Who's Got the Action? Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Who's Got the Action? Blu-ray Movie Review

A more salient question might be, "Who's got the punch lines?"

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 5, 2012

There’s no polite way of putting this, but there was a certain smarm and/or sleaze factor to Dean Martin that was only exacerbated by the supposedly self deprecating winking, semi-drunk persona he exuded in club appearances and then in his top rated NBC variety series for many years. Hair just slightly greasy, speech just slightly slurred, Martin seemed in fact to be the embodiment of the character his former partner Jerry Lewis evidently created to parody Martin, Buddy Love from The Nutty Professor. Martin was actually a more than competent dramatic actor, as he proved in at least a couple of notable film roles, but his comedy efforts were often forced, lascivious affairs that were plentiful in terms of pulchritude but awfully lacking in actual laughs. Even the pulchritude isn’t on much display in the largely lamentable Who’s Got the Action?, an all but forgotten entry in the Martin film oeuvre from 1962 that was yet another step downward on the somewhat precipitous career trajectory of director Daniel Mann. Mann, who began his film career with the stunning film version adaptation of William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba, directing Shirley Booth to a well deserved Academy Award for Best Actress, continued through the fifties with a number of well received and often high profile projects, including another Booth starrer, About Mrs. Leslie (Oscar nomination for Booth), as well as The Rose Tattoo (yet another Oscar winner for Best Actress, this time Anna Magnani), I’ll Cry Tomorrow (Susan Hayward nominated for Best Actress, losing to Magnani), The Teahouse of the August Moon and The Last Angry Man (Academy Award nomination for Paul Muni as Best Actor). But something happened to Mann in the sixties and beyond. Though he continued to occasionally direct commercial success (Our Man Flint) and critical darlings (Five Finger Exercise), his track record overall was pretty spotty, with turgid melodramas (BUtterfield 8, which nonetheless brought Elizabeth Taylor a Best Actress Academy Award) and his follow up to Who’s Got the Action?, Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?, generally considered to be one of the smarmiest and least funny “comedies” of the sixties (not so coincidentally once again starring Mr. Dean Martin).

A subject matter that might seem perfectly appropriate for a heartbreak Lifetime made for television movie—gambling addiction—is played for laughs (supposedly) in Who’s Got the Action? Martin portrays attorney Steve Flood, a man with a penchant for betting on the horses, and bugging his law partner Clint Morgan (Eddie Albert) to front him money due to his penchant for picking losers. Flood’s wife Melanie (Lana Turner) knows something is up with her hubby due to his incessant need to take her leave to accept phone calls, but assumes, due to some interference from the Floods’ Hispanic maid Roza (Margo), that it’s because he’s having an affair. Melanie is actually somewhat relieved when Clint helps her figure out that Steve is “only” betting away their hard earned cash on horses, and with Clint’s help, she devises a “surefire” plan (the kind of “surefire” plan that used to be a weekly plot device on I Love Lucy) whereby she’ll become Steve’s bookie and cover his losses, ultimately reigning him in once his guilt gets the better of him. Of course the plan backfire when Steve suddenly has a lucky streak, betting on horses with 17 – 1 odds and bringing home the bacon with great regularity. That in turn forces Melanie into an arrangement with the Floods’ next door neighbor, a nightclub entertainer with the unlikely name of Saturday Knight (Nita Talbot), who just happens (in that ridiculous way that these films always seem to exploit) to be the girlfriend of Steve’s old bookie, local gangster Tony Gagouts (Walter Matthau). Melanie ends up selling all sorts of the Floods’ tchokes to Saturday to keep the scheme solvent.

Who’s Got the Action? has the makings of what could have been an agreeable enough farce, but the screenplay (by Jack Rose, adapting a novel by Alexander Rose) is lethargic and forced, never providing sufficient punch (let along punch lines) for a largely game supporting cast, which also includes the always watchable Paul Ford and John McGiver as two judges who want in on Steve’s deal with his “bookie”, not knowing it is in fact Mrs. Flood. Even Walter Matthau can’t salvage much here, parlaying his Gloomy Gus persona into a high-tech thug who uses a Univac computer to tell him all he needs to know about his various nefarious activities. Martin actually comes off rather well in the film, surprisingly un-smarmy (at least most of the time), but Turner, despite trying hard, just doesn’t have the effervescent spirit that an ostensible comedy of this sort needs.

Despite this not being a bedroom farce per se, Who’s Got the Action? could have benefited from a more traditional “slamming door” ethos with characters coming and going and various alliances shifting as different plot points play out. Instead this is a really lethargic effort (emphasis on effort) that strains mightily to deliver what few little giggles it manages to muster. If Mann hadn’t in fact gone on to the even more reviled Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?, there’s little doubt that Who’s Got the Action? would have certainly been a leading candidate for being the nadir of this once promising director’s career.

Who's Got the Action? Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Who's Got the Action? is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is unfortunately one of the shoddier looking transfers of Olive's recent glut of Paramount catalog releases. (Actually, considering how unentertaining the film is, maybe it's fortunate that the transfer is so underwhelming, since it may further convince those considering giving it a spin to reconsider.) Elements here seem very badly faded, and making it worse, contrast is completely wonky, leading to things like Turner's alabaster skin pretty much just disappearing into light toned backgrounds on more than one occasion. The overall image is rather soft, though it occasionally ticks upward in midrange and close-up shots. Colors are drab and unconvincing, and the overall look of this film is just kind of "blah".

Who's Got the Action? Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Who's Got the Action? features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio mono mix that suffices perfectly well for this film's rather limited sonic ambitions. Dialogue is cleanly and clearly presented, and the underscore (which features quotes of everything from the Livingston – Evans standard "Golden Earrings" to Jolson's "The Wedding Song") sounds fine, if not esepcailly remarkable. Dean sings a couple of lines from the film's theme song (such as it is) over the closing credits. Let's be charitable and simply say it's no "That's Amore" or "Everybody Loves Somebody".

Who's Got the Action? Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As has been the case with all of these Paramount catalog titles licensed by Olive Films, there are no supplements whatsoever on the Blu-ray.

Who's Got the Action? Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Who's Got the Action? is one of those films which seems like it should have been a surefire smash. The premise is promising, at least on its face, there's a nice star duo (even if Martin and Turner are mismatched both in terms of performance style and, frankly, age), the supporting cast is top notch, and at that point director Daniel Mann hadn't yet completely undermined his rather prestigious reputation based upon his impressive slate of fifties films. But, man, what a stinker this film is. Unfunny, forced, slow and completely lacking in energy, Who's Got the Action? only very rarely springs to life—and then only fitfully—in literally a handful of brief moments. When laughs are supposedly culled from the underscore devolving to castanets and Spanish guitar whenever the Hispanic housekeeper comes on screen, you know you're in some pretty desperate trouble. While the screenplay here is no doubt the major culprit, neither Martin nor Turner bring much to the table, and director Mann just seems lost at sea. The film's less than spectacular overall ambience is certainly matched in a similarly underwhelming video presentation here, one of the least pleasing in what has generally been a quite solid slate of Paramount catalog titles that Olive Films has licensed for release on Blu-ray.