Product Details

• Actors: Daniel Jenkins, Neill Barry, Jane Curtin, Paul Dooley, Jon Cryer
• Directors: Robert Altman
• Writers: Donald Cantrell, Ted Mann, Tod Carroll
• Producers: Robert Altman, Lewis M. Allen, Peter Newman, Scott Bushnell
• Format: NTSC, Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, Full Screen
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Key Video CBS/Fox Home Entertainment
• VHS Release Date: November 12, 1987
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301802691
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352,010 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I will leave it to the critics to comment on the film itself., March 13, 2006

By 

E. BJORNSSON (Iceland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: O.C. and Stiggs (DVD)

All I want to say is that I can barely believe that no one has
commented on the atrocious transfer on the DVD. It looks like
a bad video on a TV screen glimpsed through a dirty window. It
is not even "barely watchable" - it is utterly unwatchable.

This may not be one of Altman's best, but surely it deserves
better treatment than this, if only for those of us who want
to be able to view this auteur's complete body of work. Whoever
produced this DVD ought to be ashamed of themselves.

I have bought both the US and UK disks in the hope that one
of them might be better than the other. No such luck - they
are both the same crappy junk. Money down the drain.

We've been had. And the thought of somebody actually making
money off selling this inferior product is distressing.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Repeat Viewings Bring Out the Brilliance, January 13, 2006

By 

Chris Collier "The Kingfish" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: O.C. and Stiggs (DVD)

O.C. and Stiggs is a pure gem. The other reviews give you background, but what needs to be emphasized is that this film is filled with Robert Altman's special layered dialogue. O.C. and Stiggs can be watched a dozen times and still the viewer will notice some little tidbit of cleverness that wasn't obvious the first time. Do yourself a favor and buy this film so you can watch it again whenever the mood strikes you.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor transfer, weak movie, August 9, 2007

By 

Art - See all my reviews

This review is from: O.C. and Stiggs (DVD)

It's a little shocking to see that studios are still releasing non-anamorphic transfers of widescreen movies this late in the game. But I suppose with this movie, it was non-anamorphic or nothing at all, since this doesn't seem like a DVD that's likely to sell millions of copies. I assume that the transfer comes from an earlier laserdisc version or something.

At any rate, it's nice to be able to see Altman's full widescreen images, even in a poor transfer, but the truth is that this is probably his worst movie. He takes the unredeemable sociopathic dirtbags from the original National Lampoon stories and tries to transform them into the suburban 80s version of Hawkeye and Trapper John. The original O.C. & Stiggs didn't care whether Schwab had cancelled someone's insurance unfairly; they just hated him because he had a funny name.

The transformation of O.C. & Stiggs into "heroes" severely waters-down the original stories, whereas the weakness of the original material gives Altman virtually nothing to work with. We're left with a sorry mish-mash of aborted social commentary and truly awful attempts at "zany" humor (e.g. "boing" sound effects whenever someone gets stuck by a cactus, or the musical spoof of the "Pink Panther Theme" when the boys are sneaking into Schwab's back yard).

This gets one extra star because even the worst of Altman's work is worth a look to fans, but this is truly one of the most misbegotten movies that director ever made.