The Group Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Group Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 4, 2019

1939 has long been cited as the high water mark for the Golden Era of Hollywood, with a glut of classic films coming out that year. As fantastic as many find it, George Cukor’s cinematic adaptation of Clare Booth Luce’s play The Women is often not typically included in the “usual suspects” list of all time classic 1939 films for some reason, though it’s a quite notable film in terms of its emphasis on females and the fact that all of the roles in the film are indeed women. Sidney Lumet’s 1966 film The Group was perhaps marketed to seem like it was a modern day (meaning late sixties) update of The Women, though kind of ironically much of the film actually takes place in the same 1930s period that Luce’s play did. Nonetheless, both properties address the relationships between a bunch of fairly upper class women, though this film does include the men in their lives. (In a kind of quaint but probably now objectionable piece of marketing, the front cover of this release repeats the verbiage of the film’s original marketing strategy, which split the performers into “The Girls” — not “The Women” — and “The Men”.)

What’s kind of unintentionally ironic about (rightly or wrongly) comparing The Women with The Group is the fact that despite The Group coming along long after the heyday of the Production Code, something that wreaked havoc with some of Luce’s original formulations (formulations which are at least in part duplicated in The Group), the earlier film plays at times in a much more contemporary, even candid, way than the 1966 opus does. Yes, The Group is able to be a least a little more overt about things like lesbianism, not to mention other “troublesome” issues like domestic abuse, infidelity and mental illness, but the film is almost curiously old fashioned at times, and seems stuck in some kind of weird time portal that filters the Great Depression through the nascent Love Children generation, resulting in a disconnect which in its own way is somewhat reminiscent of a similarly disjunctive mix of time periods (i.e., the ostensible time period within the film and the time period in which it was made) in The Way We Were.

The Group plays like a glossy soap opera almost all of the time, with its large cast of female characters encountering various traumas in what is roughly a decade between their college graduation and the precursor to the United States’ entry into World War II. There’s a kind of interesting parlor game that can be played with regard to this film, though, and the main credited females, all of whom could rightly be seen as “up and coming starlets” in 1966 when the film originally came out, but who experienced hugely variant career success subsequent to this film. In a cast that features eight putative female stars, it’s kind of shocking in a way that only one of them, Candice Bergen, might arguably be considered a lasting presence on the A-list. Jessica Walter probably is the second best known, even if her film career might be considered on the spotty side, with the tragic Elizabeth Hartman and Joan Hackett having their careers cut short by early deaths. Shirley Knight and Joanna Pettet both never really managed to grab the brass ring despite some impressive credits. Which brings us to Mary-Robin Redd, who seems to have gone on to almost exclusively television work after the film.

Sidney Lumet struggles to really find the relevance of this tale, despite an emphasis on women “stepping up to the plate” and making a generational difference. Perhaps one reason why the film never really connects emotionally is that most of the women in the film come off as spoiled, entitled sorts who almost deserve some of the misfortunes that come their way. In a film with a cast this large and a story this sprawling, it’s probably unavoidable that things are vignette driven, which is probably another reason that nothing seems to resonate very strongly in the long run.

The Group Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Group is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Culled from the MGM library, this is a fairly average looking high definition presentation, one that shows signs of aging in terms of occasional minor damage and fairly noticeable fading which tends to skew things toward brown so that, for example, reds can look slightly rust colored. The palette is kind of wan at times, with flesh tones on the pale side. That said, detail levels are frequently very commendable, especially with regard to some of the enjoyable period costumes and hairstyles. Grain resolves naturally throughout the presentation, understandably spiking during the many opticals (including the running conceit of one of the character's "reports" from the field, as seen in screenshot 3). I noticed no major compression issues. I know that for a while at least several years ago The Group was available on DVD only in a MOD release, which makes me think that this is another MGM catalog title that probably hasn't been curated with a ton of loving care.

The Group Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Group features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track that capably supports the film's dialogue and score by Laurence Rosenthal. There's not a ton of sweep or energy to the film's sound design, and it is in fact rather relentlessly talky (if occasionally "scream-y" as well), and the mono presentation does fine if never really providing any significant "wow" moments.

The Group Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Group Trailer (1080p; 3:47). This trailer is kind of interesting and a little unusual in that many of the lead actresses introduce themselves and the roles they're portraying.

Additionally, trailers for other Kino Lorber releases are included.

The Group Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Group is weirdly like a time capsule, but it's a time capsule of the thirties filtered through the sixties, making for a rather odd view of "history" (or, in this case, "her-story", and, yes, I apologize). There are some enjoyable if hammy performances here, but the entire enterprise is overwrought and at times, well, hysterical (in both meanings of the word). Technical merits are average for those considering a purchase.