The Last Tycoon Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

The Last Tycoon Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 11, 2024

Elia Kazan's "The Last Tycoon" (1976) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The only supplemental feature on the release is an exclusive new audio commentary by film historian and author Joseph McBride. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

If irony was like electricity, Elia Kazan’s The Great Tycoon could have been used to power up America for decades because it offers a seemingly endless supply of it. Then again, The Great Tycoon is already most effective as a cinematic visualization of a self-inflicted gunshot.

Robert De Niro plays Monroe Stahr, a middle-aged loner who runs an unnamed big studio in pre-war Hollywood a lot like Jonas Cord does his studio in the final act of The Carpetbaggers. Obsessed with success, or at least his definition of it, Stahr divides people who dare to meet him at the studio into two groups. In the first group are those who can help him accomplish his latest goals, like established stars and promising young actors, talented directors and screenwriters, ambitious businessmen and politicians willing to sell their influence for the right price. In the second group are the normies -- people with limited potential and those who have made a conscious decision to spend their lives following orders. Stahr has made millions for the studio, so no one questions his work ethic or the type of films he wants to be made there.

But a seemingly ordinary social event dramatically alters Stahr’s philosophy of life. After pursuing a possible future talent, Stahr meets Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Bouling), a young Irish girl who has recently relocated to California, and instantly falls in love with her. The two go out on a date and then meet several more times, and as Moore reveals a lot about her previous, most disappointing romantic relationship and the future she desires, Stahr becomes convinced that he can be her husband and make her dreams come true. Then out of the blue, Stahr, already a different man, learns that Moore has decided to marry someone else. Heartbroken and filled with anger that he has not experienced before, Stahr attempts to reset his life by doubling his efforts to improve the studio’s success rate, but the harder he tries, the clearer it becomes that Moore has irreversibly changed him.

On paper, The Last Tycoon looks like one of those hugely ambitious projects that was destined to be a masterpiece. It is directed by Elia Kazan from a screenplay by Harold Pinter, who had adapted F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel, and, in addition to De Niro’s, it uses contributions from such iconic actors as Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Tony Curtis, and Ray Milland. (For what it’s worth, the supporting cast is just as impressive. Jeanne Moreau, Donald Pleasence, Peter Strauss, Dana Andrews, Theresa Russell, Seymour Cassel, the list just goes on and on). But to describe The Last Tycoon as a misfire is very much like trying to sell the Titanic tragedy only as a minor accident.

The Last Tycoon is a borderline surreal disaster. It tries to be several different things -- a poignant period romantic melodrama, a fictional study of the Hollywood studio system, a credible cinematic adaptation of a famous literary work -- and fails in such amateurish ways it is hard to believe it had a theatrical release. For example, very large sections of it look like rough takes, not properly shot and edited content, which is quite ironic because De Niro and several other big actors repeatedly engage in discussions where proper scenes and acting are addressed. Also, if the dialog is reflective of the quality of the screenplay, then the writing must have been atrocious because every sequence features badly broken lines that any self-respected editor would have cut.

Fitzgerald’s work is notorious for its ability to describe a special atmosphere that helps its characters appear very authentic. This crucial relationship does not exist in The Last Tycoon because the majority of the time Kazan’s camera simply observes the actors doing a lot of very bad acting.

In 2016, Amazon introduced an equally ambitious adaptation of The Last Tycoon, this time in the form of a made-for-streaming series, which turned out similarly disappointing.

The Last Tycoon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The Last Tycoon arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release introduces a recent 4K restoration of The Last Tycoon that was prepared at Paramount Pictures. The overall quality of the 4K makeover and its presentation range from decent to good. For example, the entire film has a very stable and healthy appearance that should please anyone who sees it for the first time. Delineation, clarity, and depth are quite nice too, so on a large screen all visuals hold up very well. However, while color balance is stable and most primaries and nuances look good, there are several areas where light teal has an impact on the overall color temperature of the visuals. Yes, the film does have a stylized period appearance, but the effect I describe is not part of it. Additionally, density levels are good, but grain exposure is not always as convincing as it could have been, so some small encoding optimizations should have been introduced. My score is 3.75/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The Last Tycoon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The lossless track is very healthy. I had the volume of my system turned up quite a bit and did not encounter any age-related anomalies to report in our review. On the contrary, I thought that the music sounded great and produced contrasts that I would have expected to hear from a film completed more than a decade after The Last Tycoon. The dialog was always very clear, sharp, and easy to follow.

The Last Tycoon Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by film historian/author Joseph McBride, editor of Filmmakers on Filmmaking.

• Cover - a reversible vintage cover art for The Last Tycoon.

The Last Tycoon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One does not have to dig deep into the annals of cinema to discover other cinematic catastrophes like The Last Tycoon because there are plenty. Is there anything that makes The Last Tycoon unique? Well, possibly the great irony that, among other things, it is a film that spends a lot of time highlighting what a Hollywood mogul considers a bad film, bad acting, bad writing, bad editing, etc. Kino Lorber's release introduces a new 4K makeover of it that was completed at Paramount Pictures.