The Bed Sitting Room Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Bed Sitting Room Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf December 23, 2015

1969’s “The Bed Sitting Room” is perhaps the most British film I’ve ever seen. It emerges from the minds of Spike Mulligan and John Antrobus, who bring their oddball play concerning the fate of England after a nuclear attack to the screen, with direction handled by celebrated mischief-maker Richard Lester. It’s impenetrable work, often caught in a weird cycle of repetition as it works through misadventures episodically, but for admirers of Mulligan’s famed sense of humor, “The Bed Sitting Room” collects an impressive roster of actors to bring such persistent peculiarity to life.

Mulligan is largely credited as inspiring the members of Monty Python, and if there’s anything precise about “The Bed Sitting Room,” it would be its comedic atmosphere, which values the dryly ridiculous. It’s a post-apocalyptic film, but it’s also a tale of English manners and expectations with a very Terry Gilliam-esque appreciation for the mundane in the midst of madness. Perhaps this is where the feature is most successful, tracking disparate lives on the hunt for normalcy that will never come, finding Lester handling strange encounters with habitual impishness, always on the hunt for the unexpected, which fatigues with surprising speed.

The Bed Sitting Room Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The AVC encoded image (1.85:1 aspect ratio) presentation manages the unique look of "The Bed Sitting Room" satisfactorily, offering reasonable detail that pulls out the collection of textures Lester arranges throughout the feature. Facial particulars also stand out quite nicely, along with location visits, preserving distances. Colors are in good shape, ranging from everyday hues to the more extreme radiated sequences, which blow up the frame with a poisonous rainbow. Delineation is decent, securing all frame information. Source is in good shape, with some mild specking and a few passages of frame damage.

The Bed Sitting Room Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix remains in line with period limitations, putting emphasis on dialogue exchanges, which can be tricky to follow due to accents and the general chaos of the picture. Everything remains within reason, supported by periodic musical moments, which sound passably clear. Atmospherics are thicker but still interesting. Sync has its struggles, but this looks to be the result of shoddy ADR work.

The Bed Sitting Room Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• "Trailers from Hell" (3:11, HD) takes a look at "The Bed Sitting Room" preview with filmmaker John Landis, who shares very vague, random thoughts about the movie before launching into a political message about the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the globe.

• And a Theatrical Trailer (3:17, HD) is included.

The Bed Sitting Room Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The charms of "The Bed Sitting Room" are limited to a few escalations of absurdity, and there's a fine ensemble collected here to bring the material to life, with Ralph Richardson, Dudley Moore, and Peter Cook a few of the talents assembled. "The Bed Sitting Room" benefits from their timing and patience with Lester's short attention span, giving the feature a fighting chance to attain some level of appreciation during what ends up becoming a very long 90 minutes of barbed shapelessness.