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By PAUL BRENNER
Columbia Tristar's release
of Leo McCarey's seminal 1937 screwball comedy
"The Awful Truth" is an occasion for both
celebration and despair.
To have "The Awful Truth" available on DVD is
reason enough to cheer. A touchstone of American
film comedy, "The Awful Truth" is screwball comedy
at its most minimal. The plot is virtually
nonexistent as Cary Grant and Irene Dunne engage
in a master class on comic technique and timing.
They play a married couple -- soon to be divorced
-- who spend the entire film taking turns busting
up each other's dates. That is until they find
themselves in cramped overnight accommodations and
realize fifteen minutes before their divorce
decree goes into effect that they really love each
other and don't want to get a divorce at all.
McCarey's direction incorporates comedic
flourishes hewn to a fine gloss, lessons learned
at the feet of Laurel and Hardy as their producer
and director. And much like a Laurel and Hardy
short, "The Awful Truth" feasts upon the expertise
of the two leads to expand basic comedy situations
into extended riffs, punctuated by hilarious
reaction shots and double takes. And without a
hardnosed genre story to hang these comic turns
onto (as in the mystery plot in "The Thin Man" or
the picaresque missing heiress and cynical
reporter story of "It Happened One Night"), the
film is a comic high wire act, pure screwball.
"The Awful Truth" would have been the perfect
candidate for a Criterion restoration.
Unfortunately, what we get on the DVD is
animal-droppings from Columbia Tristar. The
transfer is by turns scratched, contrasty, faded,
and soft like one of those DVDs in the $3.99
bargain bin at Wal-Mart. And it's a crying shame.
One would think the same care and concern would be
given to a certified movie classic that is
lavished upon a film like "Jay and Silent Bob
Strike Back." Just shrug your shoulders and sigh.
This is an awful transfer, and that's the awful
truth. |
