6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.9 |
Writer Jack Brown needs a job to save his house from foreclosure, but the only job he can find is as a "cleaning woman" in the department store owned by tycoon U.S. Bates. There Jack is seen working by Eric Bates, the tycoon's spoiled but lonely son, who is home from military school for his annual one-week visit. Eric's father has said he can have "anything" in the store -- and Eric wants Jack!
Starring: Richard Pryor, Jackie Gleason, Ned Beatty, Scott Schwartz, Teresa GanzelComedy | 100% |
Family | 8% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM Mono
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Although I haven't seen the 1976 French film Le jouet on which The Toy is based, consensus holds it to be superior to the American remake. I don't doubt it, because the remake is a mess. It features the bizarre pairing of Jackie Gleason and Richard Pryor, neither of whom is used to good advantage. It's directed by the usually reliable Richard Donner, who's so off his game that he can't even maintain continuity over the beard sported by Pryor's character, a plot point that miraculously morphs from scraggly to bushy in the film's first quarter hour before it's mercifully shaved off. So what chance does Donner have with the screenplay by Carol Sobieski (who also adapted and co-produced Annie, which should tell you something right there), a meandering yarn that wavers between a sappy family drama about an estranged father and son, a morality tale about a super-rich capitalist who supposedly learns a lesson about humanity (but doesn't) and a satire about political opportunism, selling your soul for a buck and . . . well, I'm not sure what exactly, but I do remember a pie fight. Pryor had already demonstrated in appearances on Saturday Night Live that he could be hilarious within PG confines, but the film's unfocused plot never lets him settle into a workable comic rhythm. And Gleason wasn't given a character to play, just a slogan suitable for rabble-rousing. (Today his character would be called a "One Percenter".) If director Donner saw the problems (and I suspect he did), he either didn't have the leverage to fix them or couldn't figure out how. The result is a film with a few interesting moments scattered among sequences that not only don't make sense, but also—and more importantly—just aren't funny.
Whatever the shortcomings of the film itself, there is nothing to fault in Image's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which is yet another impressive presentation of a Sony catalog title. Either the source material is in excellent shape, or it has been expertly restored, but in any case the late László Kovács' colorful cinematography is beautifully reproduced, starting with what is possibly the film's best sequence: the opening titles with the credits engraved on oversized children's wooden blocks arranged among stuffed animals. The rest of the film's image is nicely detailed, whether shot on soundstages or in outdoor locations, with grain that is visible but natural and not intrusive except for a few short scenes of Jack and Eric hiking (where the graininess is almost certainly source-based). By contemporary standards of digital enhancement, the film's image might be considered "soft", but the softness is consistent both with photographic techniques of the period and with Kovács' usual style, and it certainly doesn't come at the expense of fine detail in faces, decor and clothing. As one might expect, colors tend to be brighter and more varied in the Bates mansion than in Jack's neighborhood, and Pryor's Jack frequently wears something that stands out in a crowd, as befits both Pryor's stardom and Jack's status as a "toy". The colors on the Blu-ray are distinct without being overly saturated. Black levels are very good with only traces of minor crushing in deep shadows (and here again, this appears to be source-based). I saw no indication of high frequency filtering, artificial sharpening or compression artifacts.
The original mono soundtrack is presented as PCM 2.0. When played through a good set of stereo speakers in "direct" mode, the track should provide a wide soundstage, much like a typical theatrical array. When played through a matrix decoder, the two identical channels should collapse to the center speaker of a typical home theater array. Either way, the dialogue is clear, and the serviceable score by Patrick Williams (like director Donner, a TV veteran) is reproduced with pleasant musicality and sufficient dynamic range.
I don't have Sony's 2001 DVD release of The Toy for comparison, but I have been advised by a reader who does that it contained only "bonus" trailers and not the film's trailer. In any case, the Blu-ray contains no extras.
If you're already a fan of The Toy, or you're a Richard Pryor or Jackie Gleason completist, then you won't be disappointed by Image/Sony's presentation of the film on Blu-ray. If you want to see either of these great talents doing the kind of comic work that made them icons, look elsewhere. This is a film that is most definitely not recommended.
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