Life With Father - 1947 Color (Digitally Remastered Version)
by Michael Curtiz
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DVD details
Actor: Edmund Gwenn, Elizabeth Taylor, Irene Dunne, William PowellDirector: Michael Curtiz
Producer: Robert Buckner
DVD: Region Code 0
Format: NTSC
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-10-21
Studio: DigiComTV
DVD Reviews of Life With Father - 1947 Color (Digitally Remastered Version)
DVD Review: Best DVD Yet of a Neglected Classic!
Summary: 5 Stars
It astonishes me that Life With Father no longer has the same degree of popularity as other Hollywood films of the Forties that tell similar stories of family life in late 19th-Century America. This was one of the best of the Greatest Generation's stiffly satirical looks at its own elders, which had been filmed so sweetly in Meet Me in St. Louis, for example. The original Life With Father was a huge and much-honored Broadway hit, and the play was also adapted for a well-executed television series in the 1950s.
But this funny and very gentle portrait of a large middle-class family in New York City circa 1880, a major Warner Bros. release at the time (1947), has been sorely neglected on video. Until now not even a watchable transfer existed. The comedy, one of Jack Warner's casualities-by-neglect, fell through cracks into the public domain, and as such has never been restored. This from the same studio executive who later outbid all others for the similar-in-feel The Music Man, now much honored on disc, including Blu-ray.
The story is almost a catalog of 19th-century obsessions, with a twentieth-century bite. It is a recounting of one family's cranky, overbearing and semi-oblivious father, a straight-arrow businessman who is firmly convinced he will never need to be baptized into his wife's church. When he finally gets up to Heaven, by God, he'll just have a good talk with them and set them straight! Such shocking disregard for convention and his wife's devout beliefs sets off a family crisis, as Mother and her brood take a stand against this tyrannical but ultimately lovable man of the house.
The film has standout performances by at least three huge stars--William Powell, Irene Dunne, and a very young Elizabeth Taylor. Supporting roles are near-perfect, including a rare appearance by Zazu Pitts in an iconic role as a fluttery aunt. The excellent dialog has just enough hilarity and bite to remain tasty, even though the complications are, despite the life-after-death stakes, relatively trivial to us today.
If you've seen it, you may wonder if this newer transfer is superior to previous VHS copies, and the answer is a qualified yes. The video image is surprisingly richer and more colorful than the poorly produced tapes of the past, but it's hardly up to Warners' current standards. If you watch your films on a TV set with a "cinema" or "theater" picture mode (which is much warmer and less blue than "standard" mode) the image will appear quite dark and lacking in contrast. Switching to a brighter mode, however, restores some luster and the picture is far more enjoyable. That's not something I'd normally endorse.
But the play's the thing, and I'd like everyone to see this film at least once. Finally here is a very inexpensive disc that offers a hint of what the fuss about Life With Father was all about.
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