Reuben, Reuben Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Reuben, Reuben Blu-ray Movie Review

Surviving the season.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 13, 2013

William Goldman is one of the most lionized screenwriters of his generation, one responsible for such classic (and Academy Award winning) films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men. But Goldman is also a rather brilliant raconteur, one who has exposed behind the scenes secrets in both the film world (Adventures in the Screen Trade) and the legitimate stage (The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway). I’m frankly not even sure how I stumbled across an old paperback copy of The Season when I was a kid; perhaps the cover listed Goldman’s credit as scenarist for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which was enough to capture my attention. But even though the book dealt with what was for me the arcane world of Broadway during the “Dark Ages” of the 1967-68 season, the book instantly fascinated me, and I have returned to it regularly in the intervening years. That particular season turned out to be a relatively disastrous affair for virtually all involved, one that offered very few hits or even middling pieces that managed to last for more than a few months, something that gave Goldman’s account of the ins and outs of the business an unabashed voyeuristic quality, kind of like picking over the remnants of a horrific train wreck. A number of both high profile flops as well as some interesting midline successes are profiled from various angles in Goldman’s book, and one of those was a minor comedy called Spofford, which starred Melvyn Douglas.

Goldman’s thesis in his chapter on Spofford was that critical response to any show was, in the chapter’s title, a “crap game”, which probably goes without saying. But Goldman went on to examine how this situation is perhaps more relevant in shows which are neither undeniably brilliant nor undeniably awful—in other words, the vast majority of borderline efforts that open on The Great White Way. Goldman examines several critical responses to Spofford, analyzing how many critics, for whatever reason, tended to emphasize the positive—namely, Douglas’ involvement—rather than the negative—namely, just about everything else to do with show, a decision which allowed Spofford to run for around six months, one of the longer runs in that famously troubled season. Spofford had been adapted by humorist playwright Herman Shumlin from a group of stories by Peter DeVries called Reuben, Reuben, and it dealt with an affable farmer who found his life upended by the incursion of various city folk into his once bucolic paradise, as well as the romance between his daughter and a kind of unsavory poet. The show wasn’t very funny (Goldman recounts that the biggest laugh line in the show was when a character called a suit jacket pattern “dogstooth” rather than “houndstooth”), but it coasted along on Douglas’ star power and evidently returned its investment if it didn’t end up making tons of profit. Perhaps that’s at least one reason why a film adaptation of Spofford wasn’t forthcoming, and that when one did appear more than a decade and a half after the show had its brief Broadway run, it had been more or less completely rewritten, no longer focusing on the affable farmer, but now centering (admittedly, more in line with DeVries’ novel) on the boozy poet.

Since the film reverted to the novel’s original title while returning its focus to the alcoholic poet, one might reasonably assume that the poet’s name is Reuben. That actually isn’t the case, as Reuben is an old English sheepdog who plays into the plot in some unexpected ways. The poet is named Gowan McGland (Tom Conti, Academy Award nominated for this performance), a kind of Arthur-esque drunk who coasts through life on copious amounts of booze as well as the goodwill of some admiring middle aged women who find the once successful poet their own particular brand of catnip (the character is reportedly loosely based on Welsh man of letter Dylan Thomas). There’s no doubt that Gowan is a lout and a gigolo, and he also has an acerbic sense of humor which makes him a less than sympathetic conversationalist.

Gowan marauds his way through a variety of married women before he meets Geneva Spofford (Kelly McGillis in her film debut), a young college student who isn’t star struck by Gowan, but who seems to have genuine feelings for the much older man. Despite Geneva’s putative calming influence, Gowan continues to act badly, leading to a number of unseemly situations, which in turn lead to the film’s rather bleak closing moments (without spoiling too much, there's a certain irony in naming the film after the dog).

Without having seen (or read) Spofford, it’s hard for me to adequately compare these two properties, but I can say if the play was anything like Reuben, Reuben, it’s not hard to see why it didn’t catch fire on Broadway—at least as a comedy, which is what is was advertised as. Reuben, Reuben is at best a sort of wry affair, one thick with the melancholy of a wasted life and slurred reminiscences. Conti is absolutely amazing in the lead role, but the character is just distinctly unlikable most of the time, a user who finds out the hard way that not everyone suffers his foolishness gladly.

Possibly the most interesting thing about the film, aside from Conti’s amazing performance, is its screenwriter, one who was in his day as lionized as Goldman was decades later. This was the last screenplay by the iconic Julius J. Epstein, a scenarist with too many classic films to his credit to even begin to list (though we’ll mention just one: Casablanca). Epstein brings his very astute ear for dialogue and finely delineated characters to bear in this film, giving it a rather wistful, if awfully depressive, air (he received his final Academy Award nomination for Reuben, Reuben). The ironic thing about Reuben, Reuben is, for all the changes it evidently made to Spofford, in the end the result is much the same: this is worth seeing largely for the performance of its leading man.

Reuben, Reuben Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Reuben, Reuben is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The elements here are in very good condition, with only the requisite number of noticeable flecks to even momentarily be of concern. The film has an overall soft quality, which is more due to eighties' film stock and lenses utilized than to any inherent deficiencies in the transfer. Colors, while intentionally muted some of the time, are decently saturated and appear accurate, though the elements may have just very slightly faded (flesh tones tilt toward the peach side of things quite a bit of the time). Things are pretty grainy throughout this enterprise, to the point where I almost think that at least a couple of the supposed close- ups are in fact optical enlargements, done for whatever reason. "Real" close-ups, though not particularly ubiquitous due to the film's tendency to traffic in midrange two shots, boast quite good fine detail.

Reuben, Reuben Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Reuben, Reuben's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix suffices quite well for what is in essence a very talky comedy-drama. Listeners will not a few pops and clicks along the way, notably at the very beginning of the film before Billy Goldenberg's rather poppish score kicks in (a few more pops and cracks surface right before the closing theme starts up). Dialogue is cleanly presented (though Conti's Welsh-Irish brogue can be a bit hard to penetrate at times). Dynamic range is virtually negligible in what is in essence a very dialogue heavy outing. (Please note, the user review on this title is incorrect, there is no DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio on this release, simply the film's original mono mix presented via DTS-HD Master Audio.)

Reuben, Reuben Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Reuben, Reuben Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Perhaps part of the problem with both Spofford and Reuben, Reuben is that they were marketed as comedies. Once you've seen Reuben, Reuben, you'll recognize what an odd choice that is. If it is a comedy, it's certainly one of the blackest of the eighties, especially with regard to its rather dour denouement. There are laughs here, but they're the sad laughs of recognizing a badly flawed character, not the gut busting hilarity of characters reacting to comedic situations. The film is probably better seen (and enjoyed) as a character study of a middle aged man trying to come to terms with his erstwhile success and current sad state of affairs. The film is filled with great performances, chief among them Tom Conti's, which helped elevate the actor's profile and remains one of his most defining roles. Recommended.