It's In the Bag Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

It's In the Bag Blu-ray Movie Review

The Five Chairs.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 14, 2013

Fred Allen is a name that may well not be familiar to many, maybe even most, who are reading this, but he was once one of America’s hottest comedians, with a long running top rated radio show (not to mention copious credits in vaudeville and Broadway). Allen had a hangdog demeanor, as well as huge bags under his eyes (which were frequently the butt of his own jokes), but he had one of the sharpest comedic minds of his (or frankly any) generation. Revisiting Allen’s routines now is like an object lesson in brilliant satire and the sort of “meta” approach that has defined many contemporary stand up comedians. Allen would regularly deconstruct everything about him, whether that be his supposed feud with Jack Benny (who appears in one of several cameo appearances in It’s In the Bag!) or indeed whatever medium in which he found himself working. That approach is front and center right off the bat in It’s in the Bag, where the credits start to unfurl and then are quickly brought to a screeching halt by Allen himself, looking straight into the camera and addressing the audience as a sort of “fellow traveler”, lamenting the fact that they, and by extension he, have to sit through all these meaningless names in order to get to the actual film. Allen then does an absolutely hilarious line by line decimation of the various talent involved in the film, wondering aloud “Who are these people?” when the supporting cast card is shown, and later claiming that a number of the technical personnel got their jobs simply because they were relatives of the producer. It’s one of the smartest, sharpest openings of any comedy film from any era in film, and if the rest of It’s in the Bag! doesn’t quite come up to that level of hilarity, there are still plenty of guffaws to be had in what was Fred Allen’s only major film starring role.

Mel Brooks’ long career is now perhaps best remembered for films like Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles and The Producers, which Brooks himself musicalized and brought to Broadway, creating an epic Tony Award winning hit (I had the pleasure of conducting a gargantuan production of the show here in Portland where I live). True Brooks aficionados will remember one of Mel’s films which strangely hasn’t attained the same status as others in the writer-director’s oeuvre, 1970’s The Twelve Chairs, a madcap farce starring Frank Langella, Dom DeLuise and Ron Moody. The basic setup of the film is that a sizable fortune has been stashed in one of twelve chairs from an antique dining set, but the chairs have all been disbursed to different place and different owners, and a motley crew of fortune hunters then races to discover where the stash is (rather like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World). While American audiences might be most familiar with this old story (based upon a Russian novel which came out in 1928) in its Brooks version, it has actually made it to films no less than eighteen times in various adaptations from different countries through the intervening decades. Though missing more than a half dozen of the original seating configuration, It’s in the Bag! is indeed one of those adaptations.

It’s in the Bag! ups the ante just slightly by having Allen’s character, Fred Floogle, becoming a suspect in his granduncle’s murder. It soon becomes apparent (to the audience if not the bumbling police) that the actual culprits are the law firm and business partners of the deceased man, including a lunatic attorney played by none other than John Carradine. Fred and his wife Eve (Binnie Barnes, seemingly channeling Joan Davis) initially think Fred, operator of a Flea Circus, has come into an astounding twelve million, and begin living high on the hog. They also start planning an elaborate wedding for their daughter Marion (Gloria Pope, evidently in one of only two film appearances she made), who is engaged to the son of a kind of shifty supposed aristocrat (Robert Benchley) who, it turns out, is little more than a pest control expert.

Once the will is read and Fred and Marion find out that the money is supposedly gone and they’ve only inherited five chairs, they’re obviously distraught. A mysterious record is delivered to them (one great gag that probably very few will get involves Fred playing the “A” side), but when they turn the 78 over they discover a secret message from their murdered relative. Some loot has been stashed in one of the chairs, but of course Fred has just sent his precocious young son to sell them to a local auction house. The rest of the film finds Fred and Marion trying to track down all five chairs while they’re simultaneously followed by a cop (Sidney Toler of the Monogram Charlie Chan films) and various bad guys.

The film plays like a bunch of just slightly connected sketches, and as with most sketch comedy, some bits hit and some miss. The hits include a great little scene with Jack Benny, Allen’s long running radio nemesis. Benny has of course gotten one of the chairs, and Fred pretends to be the President of Nutley, New Jersey’s Jack Benny Fan Club. Fred soon finds out, however, that even being a fan doesn’t keep Jack from charging for everything from storing Allen’s hat to Fred getting some cigarettes. Other bits, like Jerry Colonna’s over the top psychiatrist, haven’t aged particularly well. Some are kind of middling, as in a too long bit where Fred and Marion attempt to pass the time by going to a movie, only to discover they can’t find a seat. One rather odd bit has Fred becoming a singing waiter at a "Naughty Nineties" revue where the other performers are Don Ameche and Rudy Vallee, playing themselves.

There are some decidedly politically incorrect moments scattered throughout the film, including Fred and his son adopting Chinese dialects while they squint their eyes, and a reference to “Shylock” that isn’t exactly anti-Semitic but comes awfully close. There’s a longer routine with a Jewish lady named Pansy Nussbaum that is undeniably funny but which might strike some contemporary audiences as kind of questionable. One of the funnier elements of the film is actually completely tangential: keep an eye on Binnie Barnes’ hair. There are literally no two scenes, including those which are supposedly chronological, where she doesn’t sport a different (and sometimes quite elaborate) hairstyle.

It's In the Bag Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

It's in the Bag! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The elements for this transfer are not in the best of shape, and this is therefore a rare Olive release that doesn't really rise to the label's usual level of excellence. Manifold scratches, flecks and specks dot this release, but the real problem here is wildly fluctuating contrast. Some scenes look very good indeed, with well modulated gray scale and very good (if not exemplary) blacks. Other scenes, however, look incredibly washed out, almost as if they had been mastered from a third or fourth generation print. The better looking moments are more plentiful than the bad looking ones, but this is a fairly problematic looking release, at least when weighed against the bulk of Olive's output.

It's In the Bag Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

It's in the Bag! features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that is about what you'd expect for a film of this vintage. The sound is quite boxy and a bit shrill on the upper end, but there's no real egregious damage to report. The soundfield is obviously very narrow, but the midrange is generally full enough to support the dialogue quite easily as well as the music. Fidelity is adequate, while dynamic range actually is unexpectedly wide, considering a couple of bombastic moments.

It's In the Bag Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements included on this disc.

It's In the Bag Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's in the Bag! is worth checking out if for no other reason than that it's a very rare visual record of the very funny Fred Allen. The film is kind of hit or miss, but a lot of the movie is amusing and there are several laugh out loud moments as well. The politically incorrect content may turn some people off, at least momentarily, but Allen's deadpan delivery and some of the smart writing (the screenplay was co-written by none other than Alma Reville, Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock) help to overcome these qualms. The video quality is hampered by some problems with the elements, but the rarity (if not exactly the "historical value") of the film helps to offset those qualms. With caveats noted, this release comes Recommended.