Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Mr. Saturday Night Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 4, 2016

Bob Hope hosted an astounding 19 Academy Awards ceremonies, often lampooning his own inability to ever secure an Oscar nomination in his trenchant monologues that typically preceded the actual handing out of statuettes. “Welcome to the Academy Awards,” he once famously deadpanned. “Or, as it’s known at my house, Passover.” Hope probably never had a real shot at securing “official” recognition by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, though he was on record as stating that he at least felt a couple of his performances were worthy of being fêted. Coming in second on the list of repeat hosts for the Oscar telecast is Billy Crystal (at a “mere” nine ceremonies—thus far), a performer who actually generated significant “Oscar buzz”, for a while at least, when Mr. Saturday Night premiere in 1992. Crystal also co-wrote the film and made his directing debut, offering up a tale which was obviously very close to Crystal’s heart: the story of a once iconic Jewish comedian named Buddy Young, Jr. who had fallen on hard times due to his own scabrous personality and seemingly genetic inability to filter some of his more objectionable verbal impulses. While Crystal did in fact secure a Golden Globe nomination for his performance, when the Oscar nominees were announced in early 1993, it turned out Crystal’s co-star David Paymer, playing Young’s hapless brother and manager Stan, was in the quintet of nominees for Best Supporting Actor, while Crystal got, well, passed over. (Paymer had also received a Golden Globe nomination along with Crystal for his work in the film.) Mr. Saturday Night is a kind of odd mash up that combines at least some elements of The Sunshine Boys and My Favorite Year as it ping pongs back and forth between a “contemporary” timeframe that sees Young’s late life falling apart at the seams due to years of bad judgment and dysfunctional interrelationships, and a number of interstitial flashbacks that offer up an evocative history of the character, from his early days delighting his relatives in the family living room to a top rated variety show on CBS to a number of missteps in the wake of that show’s cancellation. Mr. Saturday Night has a rather melancholic air about it, as if it were really an elegy for a whole generation of comedians rather than one (semi?) fictional character, but it’s a rather touching film overall and one that provides both Crystal and Paymer unique showcases for their particular talents.

Crystal has a certain amount of snark to his persona, but it’s a sweet snark, something Crystal has been able to purvey to his benefit in a number of different outings that are as varied as City Slickers to the recent television series The Comedians. One of the reasons Mr. Saturday Night may have failed to connect completely with critics (who were mixed) or audiences (who largely stayed away from the film in droves) is that Buddy Young, Jr. is pretty much completely snark, with only a modicum of sweetness occasionally poking through the character’s crusty facade. That aspect makes it hard to “root” for Buddy in a traditional sense, and in fact much of the audience’s sympathy tends to reside with the character of Stan.

The film is structured in an almost whirlwind fashion, repeatedly zinging to and fro over the course of both Buddy and Stan’s lives. Frequently “current day” fracases between the brothers will bring up allusions to past events, which are then detailed. Some of these unfold over the course of several flashbacks, as in the fun tributes to mid-fifties’ variety shows, including the putative hit series Young hosts for a while until his big mouth gets in the way. Other flashbacks seem to erupt virtually out of nowhere, as in a quick vignette which shows Young, attempting to rebuild his career after the cancellation of his own show, getting an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, only to find out Stan had arranged for him to follow in the wake of a little band known as The Beatles, meaning that an audience full of screaming teenaged girls wasn’t quite ready for a middle aged Jewish stand up comic at that particular moment.

Buddy’s self destructive tendencies often inform the film’s circuitous plot maneuverings, but they’re only seldom explored from a psychological standpoint in the somewhat distant screenplay by Crystal, Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz. Buddy’s nastiness is more or less offered as a fait accompli, a “given” personality trait. Why he’s this way is never really adequately explained, and instead the film tends to deal in after effects rather than in the causation of certain behavioral symptoms. That in turn means that much of Mr. Saturday Night relies on the effectiveness of individual vignettes rather than an overarching organic quality, while also pointing up the fact that some of the plot machinations, including overly dramatic sidebars involving Buddy's wooing of a woman named Elaine (Julie Warner) and Buddy's contentious relationship with his adult daughter Susan (Mary Mara), seem overly melodramatic and even hackneyed.

While the film’s narrative tends to lurch forward in fits and starts, from a performance standpoint there’s very little to quibble about. Crystal has his prickly character down pat, but is able to occasionally show Buddy’s nascent humanity attempting to crack through an often deliberately offensive surface. Paymer’s Stan is an obvious sweetheart, a guy who has spent a lifetime attempting to make his brother happy, often to little more than passing dismissal. The large supporting cast includes Helen Hunt as a young agent who agrees to take Buddy on in an attempt to revitalize his career. A number of Borscht Belt regulars also make cameos, adding to the film’s relatively lifelike ambience.

Mr. Saturday Night Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mr. Saturday Night is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This has the look of a perhaps somewhat dated master, with some clumpy, yellowish grain resolution that can distract from what is otherwise a solid if unspectacular offering. The palette often pops quite nicely, especially in the brightly colorful 50s segments, where elements like Buddy's vivid blue jacket look impressively well saturated. A lot of the film is a bit on the soft side, though detail is established enough that some of Crystal's questionable makeup shows its literal seams at times. Elements are in generally very good condition, with only typically minor kinds of age related wear and tear.

Mr. Saturday Night Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mr. Saturday Night's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track bursts with some commendable energy in several of the chaotic sequences detailing the production of Young's top rated variety show in the 1950s. Otherwise, the sound design here tends to be relatively unambitious, limited to interchanges between two characters at a time. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly and rarely has to compete with any other elements for prioritization status.

Mr. Saturday Night Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Feature Commentary with Director/Writer/Actor Billy Crystal and Actor David Paymer


• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:15)

Mr. Saturday Night Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Buddy Young, Jr. repeatedly turns off audiences throughout Mr. Saturday Night, and that's the obstacle facing the film itself. With such an inherently unlikable (or at least not very likable) character at the center of the film, those who expected a loving and laugh filled tribute to show business days gone by were probably thrown for a loop by the bittersweet and often just plain bitter feel of this story. Still, the performances are really quite touching, and Crystal and Paymer create a very believable pair of interlinked siblings. Technical merits are okay (video) to very good (audio) for those considering a purchase. With caveats noted, Mr. Saturday Night comes Recommended.