Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Fun with Dick and Jane Blu-ray Movie Review

A standard-fare '70s comedy at least delivers a strong video presentation with its debut...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 13, 2023

It's always fun discovering or revisiting a comedy from the '60s, '70s or '80s. Will it hold up? Will it still earn laughs? Was it even funny in the first place? Has it aged poorly? Has it somehow grown better over the years? Or does it deserve to fade into memory? Fun with Dick and Jane is a film I always remember sitting on the video store shelf (first in VHS and BETA, later just on VHS), and one I always remember moving right on past. I think my instincts were right. Oh, there's some hilarity to be had, even some throwback joy in all the actors that pop up on screen, most of them clearly having a blast with one another. But there's an artificial whiff to the setup, stiltedness to the unfolding story, and a dated desperation to the performances that, laughs be damned, leave this quote-unquote classic feeling stiff and antiquated.

Dick Harper (George Segal) is the perfect husband. He's got the perfect job and the perfect wife in Jane (Jane Fonda). Things are so perfect for the Harpers that they've just built a swimming pool in their backyard... using money they don't actually have. When Dick is unexpectedly fired from his job and the couple find themselves deep in debt, Dick starts searching elsewhere for employment. But when he finds he has no marketable skills, he and Jane have no choice but to turn to a life of crime. The Ted Kotcheff-directed comedy also stars a who's who of familiar '70s faces, including Ed McMahon, Fred Willard, John Dehner, Art Evans, Harry Holcolmbe, James Jeter, Thalmus Rasulala and a young Jay Leno, along with Dick Gautier, Walter Brooke, Mary Jackson, Allan Miller, Hank Garcia and Sean Frye.

Fun with Dick and Jane is a comedy that takes far too long to get going (i.e. to get to the criminal misadventures) and gets far too silly once it gets rolling (ahem, some of poor Dick's ideas of a disguise). At first I thought Kotcheff and the film's writers -- David Giler, Jerry Belson and Mordecai Richler -- were padding the screentime and letting the actors play. But the more I watched the more I rethought my initial impression. Fun with Dick and Jane isn't exactly sure how to get to the good stuff and what to do with it, or more to the point, what tone to strike when it arrives. Slapstick, farce, cartoonish crosses and, again that word, silly bits of thievery, gawking tet a tets, Looney Tunes facial work and eye pops, you name it... it's a comedy that so very much wants to please yet is tossing too much at the wall to really stick.

Segal and Fonda are smartly cast and give it their all at least, and there's more than a scene or two where I found myself laughing out loud. (Typically thanks to Fonda, who for some reason clicked with my funny bone in this one.) They do a lot more heavy lifting than the script otherwise allows, and I suspect a lot of improvisation was in tow to save the day. The comedy style itself is 100% straight out of the 1970s; harder to describe but oh so simple to spot in the wild. The jokes come fast but loose, lacking punchline strength but setting up enough laughs to inevitably score a few big ones. There's also a weird over-reliance on set pieces that, for better or worse (worse being the length of time the camera lingers on any given caper), works more often than it doesn't. Still, even at an hour and a half, Fun with Dick and Jane feels twenty minutes too long, overstaying its welcome and growing tiresome long before the credits roll. And don't get me started on the insanely convenient wrap-up and happy ending that tags the duo as criminals yet comes up with a convoluted last minute plot development that allows them to walk free and come out on top.

Somewhere in Fun with Dick and Jane is a film that could make for a killer modern comedy, if remade properly. Screenwriters Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller attempted as much in 2005 with the likes of a dream cast in Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni, Alec Baldwin, Richard Jenkins, Angie Harmon and personal favorite John Michael Higgins. But... good God, what a piece of early century trash that turned out to be. (It sits at 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, and even that strikes me as generous.) The idea is sound; I would think the gags would come so naturally and quickly, how can anyone fail? But again I go back to that balance of seriousness and silliness. Too far in either direction and the whole comedy crashes down. The 1977 original version of Fun with Dick and Jane teeters and totters, never really crashing down. But it gets sloppy, making a mess of things, and can't quite keep its wares balanced atop its wobbly, hobbly centerpoint. It isn't a complete loss and, as I said, there is some fun to be had. But you really have to go digging, you really have to overlook its shortcomings, and you really have to love the actors enough to suffer through the things they appear to be suffering through as well.

Fun with Dick and Jane Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

While contrast and vibrancy are a touch dim and diluted in several scenes, Sony's 1080p/AVC-encoded Fun with Dick and Jane video transfer is quite good. A full, proper restoration of the original elements would most likely produce a more vivid and playful image but the master the studio is working with here has a lot of things going for it. A consistent and filmic veneer of grain, for one. Excellent detailing, for another. Fine textures are nicely resolved on the whole -- there are a few softer shots inherent to the photography -- and edge definition is clean, sometimes crisp, and altogether uninhibited. Colors are fairly attractive, black levels are reasonably deep, and delineation is decent (barring some minor and infrequent crush here and there). Add to that a lack of any significant banding, blocking or other such nonsense and you have an above average catalog transfer that proves to be a looker more often than not.

Fun with Dick and Jane Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There's never a lot to say about a mono mix, other than the obvious, and Fun with Dick and Jane's DTS-HD Master Audio mono track is faithful to the film's original sound design while giving it a bit of modern polish. Voices are precise and intelligible at all times, Ernest Gold's music fares well amidst the playfulness and hilarity of the movie's hijinks, and there isn't much in the way of wear, tear or muffled moments to the clarity of the track. There are instances of apparent ADR-like post-production re-recording of dialogue, but it's par for the course. Likewise, there are some inconsistencies in the loudness of crashing glass and what not (which sounds rather tinny, as canned effects of the era often do) but it's not something that will draw any ire.

Fun with Dick and Jane Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Blu-ray release of Fun with Dick and Jane doesn't include any special features beyond a theatrical trailer.

Fun with Dick and Jane Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fun with Dick and Jane is one of someone's parents' favorite comedies. It doesn't really hold up, although a handful of laughs and gags do, and it really only offers genuine fun when it comes to Segal and Fonda's screenwork and chemistry. Sony's Blu-ray release is decent, with a strong video presentation and solid DTS-HD Master Audio mono track. But more extras -- any really -- would have gone a long way to adding value.