanley must write his supervisor a letter of apology or get fired so he confers with his old man, Jack (Bob Dishy), the Jerome's paterfamilias. Jack is much looser than Kate and works two jobs, one as a party favor salesman and other as a garment cutter. He's burned out and loses one his jobs. Living with the Jeromes are Kate's sister, Blanche (Judith Ivey), her oldest daughter, Nora, and her young sister, Laurie (Stacey Glick), who suffers from a heart murmur. Nora badly wants to audition for a Broadway play (and she thinks she'll earn the part) but her mother wants her to finish school first. The movie intertwines each family member's problems (sometimes overlapping them) and is really about struggling to make it in the post-Depression years just prior to a second world war breaking out.

When I grow up, I want to either pitch for the Yankees or become a writer.

I was concerned that Brighton Beach Memoirs would be a sluggish adaptation to sit through but as I became engrossed in each character's plight, the run-time went by rather fast. I haven't seen it performed on stage but reading about those who have complained that Simon chopped up his longer scenes into scrabbled bits, causing the cinematic narrative to be more uneven. They also griped that he cut out some of his play's best lines. (It should be noted that critical reception was overall very favorable, although the movie didn't get nominated for any awards.) Saks has opened up the film more by showing the beach, including a fine scene atop the large beach rocks where Eugene and Stanley discuss the latter's employment dilemma. Saks and his cinematographer, the wonderful John Bailey, have photographed more scenes outdoors to counteract the claustrophobic interiors of the Jerome household. The film is uniformly well-acted and presents a worthwhile screen companion by America's most popular playwright.

Brighton Beach Memoirs Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Brighton Beach Memoirs makes its global premiere on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout Select (number 72 in the label's catalog) on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. Presented in its original cinema ratio of 1.85:1, the picture looks wholly authentic to its intended look. Jack Garner of the Democrat and Chronicle (NY) described Bailey's lighting as having a "warm, golden glow" and the viewer should notice this in an early scene that's depicted in Screenshot #18. Brian Brennan, then assistant entertainment editor of the Calgary Herald, wrote: "The movie is a sepia-toned version of the play which ran at Theatre Calgary at the beginning of the season." The film has that sepia tone in a number of scenes inside the Jerome home. Grain is fairly thick and textured, which is pretty consistent throughout the presentation. I only noticed three or four shots with specks or any print damage invading the frame, which are minor. Shout has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 36000 kbps while the complete disc sports a total bitrate of 39.69 Mbps.

The 108-minute movie comes with twelve scene selections.

Brighton Beach Memoirs Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout supplies the film's original monaural sound track with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono mix (1656 kbps, 24-bit). Dialogue and New York accents are clear and intelligible. I thought the front speakers showed decent activity and separation for distinct f/x. A game of street hockey featuring Eugene and his pals really accented the clack of sticks and skating marks on the street pavement. Composer Michael Small's jazzy score demonstrated nice pitch and expansive range in the instrumental chords. The master is in excellent shape.

Optional English SDH for the feature are available through the menu or via remote control activation.

Brighton Beach Memoirs Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Theatrical Trailer (1:26, 1080p) - the trailer is in decent condition but it's been cropped in a pan-and-scan presentation.

Brighton Beach Memoirs Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Brighton Beach Memoirs is a a wistful and quaint retelling of Neil Simon's boyhood years in a Brooklyn neighborhood that many working-class families can relate to. Simon's portrait of the Jeromes is both humorous and sincere. Shout Select delivers an outstanding transfer that has to be the best the film has ever looked. Like the Universal DVD, the only extra is the trailer. I'm hoping that we'll see more HD upgrades of Simon plays turned into films, especially Biloxi Blues and Lost in Yonkers. The Simon-scripted Max Dugan Returns is a personal favorite and I hope that reaches BD too. (I'll hold on to my precious Anchor Bay DVD.) A WARM RECOMMENDATION for this budgeted Shout Select gem.