Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Mannequin Blu-ray Movie Review

Who's the Dummy?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 1, 2016

Mannequin is a quintessential artifact of the Eighties, and not just because of the clothes, the soundtrack and the musical sequences that cut neatly into the video for Starship's "Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now", which MTV played on an endless loop throughout 1987. The film was also a signature hit for the now-defunct Cannon Group, the low-budget specialists responsible for the Missing in Action films, the sequels to Death Wish, Lifeforce, Masters of the Universe and numerous other fondly remembered hunks of Eighties cheese. Mannequin was Cannon's rare offering for the young female demographic, and it was wildly successful despite a critical drubbing. Roger Ebert pronounced it "dead", but at least he resisted the temptation to make bad jokes out of the fact that the title character is a department store dummy.

What Ebert and most contemporary writers missed about Mannequin, however, is that its silliness is built on a solid foundation. Romantic comedy is about couples who must overcome obstacles to be together, and Mannequin provides a big one (the heroine isn't fully alive). The farcical variety known as "screwball comedy" involves ridiculous situations and outsize personalities behaving absurdly, and Mannequin is full of them. While the script by Michael Gottlieb and Edward Rugoff (who would later write Mr. Nanny for Hulk Hogan) can hardly be compared to classics of screwball like Bringing Up Baby—and Gottlieb as a director is no Howard Hawks—Mannequin seems more alive today than it did 29 years ago simply because rom-coms have deteriorated so badly in the intervening years. Sure, the film is dated, but it was hardly realistic even when it was new. It was always a fairy tale from an alternate reality.

A pre-Sex and the City Kim Cattrall stars as Ema Hazire, or "Emy", a young woman in ancient Egypt who doesn't want to marry the camel dung dealer selected by her mother (Phyllis Newman). The gods grant her wish and snatch her out of her era, allow her to cruise through different future eras (in an animated credit sequence) and eventually depositing her spirit into the body of a display mannequin built by aspiring artist Jonathan Switcher (Andrew McCarthy) in Philadelphia of 1987.

Jonathan's last name, Switcher, is appropriate, because he can't hold a job, to the frustration of his career-oriented girlfriend, Roxie (Carole Davis), a rising star at the Illustra department store chain run by B.J. Wert (Steve Vinovich). Through a series of comic coincidences, Jonathan is hired for a menial post at the very store where his prized creation has ended up on display in the window. That store is Prince & Company, an aging Philadelphia institution now fallen on hard times and Illustra's chief competitor. Now overseen by the daughter of the store's founder, Claire Timkin (Estelle Getty), Prince & Company is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, until Jonathan makes the startling discovery that his mannequin comes to life as Emy whenever she is alone with him. Together they begin a passionate affair and an artistic collaboration that transforms the fortunes of Prince & Company with creative marketing and bold window displays. (Yes, among its many other improbabilities, Mannequin asks us to believe that a store's fortunes can change overnight just by rearranging the dummies in the window.)

A principle device by which writer/director Gottlieb manages to sell this unlikely affair between an average guy from Phillie and a time-traveling Egyptian who posed for the Mona Lisa is to surround them with characters even more extreme and improbable than they are. Chief among these is Hollywood Montrose, a star window dresser at Prince & Company before Jonathan's arrival, who is played by the late Meschach Taylor (Designing Women) with such campy excess that he might as well be in drag. If anyone attempted a character like Hollywood today, protests would surely follow, but Taylor's performance is so fearlessly campy that it can't be taken seriously. He's both a gay character and a parody of gay stereotypes in a single package, although the satire was probably lost on much of Mannquin's contemporary audience.

Equally absurd is Mrs. Timkin's vice president, Richards, who is secretly working for Illustra's B.J. Wert to destroy Prince & Company from the inside. He's played by James Spader with a self-mocking version of the reptilian demeanor that has made Spader a reliable villain from his early screen days to The Blacklist. Richards isn't even particularly effective at being evil, but he has such a high opinion of himself that he doesn't realize it. He's also a loathsome snob, whose plan for advancement is to slather his future boss with the kind of praise he expects from his underlings. "Where in the hell did you learn to kiss ass like that?" exclaims B.J. Wert. "Did you take a class?" Richards proudly replies: "No, sir. That's a God-given gift." Even then, Spader was good enough to make that kind of exchange funny.

To Richards' eternal frustration, his only real flunky is Prince & Company's night security guard, Capt. Felix Maxwell (G.W. Bailey), who probably never did serve in Vietnam, even though his dog is named "Rambo". Bailey was then best known as the tough Lt. (later Capt.) Harris from the Police Academy movies, and his character here shares Harris' temper but without his intelligence. Felix suspects something odd is happening at Prince & Company during the night hours, but Emy and Jonathan routinely make a fool of him, and Felix's fury and pratfalls supply Mannequin's easiest laughs.

These characters, and the battle over the fate of Prince & Company, fuel Mannequin's simple plot, while Jonathan and Emy cavort nightly through the store, and everyone tries to figure out the identity of Jonathan's mystery collaborator. The eventual resolution is every bit as arbitrary as Emy's escape from her arranged marriage in the pre-credit sequence, but it leads to one final window display that is Jonathan's greatest creation.

Mannequin Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mannequin was shot by Tim Suhrstedt (Office Space and Sex Tape, among many others). Olive Films has licensed the rights from MGM, which presumably provided the transfer for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from well-preserved source material. The transfer is a capable effort with a bright and colorful palette (except in the brief Egyptian opening), solid blacks and a fine and natural grain pattern that does not appear to suffer from untoward digital manipulation. Since this is an Eighties project originated on film, the image may appear "soft" to eyes accustomed to digital sharpness, but this is not a fault of the transfer. Detail is plentiful in clothing, skin textures and the many varied departments of Prince & Company.

Without any extras, Olive Films has used the entirety of a BD-25 to accommodate the 90-minute film, resulting in an average bitrate of 31.50 Mbps, which is excellent. The compression appears to have been capably performed.

Mannequin Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mannequin was released in Dolby Stereo and arrives in Blu-ray with a stereo track encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. The track capably reproduces the dialogue and the essential sound effects (e.g., the power tools that Emy joyfully discovers when she first comes to life), but Mannquin's sound is primarily about music. The lively electronic score is by Sylvester Levay (Hot Shots!), and the soundtrack benefits enormously from Belinda Carlisle's "In My Wildest Dreams", which plays over the opening credits; Alisha's "Do You Dream About Me", which accompanies the multi-costumed dance number at Prince & Company; and Starship's "Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now", which plays over the conclusion. The lossless treatment provides a full, rich experience, and a surround decoder expands the stereo track into the full array.

Mannequin Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only extra is a trailer (1080p; 1.85:1;1:36).

Mannequin Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mannequin is a trifle, but it's a well-made one. The most likely purchasers of this Blu-ray are those who remember the film fondly and are eager to revisit it. Those new to the experience need to approach it with appropriate expectations, both for Mannequin's era and for its content. Either way, Olive has done a creditable job of bringing the film to Blu-ray. Recommended.