Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Memories of Me Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 28, 2019

The amazing thing about presumed chats around the craft services table on the set of Happy Days, isn’t that so many of the cast and crew evidently were saying, “What I really want to do is direct,” but that so many of them actually went on to have rather notable careers as helmsmen (or indeed helmswomen). Series creator and producer Garry Marshall had already begun directing by the time Happy Days hit the airwaves in 1974, including several episodes of the television version of The Odd Couple, a show which Marshall himself had helped shepherd from play and film form to the small screen. Later, of course, Marshall would gain substantial renown for having directed a number of high profile (if not always critically acclaimed) films, including Overboard, Beaches, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, and The Princess Diaries. Happy Days star Ron Howard, one of the rare “success stories” in having been able to transition from his childhood star days on The Andy Griffith Show to young adult work, added another feather to his cap when he made his directing debut with 1978’s Grand Theft Auto, a film he also co-wrote and starred in. From that arguably less than illustrious beginning, though, within just a few years, Howard’s directing acumen had produced a number of well regarded films, including Night Shift, Splash, Cocoon, Willow, Apollo 13, and A Beautiful Mind. Garry’s sister Penny got some of her most memorable early small screen time as a recurring character on The Odd Couple, but then she of course parlayed a guest star stint on Happy Days to help launch one of the most successful spin offs in television history, Laverne & Shirley. Like her brother before her, though, Penny ultimately matriculated into the director’s chair, earning plaudits for a number of efforts like Big, Awakenings and A League of Their Own.

Which brings us to Henry Winkler. Winkler, whose “performance star” arguably rose even higher than Ron Howard’s as Fonzie became one of the most iconic characters of his era, hasn’t really pursued that much of a directing career, and some curmudgeons may aver that that’s a good thing after the middling results of Memories of Me. This odd combo platter of schmaltz and sometimes lowbrow comedy might lead those same curmudgeons to think that Memories of Me was specifically designed with perhaps one paramount goal in mind: to get Alan King a Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination (it didn't work).

Co-writer and producer Billy Crystal portrays hard charging doctor Abbie Polin, a heart surgeon who's so hard charging that he has a heart attack while attempting to operate on a patient. That causes a bit of friction with his girlfriend Lisa (JoBeth Williams), especially when she discovers in a passing conversation that Abbie's father Abe (Alan King) is not dead, as she's assumed, but living in Los Angeles. Father and son are obviously estranged, and predictably Abbie's health crisis causes him to reassess his relationship with his Dad, leading to him flying out to L.A. for an awkward reunion.

But it's here that Memories of Me takes a really weird turn. Abe makes his living as a frequently employed extra on various film and television projects, but this whole aspect is dealt with in an almost cartoonish fashion. Not only are some of Abe's on set exploits played for fitful laughs (see Alan King in a lobster suit!), there's a kind of almost surreal supposed "showbiz" angle with other "misfit" extras that Abe hangs out with at a local watering hole. It's all kind of peculiar, and never generates much in the way of what seems to be intended laughs.

King, one of the more kind of gruff comics of his era (kind of like an earlier version of Lewis Black in a way), comes across as generally affable in a somewhat difficult characterization. Crystal’s writing tends to be all over the place, with Abbie tending to either schmooze with or react in horror to his Dad, depending on the context of the scene. At least the father son dynamic is fairly believable in the performing hands of Crystal and King, whereas I personally found there to be little to no chemistry between Crystal and Williams, who never seems to be able find the right balance between Lisa’s independent streak and what seems to be a need for a relationship.

Memories of Me Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Memories of Me is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual's MVD Marquee Collection imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is another kind of middling looking high definition presentation culled from the MGM/UA catalog. There are parts of this transfer that pop reasonably well, with at least decent detail levels, most of them taking place in bright, sunny outside locations. But as can perhaps be gleaned from many of the screenshots accompanying this review, the palette looks faded, skewed toward brown a lot of the time, and there's a fairly rough grain field, even divorced from expected uptick moments like optical dissolves. A couple of rather rough moments seem to just crop up for no apparent reason, with pretty chunky and often yellow tinged grain. Some fine detail actually looks nicely precise, as in the checkered pattern on one of the suit jackets Crystal wears. There is occasional if slight age related damage in the form of speckling and dirt flecks.

Memories of Me Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Memories of Me features an LPCM 2.0 mono track which more than capably supports the film's dialogue, as well as an effective score by Georges Delerue (one of the conceits of the plot is that Abbie plays trumpet, and so there are a few jazz inflected cues featuring that instrument). Occasional ambient environmental effects dot some of the outdoor material, but this is not a showy film from a sonic standpoint, and so this narrow but problem free track suffices quite nicely.

Memories of Me Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making of Featurette (480i; 6:28) is an archival piece that's hampered by a couple of weird technical issues. First of all, there's a large timecode running across the top right of the image, but even more troublingly, the audio mix is seriously off, with the supposed narrator being mixed way down and the supposed "background" audio like on set chatter dominating.


• Trailers includes Memories of Me (480i; 1:27) along with several others from other MVD releases.

Memories of Me Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You can feel Winkler and his crew aiming for some kind of emotional catharsis in Memories of Me, but the film telegraphs its bittersweet denouement almost from the moment King appears on screen, and as such the final scene of the film almost plays like parody. Crystal is a little mannered here, leaving King to play it big in many of the scenes. Technical merits are middling (video) to very good (audio), for those considering a purchase.