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Product Description
Customer Reviews
This is one of those landmark films that really lives up to its well deserved fame, when one finally has the opportunity to watch it.
Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, are perfectly matched as the ever-quarreling wife and husband, who, in spite of loving each other, for rather childish reasons, are granted a divorce, but before it's final, they have the chance to think it over one last time.
Really hilarious scenes by the two leads and by the excellent supporting cast, especially Ralph Bellamy as Dunne's suitor, Cecil Cunnigham as the wisecracking Aunt Patsy and Esther Dale as Bellamy's mother. Nice bit by Joyce Compton too, as an "air-head" southern-accented, singer, who gives a very peculiar singing-act.
Perfectly paced, at 91 minutes running time, there's no time left to breathe between scenes, so expertly tied to each other, that it's hard to believe it was filmed, as it was told by the actors, mostly unaware of what was going on. Apparently the only one who knew was master of comedy, director Leo McCarey, who won one an Academy Award for it.
Now about the quality of the dvd edition, I must say that I bought this movie along with the dvd editions of "Talk of the Town" and "You Can't Take it with You", completely unaware of the absolutely negative customer reviews here at Amazon. As matter of fact, having watched this movie just last night, and still having not watched the other two, I was absolutely frightened of what I'd see (and what I still have to suffer!), upon reading all those negative reviews by Amazon customers, concerning these three classic films.
Concerning "The Awful Truth", I must say that I feared even worse, because at least some portions of the movie are crisp and clean, but many others are very grainy, bad quality, faded, etc, so one wonders about the "digitally mastered" and the "remastered in high definition", as said on the back of the dvd case. It's one of dvd's I own, and I have almost 200, with the most "uneven" image quality I ever saw.
It's really a pity that Sony-Columbia Classics, didn't treat this classics, the way they had treated the first classics they released on dvd, of which I own many, so I know waht I'm talking about: "It Happened One Night", "His Girl Friday", "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", "Gilda", "Only Angels Have Wings", "Angels Over Broadway", "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington"......especially considering the price of their editions....we all know, Warner releases are cheaper, and until today, their editions are of very good quality, indeed.
So boooohhh for the people who released this editions, so unrespectfully to us classic film buffs, and for charging between U$ 25- 30, for something that shouldn't cost more than 11 bucks.
Still I wonder: The laserdisc editions of these three classics, were as bad as the dvd editions? I don't believe so, 'cos most of the laserdisc editions of classics were of very high definition and quality....so, what happened with the dvd editions? How can it be that one Amazon customer says that the VHS editions of some of this films are better than the dvd ones? I remember watching a TV showing of "You Can't Take It with You"...and its quality was excellent....maybe the laserdisc was the source? Or those excellent copies belong to some other company?.
Sony-Columbia owes an apology to its thousands of customers, and even more, they should release these three classic films, in the way they deserve, as their first aforementioned releases, and give the customers who had the bad luck of buying these bad quality dvd's, the right to exchange them for the really remastered-restored editions.
Until then, we'll have to stick to these editions, 'cos it's all we have, besides recording a better version on TV.
A quick rundown of the movies in this set (for those who do not already know about them.):
His Girl Friday (1940)-a hilarious comedy, one of Cary Grant's best, is an update of The Front Page with Rosalind Russell as reporter Hildy who is attempting to leave Grant's newspaper to get married. Great comedic timing and perfomances turn this into an instant classic-and one of AFI's top 20 American comedies of all time. Directed by Howard Hawks, this is the best of the set (in my opinion).
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)-another funny one, also directed by Howard Hawks, with Jean Arthur as Cary's love interest, is an Andes Mountain adventure of planes and past loves and lots of comedic drama. It flows very smoothly and provides great entertainment from beginning to end. It has a great supporting cast-Thomas Mitchell, Richard Barthelmess, a young and beautiful Rita Hayworth-and thrilling suspense. A great movie.
Holiday (1938)-one of the four Cary Grant/Katherine Hepburn movies, not their best (The Philadelphia Story and Bringing Up Baby are even better) but still wonderful. It is touching and funny, with tender and sweet moments, and more of a love story than the others in this set. It's a great New Year's Eve movie, with Cary's Johnny Case engaged to Kate's black sheep millionaire heiress, and family drama abounds. One of the many Hepburn movies directed by George Cukor.
The Awful Truth (1937)-A great balance of equal parts romance and comedy, starring Irene Dunne (in an Oscar-nominated performance) as the Cary's almost-divorced wife, and they are both planning to remarry, although their crazy screwball antics may end up ruining both of their plans. Nominated for Best Picture Oscar and winner of Best Director for Leo McCarey (also nominated for Screenplay and Supporting Actor for Ralph Bellamy as Irene's new love interest), this is one of the best screwball comedies of all.
The Talk of the Town (1942)-This is the only one of the set that I haven't seen-I'm a newbie Grant lover, and I plan to watch the one I got in the set, but I'm sure it's wonderful as well. It has a great director-George Stevens, Jean Arthur again, who is really very funny and underrated, also Ronald Colman starring as a law professor in line for the Supreme Court. It was nominated for 7 Oscars, including Picture, Original Story, and Screenplay, and the basic plot is that Grant has recently escaped from prison and is staying with Jean Arthur, while Colman is already a guest. Supposed to be very funny, and I am sure it is.
Again, this set is for those who are either looking to be introduced to Cary Grant-what a perfect collection of movies, for those who only own one or two of the movies, or for those who just love Holiday that much. If you are waiting out for the single disc of Holiday, by all means, e-mail the studio and complain and make noise and do big things to make it happen, but don't create a false idea that this set is awful for those who aren't Cary Grant die-hard fans (when I wrote this review, the set was rated 2 and a half stars, which is not even close to how high the quality is). This is an amazing collection of movies.
Columbia has given us a print of the film that, although riddled with scratches, tears, duped quality master print segments and fading is, nevertheless, free of all the digital anomolies that were present on their "Talk of the Town" DVD transfer released just a few weeks before. Yes, this film is dated, and yes, there are portions of the picture in which fine detail is practically non-existant, and yes, Columbia should have done a much better job on this classic film than they have for this DVD release. But it just doesn't look quite so bad as their other recent efforts from their B&W catalogue library. And although this disc has a long way to go before it starts winning any awards, the print, if not pristine, is nevertheless represented by a generally good gray scale that does not diminish the comedic elements of the story. LET THE BUYER BEWARE: I don't think this is a great DVD or even an adequate one. It is, however, an outstanding movie!
*Aside: There are no extras and although the print claims to be remastered in hi-def, this is a mute point since the original camera negative is badly worn, hence the over all quality will not be improved by hi-def mastering. Do not base your decision to buy this disc by what you read from the back of Columbia's packaging! You'll be bitterly disappointed.
