7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Story about two divorced men who decide to share a New York apartment. Felix is fussy and fastidious to a fault. He proves that cleanliness is next to insanity. Oscar wreaks havoc on a tidy room with the speed and thoroughness of a tornado.
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler, Herb Edelman, Monica EvansComedy | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The Odd Couple is playwright Neil Simon's best-known work, and it features the signature roles of a great comedy duo, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Even when the pair found success with a new generation in the Grumpy Old Men films, they were building on these earlier comic personas of feuding old friends, which became a permanent part of their public identities. Their sons tell the story of the two actors driving in a remote location, far from TV reception and movie theaters, where they stopped at an isolated gas station on the apparent edge of civilization. The Native American attendant filled their tank, then turned and said: "You guys can't fool me. You're the Odd Couple!" Viewers who only know the characters of Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison from the long-running TV sitcom of The Odd Couple starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman will want to recalibrate their expectations, because the original film is a different experience. It's effectively the "prequel" to the series, depicting the events summarized in the opening narration of each episode. As brilliantly as Randall and Klugman inhabited their parts, the characterizations by Lemmon and Matthau were far more extreme, because the movie allowed it. They also had the luxury of developing Felix and Oscar over a feature-length running time and escalating their battle to a point where it was clear that something had to give, whereas their TV alter egos had to still be living together by the end of each episode. Lemmon and Matthau were free to take their battle to epic proportions. The Odd Couple is one of many gems in Paramount's vault that is finally seeing the light of day on Blu-ray thanks to the studio's distribution deal with Warner Home Video. Comedy fans, rejoice!
The Odd Couple was the first feature film shot by cinematographer Robert B. Hauser, whose previous work had been on major TV shows such as The Untouchables, Combat! and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Hauser would go on to shoot additional theatrical features, including Steve McQueen's racing film Le Mans, but his TV background suited director Gene Saks's visual strategy, which frequently involved setting the camera at a distance and letting the actors walk in and out of frame in a single master shot. The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray released by Warner has been taken from pristine source material and reflects a clean and detailed, if somewhat flat, image. The production design emphasizes muted colors, with an occasional rich hue (e.g., the green felt covering the poker table at the initial game or Oscar's blue baseball cap) that confirms the design is by choice. Blacks are appropriately black, as can be seen in outdoor night scenes. Contrast seems appropriate, neither overstated so that detail is blown out, nor understated so that shadow detail is overwhelmed. Some of the best-looking sequences are those that were added for the film, e.g., where Felix shops in a Bohack supermarket (the chain is now defunct) or where Oscar receives a phone call during a baseball game on which he is reporting (filmed during an actual Mets game at Shea Stadium). The image has a slight softness that is almost certainly an effect of the slower anamorphic lenses of the period. It clearly doesn't result from any electronic processing or detail stripping. The film's grain pattern is visible and intact, but you might have to put your nose up against the screen to see it. Given the relatively circumscribed nature of most scenes, and the fact that most were shot on sets, there was obviously no difficulty lighting them sufficiently for the optics and film stocks of the late Sixties, thereby ensuring sufficient exposure for a smooth image. The lack of major activity in the frame, plus the black space from the 2.39:1 aspect ratio, probably also accounts for the relatively low average bitrate (17.98 Mbps), which was sufficient to provide a solid image without artifacts.
The film's original mono soundtrack has been remixed and is presented as lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1. Fortunately, it's a conservative remix that does little more than expand Neal Hefti's famous theme and additional score into the left and right (with light support from the surrounds), while keeping the dialogue and basic sound effects in the center. The dialogue is clear, and the track is serviceable overall. My own preference would have been to retain the original mono track, at least as an option.
Paramount first released The Odd Couple on DVD in 2000, with only a trailer. In 2009, the studio released a feature-laden two-disc DVD set as part of its "Centennial Collection". The Blu-ray contains all of the extras from that set with the exception of the image galleries.
The Odd Couple is one of the many catalog films that only Warner Home Video seems committed to releasing on Blu-ray in any volume these days. For years, fans complained (and justifiably so) about the slow pace of Paramount's catalog Blu-rays, but on the strength of such titles as An Officer and a Gentleman and The Odd Couple, it appears that Paramount's distribution deal with Warner will go a long way toward addressing those complaints. One of the great comedies of all time has been given a worthy presentation on Blu. Highly recommended.
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