Something for Everyone Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Something for Everyone Blu-ray Movie Review

. . .or at least a select few.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 9, 2016

Famed screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) dissected what was in essence the annus horribilis of 1967-68 on Broadway in The Season, a book which is generally acknowledged to be one of the most incisive critiques ever written about how things work on The Great White Way. One of the more interesting chapters in Goldman’s book has to do with a musical which really should have been a gigantic hit, Mata Hari, a big budget extravaganza that had the imprimatur of one of Broadway’s most iconic producers, David Merrick, as well as the directorial acumen of one of the most legendary creators of film musicals, Vincente Minnelli. However, Goldman makes the case that one of the biggest problems facing Mata Hari was in fact Minnelli, a man without a ton of Broadway directing experience who wasn’t able to transfer his cinematic skills to the arena of the stage. Mata Hari was such a disaster, in fact, that it never opened in its planned Broadway version. If Minnelli wasn’t able to matriculate into Broadway after a long stretch in films, some might argue the exact reverse is true of Harold Prince, one of the most beloved producers and directors in Broadway history whose film output in nonetheless not all that impressive. If Minnelli had had at least some experience in theater back in his relative youth, Prince came to 1970’s Something for Everyone as a neophyte in the film world, and some curmudgeons may say it shows, though perhaps ironically not as much as it does in the only other film Prince directed, the kind of haphapzard cinematic adaptation of his huge Broadway hit A Little Night Music, which appeared several years after this particular film.

While incest is one of the taboos that Something for Everyone actually doesn’t exploit, there is certainly an incestuous or at least intramural aspect to the talent involved in the film. Angela Lansbury is on hand portraying Countess Herthe von Ornstein, a haughty doyenne of a once proud aristocratic family which has fallen on hard times. Lansbury’s career would reconnect with Prince’s almost a decade after this film when she created the inimitable Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, which Prince directed on Broadway. Applying for work with the Countess is a scheming outsider named Konrad, portrayed by Michael York. York would soon go on to star in Bob Fosse’s film of Cabaret, which Prince directed on Broadway in 1966. (It’s at least somewhat instructive to contrast Prince’s matriculation to film with that of Fosse, another iconic stage director who at least occasionally trafficked in Hollywood efforts. By the time Fosse was given his first big screen directing assignment, the underrated Sweet Charity, he had already had considerable experience as both a choreographer and occasional on screen dancer in a number of film musicals.) Cabaret’s composer John Kander is on hand here providing one of his relatively few film scores. Something for Everyone’s screenplay is by Hugh Wheeler, who would soon be collaborating with Prince back on Broadway in both A Little Night Music and Candide. He would also ultimately provide the book for Sweeney Todd, thereby reuniting with two of his Something for Everyone alumni.

There’s actually a lot to like about Something for Everyone, at least for those with jaded senses of humor and a perhaps slightly camp sensibility. Once Konrad manages to finagle a job as footman with the Countess, he promptly beds the Countess’ shy son Helmuth (Anthony Corlan), though he’s already similarly bedded a young lady named Anneliese (Heidelinde Weis), whose money grubbing parents have set their sights on owning the abandoned Ornstein castle (the Countess has retreated to the neighboring manor). Fans of Downton Abbey: The Complete Collection will be thrilled to know that their boning up on entailments will not have been entirely in vain, since that arcane legal aspect plays into the Countess’ inability to sell the castle to anyone.

Where the film falters is in some of the choices Prince (or his team) made in terms of technical issues like framings, but especially some clunky editing that makes several scenes kind of just appear out of nowhere and some segues not handled particularly well. This isn’t a uniform problem (perhaps another sign of a relative “amateur” being in charge), and Prince or his cinematographer, Oscar winning legend Walter Lassally (Zorba the Greek), create several standout moments, including a fun bike tour through the village surrounding the Ornstein castle and a really elegant sweeping move that I suspect may have been done with a cantilever that introduces the Countess out on her veranda. But there are simply a number of kind of odd things at play throughout the film, including a couple of jarring quasi-handheld moments that admittedly take place during raucous party scenes but which still don’t jibe particularly well with the more traditional camera techniques. The reappearance of two yodeling musicians seems to be hinting at something meaningful, but is never really developed. A better sidebar, albeit one that might have had a bit better depiction, is some supposedly inconsequential stuff with a local waitress that turns out to have disastrous consequences for Konrad.

Performances are uniformly excellent, even if most of the characters are a bit underwritten. York brings appropriate ambiguity (from any number of angles, not just sexuality) to the role of Konrad, and Lansbury, sporting a slightly twee accent, manages to make the Countess more than a mere cartoon. Corlan and Weis are both “scenic” in their own ways, but rather unexpectedly the film ends up belonging to the wonderful Jane Carr, as the Countess’ homely but very smart daughter Lotte. The wonderful denouement, in which Lotte plays a featured role, is like a live action version of the old Fractured Fairy Tales segments on Rocky and Bullwinkle. In this case, one person’s happily ever after may well turn out to be another’s most agonizing nightmare.

Something for Everyone Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Something for Everyone is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a fairly variable looking presentation, one which looks really good at times, but which then tends to degrade for no apparent reason into something that's softer, grainier and with an at least slightly less pleasing palette. Some of these softer and grainier sections offer occasional compression issues (see screenshot 11). When the film looks good, though, it offers wonderfully vivid hues that bring to life the candy colored village and the surrounding countryside, even if sharpness and clarity are never outstanding. Even in the best looking moments, there are still regular occurrences of fairly minor age related wear and tear in the form of speckling and dirt. The variability of this presentation means this has an inherently heterogeneous look, but for those willing to get through the lackluster moments, the better looking sequences (which account for the bulk of the running time) are nicely organic looking with a well saturated palette.

Something for Everyone Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Something for Everyone features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix which manages to deliver dialogue and music decently, but only with nearly constant crackling, hiss and what I would term as slight rolling rustling sounds. Once you become accustomed to the sound of the background damage, the actual soundtrack elements come through reasonably clearly, but this is a track that could use some significant cleanup.

Something for Everyone Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only "bonuses" on this disc are trailers for other Kino Lorber releases, which I don't consider scorable.

Something for Everyone Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Something for Everyone may in fact only appeal to a certain niche demographic, but for those folks, especially the theatrically inclined who are eager to see what an iconic stage director and producer like Prince did once he got behind the camera, the film has some unique pleasures to offer. Technical merits aren't perfect by any stretch, but the fact that this cult item is even getting a high definition release is pretty remarkable. With caveats noted, Something for Everyone comes Recommended.