Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

High Time Blu-ray Movie Review

Bing goes back to college.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 16, 2012

Many major film stars of the thirties and forties had seen the writing on the wall and had moved over at least some of the time to television by the time the fifties and sixties came along. Some of Bing’s former Paramount colleagues like Fred MacMurray crafted a whole new way of working where they filmed their scenes for their series in one fell swoop, leaving lots of time for what really interested them, like golf. Bing Crosby was still a holdout in 1960, even though it was clear he was no longer the top box office draw he had been a couple of decades previously. While Der Bingle would ultimately give in to the siren call of the sitcom in 1964 (rather unsuccessfully, it should be added), his forays into television in the early sixties were either relegated to his own guest appearances on variety shows or hosting his own specials, while his production company offered sizable hits like Ben Casey and Hogan’s Heroes. Still, there’s a whiff of sitcom pilotry about High Time, a genial enough little comedy that is best remembered today, if it’s remembered at all, as having introduced the Cahn – Van Heusen standard “The Second Time Around”. (It’s indicative of Bing’s falling star that the song, while sung quite amiably by the iconic crooner in the film, actually became a hit for the songwriting team’s preferred vocalist, Frank Sinatra.) Rather incredibly, High Time was based on a story by the usually incredibly witty Garson Kanin, but the film is more like a quaint early sixties version of Animal House, sans togas and beer but with Bing in drag dancing at a big society ball where everyone is dressed up in Civil War regalia. This was Blake Edwards’ directorial follow up to his vastly more successful (and better remembered) Operation Petticoat, and while it offers a certain workmanlike affability, it’s a rather mild mannered comedy in the overall Edwards oeuvre, one without the manic slapstick offerings of the Pink Panther movies or even the scabrous verbal humor of some of Edwards’ later efforts like S.O.B.

Crosby portrays 51 year old Harvey Howard, a restaurant magnate who has decided to finally get his college degree after having made his fortune in hamburgers. (It should be noted that Crosby was in fact 57 when the film was made, and it seems like an odd piece of vanity to shave a few years off the obviously long in the tooth actor’s age.) Howard’s children are aghast that their father is doing something so unheard of, but Howard is a “cool cat”, relatively speaking, and soon ingratiates himself into the student body, including a coterie of kids with whom he’s boarding, as well as a couple of hangers-on. These include jocks like Gil (Fabian) and Bob (Richard Beymer, West Side Story), as well as a comely lass named Joy (Tuesday Weld) who is always with the boys. Just for a dash of ethnic color, there’s also an Indian (as in the far off land of the Taj Mahal) named T.J. Padmanagham (Patrick Adiarte), who walks around campus in a variety of colorful turbans.

Also on hand are a couple of adults, including a dorm supervisor who’s also a chemistry teacher, a natty fellow named Professor Thayer (Gavin MacLeod of Mary Tyler Moore Show and Love Boat fame). And Howard soon is falling for the local French teacher, Helene Gauthier (Nicole Maurey), a romance that rather incredibly creates a central conflict late in the film where the relationship between teacher and student (albeit both middle aged) is deemed of questionable propriety. (Television trivia aficionados will also recognize future Batgirl Yvonne Craig as the college’s star reporter, who wants to interview Howard, a celebrity elder and an unusual sight on the campus.)

The film ambles through some proto-Edwardsian sight gags, including some sped up footage as the guys get ready for class one morning. And there are a series of pranks in one of the film’s many montage sequences that won’t exactly put Bluto and his buddies to shame, but which were probably quite amusing for an early sixties audience. One of the film’s most bizarre moments comes at the close of the film. We’ve seen Howard make it through all four years of his college career (each year introduced by a brief interstitial announcing that year), and he is of course the valedictorian of his graduating class, giving a rather sweet little speech about what his return to school has meant to him. I won’t spoil what happens next, but will only say it may bring to mind one of the weirder sitcoms of the (latter) sixties, a certain show featuring Sally Field as one Sister Bertrille.

High Time probably is best enjoyed today as a sort of prescient, albeit pretty tame, look at what was then a still nascent “generation gap”. Undercutting this idea somewhat is just how “with it” Howard is; he has absolutely no problem interacting with the kids, and the kids accept Howard with apparent ease. The film is bright and breezy, but it doesn’t aim for anything other than being a pleasant time killer, much like, in fact, most sitcoms of that era. There’s nothing really very deep or indeed even laugh out loud funny about High Time, but it’s a sweet little time capsule offering a window on a long bygone world.

High Time Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

High Time is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The image is nicely sharp and well detailed, but the color shows signs of what I might term "DeLuxe Color yellow syndrome", where everything is slightly skewed toward the saffron side of things, which in several cases has aged slightly to the brown end of the spectrum, especially with regard to flesh tones. The color in fact is kind of pallid throughout this enterprise, popping occasionally (especially with regard to reds, as can be seen in Bing's sporty compact or the fire truck on the football field in the screencaps included with this review), but never quite approaching a true "wow" factor, and without any really zesty looking saturation. There is some very minor age related wear and tear that the elements display, but generally speaking this is a solid if not totally spectacular offering from Twilight Time and Fox.

High Time Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

High Time's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 soundtrack is, like the film itself, amiable and workmanlike but seldom spectacular. The Mancini score fills the surrounds rather well, but dialogue and effects rarely stray from the front channels. Fidelity is excellent, and the track really shows no signs of damage or age related wear and tear. There's not much dynamic range to speak of here, but some of Mancini's source cues (listen to that "groovy" cha-cha cue early in the film) provide a little punch and sonic energy.

High Time Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (SD; 2:27) is in pretty rough shape, image wise.


• Isolated Score is presented via a nice DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. Henry Mancini provides a typically bubbly underscore, reworking his main theme in a series of different guises throughout the film, as well as occasionally quoting "The Second Time Around". There are a number of other musical elements in the film, including (rather incredibly) Fabian singing "The Foggy, Foggy Dew" and Der Bingle crooning a Christmas carol.

High Time Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Every month when Twilight Time announces their upcoming slate, there are reactions that run the gamut from "Huzzah!" to "Why in heaven's name would they want to release that?" My hunch is most people are probably going to be in the second camp with regard to High Time, for the film doesn't seem to have a lot to offer contemporary audiences. Bing was frankly getting to be past his prime by the time this film came out, and there probably aren't scads of people demanding to see Fabian, Tuesday Weld and Richard Beymer waiting in the wings to snatch up copies of the film. But High Time, while unprepossessing, is charming and congenial, if seldom really the laugh fest that it aims to be. Bing wouldn't go the sitcom route for another four years after High Time came out in 1960, but this film shows Der Bingle in a comfortably relaxed setting and plays much like a long form sitcom, replete with zany supporting characters. Even though this release has a slightly faded looking transfer, for those wanting a little peek into what filmmakers thought kids were like in 1960 (whether or not that was actually the case), High Time comes Recommended.