6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Emotionally stunted child woman Jamie Godard not only suffers from an unhealthy fixation on her long absent father, but also has an obsession with all the toys he gave her as a little girl. After getting a job at a toy store, Jamie decides to marry co-worker Charlie Belmond. When the marriage doesn't work out, Jamie runs away to New York City and becomes a prostitute who specializes in servicing perverted old men who want to play daddy with her.
Starring: Harlan Cary Poe, Fran Warren, Marcia Forbes, Evelyn Kingsley, Luis Arroyo (I)Drama | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Toys Are Not for Children is one of those sui generis offerings that almost defies description. Unusually earnest, at least within the confines of so-called exploitation cinema, the film charts the unhappy life of Jamie Godard (Marcia Forbes, whose only credit this seems to be, at least according to the IMDb), a girl with considerable “daddy issues”. Those issues extend to almost fetishizing a bunch of toys he gave her as a little girl, and to which she still clings (quasi-sexually it might be added, at least in an extremely provocative opening vignette) as a young adult. Jamie has been warned about her father’s less than honorable qualities by her harridan mother Edna (Fran Warren, perhaps the only cast member some folks may have heard of, and even that may be questionable). That doesn’t stop Jamie from romanticizing her early interactions with her father, even as she’s haunted by sudden traumatizing flashbacks of her mother’s rants about him.
Toys Are Not for Children is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the restoration:
Toys Are Not for Children has been exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in 1.85:1 [sic] with mono audio. An original 35mm dupe negative was scanned in 2K resolution, graded and restored at OCN Digital Labs. The soundtrack was sourced from a combination of answer print and release print releases. Additional audio remastering was completed at Pinewood Studios.This is a surprisingly nice looking transfer a lot of the time, with a well saturated palette and some good detail levels. It looks like the flashback material was shot with diffusion filters (see screenshots 3 and 5), but there's also a slightly "dupier" look to these sequences which includes noticeably chunkier grain. Jamie's "hallucinations" (and/or memories) are often framed in kind of unusual ways (see screenshot 11), and can understandably offer less precise looking detail. There are a couple of moments that lack the general clarity of the presentation, and some of the darkest moments have minor crush and deficits in shadow definition. There's really no major distracting damage to speak of, grain resolves naturally for the most part, and I can't imagine fans of this film ( are there fans of this film?) not being pleased with the overall look of this transfer.
All original materials used in this restoration were accessed from Valiant International Pictures.
Toys Are Not for Children features a nice sounding LPCM Mono track. As I mention in the overview of the supplements, the film has a rather appealing and surprisingly well produced theme song, which sounds great here (much better in my opinion than the needle drop of the 45 rpm single version, also included on the disc as a supplement). Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation, and there are no issues with age related wear and tear of any kind.
- Behind Locked Doors (1968) (1080p; 3:57)
- Two Girls for a Madman (1968) (1080p; 1:49)
- Toys Are Not For Children (1972) (1080p; 2:47)
I had a good laugh as I was looking over Arrow's typically nicely done insert booklet for this release and I saw the credit "Disc and Booklet Produced by Ewan Cant". For those wondering why that would provoke a laugh, I recommend first reading my recent The Prey Blu-ray review, and then my even more recent The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 Blu-ray review for a couple of clues. Mr. Cant doesn't seem to have been as deeply involved in this release as it appears he was for The Prey, but much like Arrow's release of that film, this release offers an unusual and probably little known and/or remembered film that may well deserve a wider audience. It's hard to outright "recommend" something so downright odd and frankly depressing as this film often is, but this release sports solid technical merits and some enjoyable supplements.
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Slipcover Edition Limited to 2,500 | SOLD OUT
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