6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A hypochondriac thinks he's dying this time, and makes plans for his wife which she discovers and misunderstands.
Starring: Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Tony Randall, Paul Lynde, Clint WalkerRomance | 100% |
Comedy | 41% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Note: This film is available as part of the Doris Day and Rock Hudson Romantic Comedy Collection.
Despite their reputation as the “it” couple of late 50s and early 60s romantic comedies, it’s perhaps surprising to note that Doris Day and
Rock
Hudson actually only made three feature films together, the trio assembled in Doris Day and Rock Hudson Romantic Comedy Collection. Pillow Talk (which was released as a standalone Blu-ray in
2012
as a Digibook and then again almost exactly a year later in this
edition) was one of the most overwhelming box office sensations of its era, ending up with an Academy Award for Best Screenplay and
several other nominations (including, rather incredibly, the sole nomination for Best Actress that Doris Day received over her long and varied
career). The film world moved slower back then, and it took a little over two years for a follow up of sorts to appear in the form of Lover
Come Back, a film which pretty much simply retold large swaths of Pillow Talk’s tale of bickering folks who can’t see the clear truth
that they’re actually madly in love with each other. Lover Come Back wasn’t anywhere near the smash that Pillow Talk had
been, but it still raked in considerable dough and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay. Three years after the second
pairing of Hudson and Day, their final film together, Send Me No Flowers, came out. This one departed rather radically from the
precedent set by the first two films, with Hudson and Day not contentious singles but instead a seemingly happily married couple who then
get
entangled in a farcical set of circumstances due to the Hudson character’s incipient hypochondria.
Send Me No Flowers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. There is some noticeable wobble on display through the vintage Universal logo and then the first moments of the credits, but that problem quiets down rather quickly. What's evident after the credits though is what looks like an older master, or at least one culled from old elements which are not in great condition. Along with the typical age related wear and tear, there's pretty bad fade on display, something that tamps down the film's palette fairly noticeably throughout the presentation. While flesh tones are pasty at best and pretty brown at worst, at least some brighter tones like (especially) greens have weathered the vagaries of time at least a bit better than the rest of the palette. Detail is middling, with even some midrange shots providing not much more than baseline levels. The opening montage, which features a lot of opticals and some black and white moments (see screenshot 6) is even softer and grittier looking than the bulk of the enterprise. (The film employs a lot of opticals, not just with regard to traditional techniques like dissolves, but also "fancier" scene changing elements like flipped frames.) Grain is fairly heavy at times (something that makes me wonder whether this was sourced from secondary elements), but encounters no resolution issues.
Send Me No Flowers features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track which may not set audiophile hearts on fire, but which doesn't have the occasional anomalies that hampered the track on Lover Come Back. I'm about to go all music geek on you, so forewarned is forearmed. The title tune of this film was written by a certain team named Burt Bacharach and Hal David, with Doris Day double tracked in the fashion that Andy Williams had recently made immensely popular with his similarly multitracked vocals on "Can't Get Used to Losing You." Only here's the thing—pay attention to the credits, with an understanding that things like font size and order are worked out in great detail through contract negotiations. What's interesting about this (at least for music geeks) is that Hal David gets first billing, and in a larger font (and with all capital letters), while Burt is relegated to second billing and in a noticeably smaller typeface. It means nothing, of course, but it piqued my interest, as things like this tend to do. Doris doesn't sound particularly at ease finessing the shorter, assymetrical phrases that Bacharach prefers, but the music sounds fine throughout this presentation in terms of fidelity. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly and there's no real damage of any import to cause concern.
Send Me No Flowers has a few laughs along the way, but it's probably the least consistently funny film that Day and Hudson made together. Video quality is the most lackluster of the three films included in the Day-Hudson set, though audio quality is fine. With caveats noted, Send Me No Flowers comes Recommended.
1961
Universal 100th Anniversary
1959
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Warner Archive Collection
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1941
2004
1984
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1960
2014
Collector's Edition
1963
1964
1978
2003
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1994
Warner Archive Collection
1972
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1954