Customer Reviews

Time of Your Life [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nick's Bar is a place where you can "come in and be yourself."

The sign says so; and everyone does so.

For Joe, being himself is drinking champaign all day while teaching Tom all the skills he'll need in life, defending Kitty Duvall's honor from a bullying policeman (some things never change!) and humoring an old cowboy with more stories than he can remember having told.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was married to a midget weighing thirty-nine pounds?"

I've noticed that at least three other reviewers drew comparisons to the teevee show Cheers, which I found vacuous and shallow. Nick's is the bar that the cast of Cheers WISHES they were in.

Remember the sign ["Come in and be yourself"]?

In the final scene, Nick himself takes the sign out of the window and tears it up, saying, "Enough is enough!" reminiscent of BobGod's great stage play "Ronald Smith's Closet" used as an improvisational training tool at Ned Mandarino's School of Transpersonal Acting in the seventies and eighties.

THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE was based upon William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play and was brought about, in part, by a collaboration of the Cagney siblings (James, Jeanne, and William). Except for one brief shot of the Salvation Army singing outside the establishment, the entire movie takes place inside Nick's, a saloon, restaurant, and entertainment palace on the waterfront in San Francisco. James Cagney plays Joe, a man who has a lot of cash and spends his time observing, listening, and helping people and fulfilling his every whim. Wayne Morris plays Tom, Joe's gopher man; Jeanne Cagney plays Kitty, a former "burlesque queen" who falls for Tom; and William Bendix plays Nick. The floating characters at Nick's also include, among others, a lovesick young man, an out of work fellow, a drunk, a cowboy who calls himself "Kit Carson", a pinball wizard, a dancer who is a comedian that has no funny jokes, a police officer, and a couple of socialites.

There really isn't much plot in THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE. However, neither the movie nor the play it was based upon are about "plot". There may not seem to be a lot going on, but actually there is. The plot of the story is it's characters. Each person that comes into Nick's has a story and some of them we learn, some of them we don't. However, while listening to each person (just as Joe does) we learn something about them and in the process we discover things about ourselves. THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE is art in it's highest form because it entertains, yet also enlightens.

The quality of this DVD isn't all that bad, especially considering how inexpensive it is to purchase a copy (the Laserlight edition can be purchased for less than $5). The sound is good through most of the film except for the occasional scratch and the picture is great (the one scene where you can't read what is on the piece of paper was filmed that way intentionally because you are not supposed to see what's written on the paper because it's too small).

Overall a good movie well worth the time to watch it.

(Please note that the DVD version I am reviewing is the Laserlight edition of THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE. This budget release pretty much defines the concept of "no-frills".)

Other reviewers have pointed out the fact that this movie skimps on plot and I cannot help but completely agree with that sentiment. But for what the movie lacks in action, it more than makes up for in the presentation of fascinating characters. Each person's story is interesting and unique. And the movie manages to give us enough detail so that we can find these people intriguing, but leaves enough unsaid so that no one overstays their welcome. We're left liking these people and wanting to hear more about them.

Since the characters are at the forefront of this movie, it's certainly a relief to have such splendid actors playing them. The Cagney siblings are wonderful. Jeanne Cagney does a wonderful job at becoming the streetwise blonde who stands up to gangsters and James Cagney is a compelling, gentle enigma. While so many of the roles could have easily fallen into stereotypes, the actors are strong enough to keep them as individuals.

Although I haven't experienced the original play that this film is based upon, I can only imagine that there weren't too many script changes between the stage and the screen. The movie is heavily performance-based, with the interesting material coming from the conversations and the soliloquies. The action is completely centered on a single barroom, as during the entire length of the movie only one short sequence takes place outside the bar's swing doors. Even a fight scene inside the same building occurs off-camera so that all we view are people in one room hollering at the unseen people in another. As some characters leave the action, they are immediately replaced by other people beginning conversations of their own. In fact, if you pay close attention, you'll probably notice that the amount of real time that people spend off-camera isn't nearly long enough to do all the things that they claim to have done in that span.

Fortunately, none of this affects one's enjoyment of the film at all. In fact, it gives the entire production a great sense of the theatrical nature of the performances. Unlike some other translations from play to movie, this one never feels as though it's being limited by the theatre. It retains the trappings and atmosphere of a stage production, while never feeling claustrophobic. What makes for good theatre doesn't always make for a good film (and vice versa), yet it's a testament to the skills of the director and the cast that they manage to make the transition here without a hitch.

