7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.8 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
In the early 20th century, two rivals, the heroic Leslie and the despicable Professor Fate, engage in an epic automobile race from New York to Paris.
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan WynnComedy | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The notion of an epic comedy is almost a contradiction in terms. According to the usual formula, comedy works best when it hits hard and fast, then exits while the audience is still laughing. It takes a rare accumulation of talent, and a firm guiding hand, to prolong the experience for hours on end, parceling out recurring jokes at just the right pace and modulating highs and lows so that viewers can catch their breath. Producer and director Stanley Kramer pulled off perhaps the greatest epic comedy of all time in 1963 with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which, at over three hours, played to great acclaim but cost so much to make that its studio, United Artists, didn't immediately see much profit. Two years later, director Blake Edwards, his credentials burnished by such hits as The Pink Panther and A Shot in the Dark, persuaded Mirisch Productions and, eventually, Warner Brothers to spend a then-unheard-of $12 million on his personal tribute to slapstick and silent comedy, The Great Race. With a shaggy dog story devised by Edwards and screenwriter Arthur Ross (father of writer/director Gary Ross) and a fine collection of talent (though nothing on the scale of Mad, Mad World), The Great Race clocked in at two hours and forty minutes—and the reception was terrible. Reviews were unfavorable, and box office was nowhere near the performance of Kramer's film, which had cost $3 million less. Maybe it was the timing. With Mad, Mad World still fresh in the memory of audiences, a star-studded comedy extravaganza had lost its novelty appeal, especially since the critics didn't like this one (a factor that meant much more in those days). This was the era when film studios were still struggling to give viewers a reason to abandon the comfort of their living room TVs for the excitement of the big screen experience. A film that harkened back to the days of silent comedy probably wasn't the right sort of enticement, even if it did feature glamorous stars engaged in one of the most elaborate and colorful pie fights ever staged.
The Great Race was shot by Russell Harlan (Hatari! and To Kill a Mockingbird), who achieved such beautiful clarity and detail, even in the effects shots created through optical superimposition, that the film has sometimes been mistaken for large format Super Panavision 70. In fact, 70mm prints were released, but they were blowups from the 35mm negative. The Warner Archive Collection has done its usual commendable job in transferring and mastering the film for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray release, which preserves the film's historic appearance while giving it all the color, depth and detail of which the Blu-ray format is capable. Fine detail is exceptional, whether in the lines of Professor Fate's ever-changing sneer, or in wide panoramas of crowds and landscapes, or in Natalie Wood's elaborate outfits, which must have cost far more than an aspiring career woman of that age could possibly afford. The blacks are solidly rendered (essential for a film with a classic villain), and the full spectrum is used to maintain visual interest, from the heavily saturated colors that appear in the painted credits to the delicate pastels and earth tones in the various landscapes, to the bright whites of the arctic adventure. A fine but visible grain pattern appears throughout the image, with no apparent signs of filtering or other digital interference. Since Edwards keeps people moving at all times, the screen captures don't do justice to the degree of detail rendered by the tiny shifting of grain particles from frame to frame in what appears to be a first-rate data scan. As per its usual practice, WAC has mastered The Great Race with a generous average bitrate, in this case 29.995 Mbps, which is essential for the many complicated physical gags that Edwards devised and then, in most cases, enacted for real. (The pies were so real that they spoiled, and the set had to be hosed down and re-dressed with fresh pie filling.) The Great Race is a winner.
The Great Race was released in stereo for 35mm prints, with a six-track mix for 70mm exhibition. I do not know what source was used for the 5.1 mix encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, but the result makes for enjoyable listening. Since Edwards was making a tribute to silent comedy, none of the effects are overly loud. They're comical, like a cartoon (and also like a cartoon, no one gets hurt, even when they're blown up). Still, the effects have enough punch, and the track has sufficient dynamic range, that the explosions make an impact, the car engines sound distinctive, and Professor Fate's various devices are all memorable. When the huge bar brawl begins in the town of Boracho, the blows and breaking bottles can be heard from left and right. In general, the stereo separation is much stronger than the rear channel activity. One oddity of the soundtrack is that the dialogue seems to be mixed at a much lower volume than the effects and music (another great score by Edwards' usual partner-in-crime, Henry Mancini). Once you adjust the volume, the dialogue is perfectly intelligible, but you may find that The Great Race needs to be watched at a higher setting than you usually use for Blu-ray viewing.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2002 DVD release of The Great Race.
Blake Edwards will probably always be best remembered for his collaborations with Peter Sellers on the Pink Panther films, with Audrey Hepburn on Breakfast at Tiffany's and with wife Julie Andrews on Victor Victoria. But The Great Race is ripe for rediscovery by a new generation of filmmakers who can ignore the film's commercial disappointments and appreciate the sheer craftsmanship with which Edwards staged gag after gag, letting his performers do whatever they did best and surrounding them with a visual canvas that amplified their gifts. WAC has given the film the first-class presentation it deserves. Highly recommended.
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