Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

The Cotton Club Encore Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 11, 2019

Francis Ford Coppola may forever be best remembered for efforts like The Godfather Trilogy and/or Apocalypse Now 4K, but kind of incredibly given his “New Hollywood” icon status, he also directed three films which can more or less be comfortably shoehorned into one of the most old fashioned genres (at least since the talkies showed up) in film history: the musical. Trivia lovers will no doubt know that one of Coppola’s first major feature directorial efforts was the film version of the venerable Burton Lane — “Yip” Harburg classic Finian's Rainbow. Coppola took off for the “greener pastures” of pure drama for a while before returning to a quasi-musical format for 1982’s long lamented One From the Heart, yet another one of Coppola’s films where his ambitious reach perhaps exceeded his grasp. As if that film didn’t teach Coppola to stay far, far away from people singing and dancing, a mere two years after One From the Heart flopped fairly spectacularly, Coppola was back with The Cotton Club. Now it’s arguable as to whether The Cotton Club is a “real” musical or not, but it inarguably contains quite a bit of music as it details the interweaving stories of several characters connected in some way to Harlem’s legendary spot for socializing. The Cotton Club ended up getting more generally positive reviews than One From the Heart ever did, but it still failed to connect with audiences. My hunch is very few folks who saw the original version of The Cotton Club would have responded with a hearty “what this film really needs is twenty or so more minutes”, whether or not they were favorably inclined toward the enterprise. And yet, that’s what Coppola has fashioned for this “new, improved” version, which bears the name (in the closing if not the opening credits), The Cotton Club Encore. Coppola’s introduction to the film, included on this Blu-ray as a supplement, suggests that Coppola himself is pretty jazzed (sorry) about the result, but again my hunch is those who were unfavorably inclined toward the film in its original state are going to remain steadfastly unimpressed with the additions, while those who did like the film back in the 1980s or in the interim may feel that the new footage doesn’t really add that much to the proceedings.

Perhaps one salient clue as to The Cotton Club's somewhat questionable legacy may be the fact that the original version of the film has evidently never been released on Blu-ray for the United States market. My colleague Svet Atanasov reviewed an Australian Blu-ray release from Umbrella Entertainment that came out a little over a year ago. Svet's review contains some plot details, for those who are interested, and is also a good resource for screenshot comparisons. I'll only add that the disjointed quality of the film Svet mentions in his review is arguably only exacerbated by the additions Coppola has made to this version, but even excising the additions for the sake of argument for a moment points out that this is a curiously structured piece in any version (thus far, at least). The film is almost like the cinematic equivalent of attention deficit disorder at times, darting to and fro between any number of subplots, while stopping with pretty fair regularity for song and dance moments which frankly don't really advance the plot in any significant way, but which do have a number of really thrilling performances.

And it may ultimately be due to this film’s once in a lifetime cast that The Cotton Club is able to rise above any perceived deficits, at least in terms of some of the wonderful performances that the likes of Gregory Hines (who receives a kind of wonderful “improvography” credit) bring to the proceedings. As Coppola mentions in his introduction, a number of the legends in the film (both dramatic and musical) are no longer with us, which means being able to see them in such generally luxe settings is even more of a privilege. The film also offers a rather rare latter day performance by the superb Gwen Verdon, a singer and dancer of some renown herself who never really got much of a film career for one reason or another. It seems evident to me Coppola was trying to wrangle a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the venerable star with this role, something that, alas, never materialized. That said, Verdon is still engaging playing the mother of focal character Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere). It’s notable (no pun intended) that Gere is credited with playing his own cornet solos in the film, something that adds at least a touch of verisimilitude to several scenes.

The Cotton Club Encore Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Cotton Club Encore is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Svet wasn't particularly thrilled about the presentation on the Australian release, and I have to say I was similarly underwhelmed, at least at times, with certain aspects of this presentation. It almost looks to me like this was sourced from at least two different elements, and I can't really account for some of the variances on display, since some of the changes in clarity and grain resolution are within the same sequences, independent of any "new, improved" footage Coppola may have added. This presentation looks somewhat brighter and at least relatively warmer than the Australian Blu-ray (I'm admittedly judging solely on the basis of screenshots), something that may actually help with regard to a more organic look to grain, though that said, there are some fairly rough looking moments here, as documented by several of the screenshots I've uploaded to the review. The film is heavily stylized, and so some of the softness on display is due to things like diffusion filters, but even the "sharpest" moments can sometimes show deficits in fine detail levels. Some moments in and out of opticals (the film has old style "wipes" and other effects) can look especially rough (see screenshot 15 for one example).

The Cotton Club Encore Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kind of interestingly, the Australian Blu-ray release seems to have only included a stereo track, and this disc's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track may be one solid upgrade that those who like or even love this film may want to consider. There's consistent surround activity here, courtesy of both the often raucous song and dance numbers, but also due to simple crowd noises in the many nightclub scenes. Dialogue, score and effects (like occasional gunfire) are all rendered cleanly and clearly, with excellent fidelity and rather wide dynamic range.

The Cotton Club Encore Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction to The Cotton Club Encore by Francis Ford Coppola (1080p; 2:16) offers Coppola making the perhaps debatable assertion that adding twenty or so minutes to the film makes it feel shorter.


• The Cotton Club Encore Q & A (1080p; 19:07) offers Francis Ford Coppola, Maurice Hines (who speaks very movingly about his late brother) and James Remar, evidently done after a screening of the revised version.

The Cotton Club Encore Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even in this rejiggered version, The Cotton Club Encore may still come off as something of a so-called "hot mess", but in this case the "hot" is actually a nice description of some the truly engaging song and dance material the film includes. There are a glut of really nice performances here, both dramatic and musical, but Coppola's well documented penchant for certain excesses may have once again gotten the better of him here, at least in terms of an overall organically presented narrative. There are still some rather wide variances in image quality on display here, but the surround track sounds great and the two brief supplements are enjoyable, for those considering a purchase.