Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov October 13, 2021

Carl Reiner's "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" (1982) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the disc include new audio commentary by filmmaker Allan Arkush and critic/filmmaker Daniel Kramer as well as vintage promotional materials for the film. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The right man for the job

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid sure sounds great on paper. Steve Martin playing a private eye in a film noir spoof? Okay, you have my attention. A whole bunch of stars from the golden era of film noir making an appearance in it? Okay, now I am itching to see this film. Michael Chapman moving the camera and a score by the legendary maestro Miklos Rozsa? There is no way this film is anything else but a masterpiece.

Unfortunately, not only is Dead Man Don’t Wear Plaid not that kind of a special film, but it may very well be one of the most underwhelming spoofs ever put together.

Private eye Rigby Reardon (Martin) is hired by Juliet Forrest (Rachel Ward) to investigate the premature death of her father, a famous scientist who has been working on a groundbreaking cheese recipe. Forrest is convinced that there is more to the car accident that took her father’s life, so she wants Reardon to get her the truth. Genuinely moved by his client’s beauty and inspired by her checkbook, Reardon immediately goes to work and begins reconstructing the dead man’s past, but finds himself going down a rabbit hole where nothing is as it seems.

The narrative of Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid must have been reverse-engineered and this is essentially where all of its troubles emerge from. What does this mean exactly? It means that all of the inserts with the legendary stars became its foundation, so once they were chosen the ‘original’ material was either added or adjusted to finalize the narrative. In other words, throughout the film plenty is said and done to make the ‘original’ material work for the inserts, rather than have the inserts work for it. It is why so much quite simply does not work. Yes, you can quite easily admire the great editing work that was required to assemble everything into a coherent film, but this does not mean that the end product turned out great.

The director of Dead Man Don’t Wear Plaid, Carl Reiner, had previously worked with Martin on the superior comedy The Jerk, but their connection here is very problematic. Indeed, more often than not it looks like Martin is simply left to improvise so that the presence of the vintage inserts makes sense. Martin is an excellent improvisor, but not when he is left to interact with dead stars. He looks very awkward, and once it becomes obvious that his entire performance will be rehashing the same bridging improvisations, it becomes practically impossible to enjoy his antics.

Ward looks stunning and there were more than a few sequences that made me think how great she would have been in a proper film noir, or even contemporary neo-noir thriller that was shot in black-and-white. She is excellent in Tylor Hackford’s romantic thriller Against All Odds, but the style and ambience of this film are obviously very different.

The list of iconic stars making an appearance in the film includes Ava Gardner, Ray Milland, Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, James Cagney, Fred MacMurray, Veronica Lake, and Alan Ladd, amongst others.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from an old and weak master that was supplied by Universal Pictures. To be honest, this master reminded me of the one some years ago the folks at Eureka Entertainment used when they prepared their release of Rumble Fish because I could see the same type of issues on both. For example, virtually all visuals have a very thick digital appearance and as a result there are all sorts of different anomalies. Delineation and depth are especially problematic, plus there is plenty of smearing that affects fluidity as well. Additionally, backgrounds lack proper nuances, highlights are off, and shadow definition is unconvincing. There is quite a bit of crushing that is exacerbated by the smearing as well, though because large portions of the film are quite dark untrained eyes are likely to miss it. Obviously, I am not addressing the quality of the archival footage because it comes with inherited limitations. Image stability is very good. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I thought that the lossless audio track was excellent. The dialog was very clear, sharp, and stable. In fact, even some of the lines from the vintage inserts sounded terrific. Miklos Rozsa's soundtrack was quite effective in key areas where the music had a particular role to play. I did not encounter any technical issues to report in our review.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Promotional Materials -
  
  1. TV Spots
  2. Radio Spots
  3. Buttometer Teaser Trailer
  4. Remastered Original Theatrical Trailer

• Commentary - this new audio commentary was recorded by filmmaker Allan Arkush and critic/filmmaker Daniel Kramer. There is some interesting technical information, but completely random political talk ruins the commentary.

• Cover - reversible cover with vintage poster art.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Carl Reiner made some really good films over the years, and there are a few with Steve Martin that are exceptionally funny. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaids should have been a great film because the concept behind it is actually quite original, but it is really a one-trick pony. Martin does plenty to make it appear coherent and enjoyable, but the end result is seriously underwhelming. Kino Lorber's release is sourced from an old and regrettably quite problematic master that was supplied by Universal Pictures.