6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Henry Tyroon likes what wealth can bring, but that isn’t why he spends so much time pursuing it. “You do it for fun,” he explains. “Money’s just the way you keep score.” After his Texas oil well comes a duster, Harry lands in New York, needing a million or so in pocket money to pay his debts. Soon, he also hopes to land a blue-eyed blue chip: a stock analyst pressured by her firm to unload a worthless stock. Can Henry come up with a plan to turn what’s worthless into the hottest thing on Wall Street?
Starring: James Garner, Lee Remick, Phil Harris (I), Chill Wills, Jim BackusComedy | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
As a career actor, James Garner was a trailblazer. In an era when the path between film and
television was almost always a one-way street, Garner successfully bucked the system, first
achieving national fame as the roguish title character of TV's Maverick,
then leaving the series after a contract dispute and reinventing himself as a movie star. His Sixties films included such
highlights as The Great Escape and
Grand Prix, and it wasn't until the Seventies that Garner
returned to series TV, eventually landing the role for which he is best remembered, that of private
investigator Jim Rockford on The
Rockford Files. Rockford and Maverick may have existed in
different worlds, but Garner imbued them both with the essential qualities that defined his screen
appeal; both were fiercely independent, possessed of an innate sense of justice, devious when
necessary and, above all, charming in the extreme.
Garner brought the same charisma to his role as a fast-talking oilman in 1963's The Wheeler
Dealers, a contemporary screwball comedy adapted from the novel by economist George J.W.
Goodman and directed by comic specialist Arthur Hiller (Silver
Streak). Playing a Texas oilman who goes looking for investors and finds more than money, Garner was paired with Lee Remick
as an ambitious stockbroker who turns out to be his match in both love and business. For the
film's Blu-ray debut, the Warner Archive Collection has created a sparkling new transfer of
Dealers, which joins 36 Hours and
The Americanization of Emily
in WAC's catalog of James Garner's early filmography.
The Wheeler Dealers was shot in anamorphic widescreen by Charles Lang, who had previously photographed Some Like It Hot and Sabrina for Billy Wilder. The Warner Archive Collection's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is the product of a new 2K scan performed by Warner's Motion Picture Imaging Facility using a recently manufactured interpositive, followed by appropriate color-correction and cleanup. The resulting image is superb: finely detailed, sharply rendered (with allowance for the softening imparted by the era's anamorphic lenses) and so fully resolved that it's easy to spot both the backlots that substitute for New York City and the frequent rear-screen projections. (A few grainy shots of flying aircraft are obviously stock footage of inferior quality.) Colors are vivid, bright and varied, with the restaurant that Heny purchases and renovates a festival of reds and the artwork that he collects by Stanislas and others a riot of clashing hues. The light pastels and plastic textures of the apartment shared by Molly and Eloise are a time capsule of vintage Sixties decor, and the scenes featuring oil rigs are appropriately grungy. Black levels are accurate, and the film's natural grain pattern is finely resolved. WAC has mastered Dealers at its usually high average bitrate, here 34.99 Mbps.
The Wheeler Dealers' original mono soundtrack has been sourced from the magnetic master and encoded as DTS-HD MA 2.0. As mono sources go, it's a robust audio presentation, with a nice balance of realistic and comically exaggerated effects. The dialogue is clearly rendered and, for the most part, natural sounding (or as "natural" as the film's broad humor and caricatured performances will allow). Frank De Vol (Cat Ballou and McLintock!) provided the light-hearted score.
The only supplement is a trailer (1080p; 2.35:1; 2:57), which has been remastered in 1080p. WAC's 2011 DVD of The Wheeler Dealers was similarly bare.
As Mill Creek prepares to release The
Rockford Files on Blu-ray, it's an opportune moment to
look back over the career of James Garner, a versatile actor who was both beloved by the public
and respected by his peers, receiving the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, nine years
before his death at the age of 86. The Wheeler Dealers is Garner at his smoothest and most
easygoing, and he's ably matched by Remick, a gifted comedienne who was too rarely given the
opportunity to stretch her comic muscles. WAC has brought this delightful pair to Blu-ray with
the élan they deserve. Highly recommended.
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Warner Archive Collection
2019
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Special Edition
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Special Edition
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Barnacle Bill
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