The image quality on this Laserlight DVD is perfectly watchable. It's scratchy in a few places, but never so much that it becomes distracting. The picture is a bit bright and slightly washed out, but this is really only a problem in one scene where the audience is expected to read something that's a character has written on a piece of paper. The sound quality is variable, but mostly falls on the good side of variable. As the DVD itself is absolutely dirt cheap, it's well worth putting up with these slight imperfections.

This review is specific to quality issues related to FRONT ROW ENTERTAINMENT's DVD of THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE (1948). The snap box cover's colorized composite photo has Jimmy Cagney examining a wind-up toy at left while his sister Jeanne dances with Wayne Morris behind and to our right.

Toronto-based FRONT ROW didn't monitor this one too closely before its release. Back cover lists running time as 109 minutes. Incorrect. Exact time is 100 minutes, 35 seconds.

One scene missing here (and on most public domain copies apparently) is a conversation between Broderick Crawford's "bewildered cop" and Ward Bond as "McCarthy, a blatherskite." Just as they get comfy at the bar the scene fades out and resumes with Paul Draper's Harry (the natural-born tap dancing comedian).

Most high frequencies have been filtered out of this transfer. Picture quality is decent but not perfect. Good contrast, and not blurry, dubbed from unrestored film stock containing a few repaired breaks.

Most baffling about this FRONT ROW disc is the main menu, which includes bonus biographies of William Bendix and James....GAGNEY. That's right, with a capital G.

I bought this DVD because the Product info listed running time as 109 minutes (the same as imdb's data on it) and was disappointed that it's abridged by 9 minutes. This makes my third incomplete dub. Maybe an unabridged copy of THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE no longer exists?

Great Movie Plenty of Great Characters.
We are "AVID" Movie collectors and have over 1200 titles and a few months ago had purchased "The time of Your Life" #865.
We finally tried to watch the DVD but found that three quarters of the way through the movie it lock up and will not play on any of the 5 DVD players we have, we put the disk in our computers and found that the video file is corrupted on your disk.
Needless to say we will not be buying any titles "VINA Distributor" has from this point on. Plus the resolution is bad less that 640X480 "You must be joking".

I love this film - eccentric people show up at a bar in San Francisco - Cagney's character just watches them come and go, listens, helps them along. That's it. If you're looking for action - go elsewhere. The scene never leaves the bar. Originally a play by William Saroyan.
My favourite quote from the play/movie is "Living is an art, it's not bookkeeping. It takes an awful lot of rehearsal for a man to get to be himself." -

I suspect many an aspiring writer has spent too much time in a bar looking for artistic inspiration. I get this inpression from all of the "dramas" that take place in taverns. Some, like "The Iceman Cometh", are topnotch. Others, like "The Time of Your Life", come across mediocre at best. In the case of the latter, I found myself wondering what the point was. We are expected to believe that interesting, intelligent people congregate for innocent fun and frolic. Maybe it does seem like a pleasant place to many but I found myself wondering why there were more employees than customers, why there was a full-time cook when I only saw one person eat while there, why the script was so lame. This was obviously a theatrical play brought to the screen. It may have worked better on stage the way the script moves the spotlight from one charater to another. However, on film I felt this gave the movie a lack of perspective. Most of the vignettes were pretty bland. The humor failed to make me smile, the drama failed to touch me and the suspense bored me. It seemed that there was always the potential to amuse, entertain, or intrigue but the script just wasn't up to the task.

I made it a point to watch "The Time of Your Life" because I noted that James Cagny was the star. I like his acting style and ability (when given at least a reasonable vehicle to preform in). It actually was a sort of family affair with his brother William as the producer and his sister Jeanne as the leading lady. Cagny was decent enough but his role, as well, lacked substance. The movie was from a play by William Saroyan. Saroyan no doubt observed many interesting things from his experiences in taverns. Unfortunately, it appears that he must have been inebriated at the time; no sober writer would have thought that any of this was worth writing about.

The other review subject lines hit it on the head: Thin plot, a bar where everyone knows your name.

This movie does not have a very good subject. Is just about a rich man in post WWII era hanging out in a bar and throwing around small amounts of money. Not much of a climax either.