Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Dog Day Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov January 23, 2020

Yves Boisset's "Dog Day" a.k.a. "Canicule" (1984) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the disc include a vintage trailer for the film and exclusive new audio commentary by critics Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell. In English or French, with optional English subtitles. Region-A "locked".

I am here to spend money and learn about life.

In Paris, American gangster Jimmy Cobb (Lee Marvin) and his partners are ambushed by the police while trying to rob an armored truck. After an intense shootout, Cobb manages to get away with a million bucks and then immediately heads toward the countryside.

With the summer heat slowing him down, Cobb barely reaches a secluded farm where eventually the owner’s frustrated wife (Miou-Miou) offers him food and helps him hide from the police. However, later on her husband (Victor Lanoux) and his brother (Jean Carmet) force him to come of his hiding place and then threaten to turn him over to the police if he does not give them the loot. When Cobb hesitates, they torture him, and then encourage other family members to join the ‘game’. Much to everyone’s surprise, the most enthusiastic player turns out to be the youngest member of the family (superb David Bennet), who professes his admiration for the American and then declares that he is going to use his misery to get famous.

Based on the popular novel by Jean Herman, and directed by former critic-turned-director Yves Boisset, Canucule a.k.a. Dog Day is one of the wildest, most offensive, and yet funniest French crime thrillers that you would ever see. And no, this isn’t an exaggeration, the film really works extra hard to rub its audience the wrong way, which is basically what makes it special.

The script isn’t entirely faithful to Herman’s novel, but with Boisset behind the camera this is actually a good thing because the outrageous flourishes with a much greater intensity. The novel has plenty of detailed descriptions of situations that support a more conventional dramatic buildup, while the film ignores them and invents additional opportunities to shock as hard as it can. A lot of this shocking material works as satire that targets many dated clichés about French culture, but a lot of it also mad cinematic fun of the kind that nowadays can destroy a director’s career.

In a new audio commentary that was recorded exclusively for this release, Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell bring up Ettore Scola’s classic comedy Ugly, Dirty and Bad and note the extremely similar fashion in which its satire shocks. It is a great comparison. Scola’s film has even more bile but goes on the warpath in exactly the same manner Boisset’s film does. The only critical difference between the two is Boisset’s obvious and well-documented admiration for American gangster films, which makes Marvin’s character immune to the madness that feeds the satire. (Even though he is supposed to be the classic bad guy without morals, at the end of the film he emerges as the only one who has his head screwed the right way. In other words, his badness is negated and he becomes the only normal person in the circus). In Scola’s film no one is spared. It is an all-out assault on the post-war Italian society that unloads an incredible amount of inconvenient truths.

The cast is outstanding but in different ways. As noted above, Marvin keeps his cool because he is the outsider that makes the litmus test that is underway effective. The French crew is flat-out crazy. Lanoux is funny but also scary as the abusive and perverted farmer who can’t take no for an answer. Carmet is also hugely impressive as the dim-witted follower who does not quite get how what a series mess his brother has created. Bennent is the outrageous little punk that might be even crazier than his father. There are more great actors, but everyone shines exactly as the film requires.

Francis Lai’s synthpop score is essentially a giant curveball that prepares the audience to expect an entirely different film. Brilliant.

Dog Day Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Dog Day arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from an older master that was provided by StudioCanal. I do not wish to speculate that it was prepared during the DVD era, but it has some pretty obvious limitations that were common for masters that emerged more than ten years ago. The good news is that there are no traces of problematic digital adjustments, so for the most part the visuals convey decent delineation and depth. Clarity rages from decent to good. The master's age shows the most during wider panoramic shots and darker footage where fine details and nuances are not optimal. Most still look good, but on a larger screen it is very easy to tell that ideally the visuals should be quite a bit richer and better defined. Grain exposure should be better and more consistent as well. Image stability is very good. There are no distracting large debris, cuts, damage marks, warped or torn frames to report. (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).

Dog Day Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and French DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the French track. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

It is very difficult to pick the right track to view the film with because both have some pretty mediocre overdubbing. I chose the English track because I wanted to hear Lee Marvin's voice -- plus Tina Louise's voice, though her part is very small -- but the English dubbing is quite amateurish. In some parts it sounds like the people that did it were talking away from the mics, and elsewhere there is a lot of mumbling that routinely makes it difficult to figure out what is being said. But this is how the French did it, so this isn't a flaw of the lossless track. The French track sounds a bit better, but Marvin's parts just don't sound right. There are no encoding anomalies.

Dog Day Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - a vintage French trailer for Dog Day. In French, with imposed English subtitles. (3 min, 480/60i).

• Commentary - critics Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell has plenty of interesting observations about the unique style of Dog Day and its critical reception, similarities to other genre films (and Prime Cut in particular), the message of the film, Yves Boisset's career, the casting choices, etc. The commentary was recorded exclusively for Kino Lorber.

• Additional Trailers - additional trailers for the following titles from Kino Lorber's catalog:
  
  1. Monte Walsh
  2. Prime Cut
  3. The Spikes Gang
  4. The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday
  5. Gorky Park

Dog Day Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Don't waste your time with Dog Day if you think that Lee Marvin's presence on the original poster for the film guarantees an experience with a tense crime thriller of the kind that the iconic American actor made on this side of the Atlantic. This film was conceived to be, and is, something entirely different, which is very much worth exploring unprepared. For what it is, it is outrageously good, but it takes a certain mind to appreciate its aspirations and style. Kino Lorber's release is sourced from an older but mostly decent master that was supplied by StudioCanal. It also comes with a very nice exclusive new commentary by critics Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.