Kinky Boots: The Musical Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Kinky Boots: The Musical Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 17, 2021

Perhaps surprisingly, Kinky Boots: The Musical was not the first stage song and dance extravaganza to revolve around something to do with footwear in either a cobbler shop or shoe emporium in Britain. Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen were among the most successful songwriters of their generation, having written a truckload of huge hits for the likes of Frank Sinatra, and ending up taking home three Academy Awards for Best Song in the process (two of them for Sinatra films). Unfortunately, the pair was not able to duplicate their Hollywood achievements on the Great White Way. Their 1965 musical Skyscraper had the marquee value of the venerable Julie Harris appearing in her first musical (future Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall was her perhaps unlikely costar, despite the fact that trivia fans will know he essayed the Dick Van Dyke role in the West End stage version of Bye Bye Birdie), but the show barely lasted the season. Almost exactly a year later, Cahn and Van Heusen returned with their second "at bat" on Broadway, a musicalization of the well remembered David Lean film Hobson's Choice , which was retitled Walking Happy for its theatrical iteration. The show featured a whirlwind performance by an ultimately Tony nominated Norman Wisdom, but, like Skyscraper, the show folded within a few months, though its ebullient title song got covered by several major recording artists back in the day. Rather interestingly Walking Happy has at least a couple of tethers to Kinky Boots, aside and apart from the fact that the latter property, too, was culled from a motion picture. While Walking Happy took place in the 19th century, like Kinky Boots it offered a somewhat hardscrabble environment away from the blandishments of London where a long established shop devoted to shoes and/or boots has a future that is decidedly in doubt.

There's a certain cinematic flair to Kinky Boots: The Musical which is well delivered in this Broadway HD "live theater on video" event. Scenes segue in the theatrical version of an optical dissolve, sets morph magically, and even the passing of several years in the life of focal character Charlie Price is handled with a certain aplomb, documenting his transformation from a little boy (Charlie Underhill) to a young man (Killian Donnelly). Charlie is just the latest scion of a family that has been in the shoemaking business in Northampton as Price & Son for several generations, and Charlie's father (Graham Kent) of course simply assumes that Charlie will take over at the appropriate time. Charlie, however, has other plans, including getting married to childhood sweetheart Nicola (Cordelia Farnworth) and moving to London. However, when Charlie's father dies unexpectedly, Charlie is pulled back home and into the family business less than willingly.

Charlie soon discovers that his kindhearted father had kept the gaggle of Price & Son employees working, despite the fact that the factory's inventory was not selling. While Charlie manages to find a short term solution courtesy of his friend Harry (Jordan Fox), it seems obvious to him that he needs to let everyone go and to close the business for good, something that will at least help to preserve his relationship with Nic, who is less than pleased that her fiancé is not buying her shoes. An unexpected fracas in a London alleyway leads Charlie to a "meet cute" with drag queen Lola (Matt Henry), and it doesn't take long before Charlie realizes that there's an underserved demographic in the shoe buying public: namely, men who dress as women and who need luxe footwear that takes into account their larger size and weight.

There are a number of frankly cliché ridden elements at play in Kinky Boots: The Musical, including gender roles, anti-gay (or at least anti drag queen) discrimination, and both unexpected romance and unsurprising happy endings in equal measure, but the show manages to emerge from some of its less innovative aspects with its heart generally intact. The Tony winning score shares something with Cahn and Van Heusen’s work for Walking Happy, in that it was done by someone without a huge track record of stage success, Cyndi Lauper. She may frankly not be giving Stephen Sondheim any serious competition, but she crafts an engaging pop and rock inflected score that also delves into quasi-disco territory a number of times for a series of production numbers featuring Lola.

Performances, especially those by Matt Henry and Killian Donnelly, are actually quite touching at times, and the stage direction and choreography by Jerry Mitchell is outstanding. Similarly, the video direction by Brett Sullivan is really well done, with a variety of angles that frequently aren't part of these live on stage renderings. That said, there was one glaring error in my not so humble opinion, and that was occasionally cutting away to the audience, who are just seen sitting there and applauding. We can hear them on the soundtrack, cutting away to them frankly actually immediately sucked me out of the sometimes formidable stagecraft that's on display.

Kinky Boots: The Musical Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kinky Boots: The Musical is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is an enjoyable looking presentation that offers some nice detail levels on things like the luxe fabrics of Lola's outfits or even the textures of some of the shoes and/or boots. Fine detail is typically quite pleasing, sometimes not always to the benefit of things, as in the lavaliers pasted to performers foreheads which in close-ups resemble huge electronic moles. The palette is often very nicely suffused, and a number of Lola's production numbers are especially notable in that regard. There are some passing issues with banding, and there's one very bad moment, thankfully brief, during the fadeout right before the climactic scene supposedly set in Milan where there's a kind of weird combo platter of macroblocking and banding as things dim to black.

Kinky Boots: The Musical Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kinky Boots: The Musical features nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks. The stereo track may slightly emphasize vocals in the mix, but the surround track really nicely opens up the proceedings, especially in some of the production numbers and notably in terms of the spaciousness of the presentation of the band. Dialogue and sung moments are all presented cleanly and clearly. Stephen Oremus' arrangements and orchestrations really show off the players and singers very well. Optional English subtitles are available.

Kinky Boots: The Musical Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements of any kind on this Blu-ray disc.

Kinky Boots: The Musical Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In its original Broadway version, Kinky Boots: The Musical ended up surprising quite a few people by triumphing pretty spectacularly at the Tony Awards that year, taking home Best Musical, Best Score (making Cyndi Lauper the first woman to win that category by herself), Best Actor (for Billy Porter's portrayal of Lola), Best Choreography, Best Orchestrations and Best Sound Design. Kinky Boots: The Musical may make some already patently obvious points about tolerance and being "different", but it does so with a surplus of heart and with a really very nicely fluid stage presentation. Video has some minor issues, but audio is fine. Recommended.