Guest Wife Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Guest Wife Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 5, 2013

Lovers of cult television (and you know who you are) may recall with fondness a now little remembered gem (actually, a Screen Gem(s), but I digress) of a series called Occasional Wife, which starred Michael Callan as a machinating junior executive who “hires” his downstairs apartment neighbor Patricia Hardy to pretend to be his wife so that he can climb the corporate ladder, where only happily married men made it to the upper echelons of management. Occasional Wife looked to be a sizable winner early in the 1966-67 television season, but when its ratings fell, it was cancelled after one year (though in a rather unusual move at the time, NBC briefly announced it was considering bringing it back as a 1968 mid-season replacement, though that never actually happened). One has to wonder if the series’ creators Lawrence J. Cohen and Fred Freeman had perhaps chanced upon the ebullient 1945 farce Guest Wife, for it presents much the same general plotline, with a machinating Don Ameche “hiring” Claudette Colbert to pretend to be his wife, after having claimed for some time that he’s been married to her. The twist in this particular formulation is that Colbert’s character is already married to a man played by Dick Foran, whose character just happens to be the best friend of the Ameche character.

While Guest Wife relies on an increasingly improbable set of circumstances (much like any good farce), it’s buoyed by some rather smart comedic writing and nicely tuned performances from its star trio of Colbert, Ameche and Foran. The interesting thing about this slyly provocative piece is how it actually concentrates on the “fake” couple, implying that they are in fact happier than the actually married duo. Colbert toes a fine line here, properly coquettish while never forsaking a basic decency which is anchored in her character’s belief that her husband needs to stand up to his friend, for whom he has repeatedly made sacrifices over the years. Guest Wife isn’t very well remembered these days— much like Occasional Wife, in fact—but it’s well worth checking out.

Guest Wife Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Guest Wife is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. This release falls pretty much fully in line with other Olive releases of this vintage. The elements have typical age related wear and tear, including occasional scratches, flecks and specks, but overall contrast is quite strong, blacks are generally very solid and gray scale is decently modulated. The film does have a few soft looking patches, but on the whole, this is another solid looking effort from Olive that follows their standard operating procedure of no restoration or digital tweaking.

Guest Wife Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Guest Wife's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track has some very minor damage and distortion, with a few isolated pops and crackling occasionally becoming noticeable in the upper midrange. This is a very slight anomaly in what is otherwise a perfectly listenable, if obviously pretty shallow sounding, track.

Guest Wife Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Guest Wife Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Guest Wife features some very smart writing and enjoyable performances, especially from Colbert, who is delightfully ambivalent throughout the film. This Blu-ray continues Olive's batting average of providing nice looking and sounding vintage films. Recommended.