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The Billy Wilder Collection on DVDBilly Wilder was one of Hollywood’s legendary directors, and this collection of eight Wilder films shows why. It doesn’t feature nearly every of Wilder’s films, but its cross section of Wilder classics is a heck of an introduction for those unfamiliar with the co-writer/producer/director’s work as well as a good foundation upon which to build a Wilder collection. You get such well known classics as “Some Like It Hot” and “The Apartment,” as well as lesser known - but just as entertaining - titles as “One, Two, Three” and “Kiss Me, Stupid.” All except “Some Like It Hot” feature anamorphic widescreen video and overall the video quality is very good, with sharp images and, where applicable, wonderfully rich color. Audio is generally mono, but that’s okay for films of the vintage in this collection. The lineup is thus (in alphabetical order): Avanti! Avanti! stars Jack Lemmon, not surprisingly, and Juliet Mills (who the liner notes say gained 25 pounds for the role). Lemmon is a wealthy American businessman summoned to Italy after his father (and his secret mistress) are killed in a car accident. Mills is the mistress’ daughter and the two are brought together when the bodies of their parents disappear. The DVD also features the trailer. The Apartment, possibly Wilder’s most honored film, teams Lemmon with Shirley MacLaine. Lemmon, in order to advance his career, lets his apartment be used by philandering bosses as their preferred place to make advances to their female conquests, which does a lot to advance Lemmon’s character’s career. But a monkeywrench is thrown into his plans when the Big Boss (Fred MacMurray) shows up with the girl of Lemmon’s dreams (MacLaine). What does he do - chase his career or his true love? The only extra is the theatrical trailer. The Fortune Cookie: Matthau won an Oscar for his performance as "Whiplash Willie," an unscrupulous ambulance chaser of a lawyer whose brother in law Harry Hinkle (Lemmon) gets injured while on the job as a sidelines cameraman at a Cleveland Browns game. Willie smells dough, and browbeats Harry into letting him launch a million dollar lawsuit for his non-existent injuries. This means Harry has to play the part to the hilt, lest the insurance company, its lawyers, and the private investigators they've hired to smoke out a fraud find out the criminal truth. Meanwhile, the halfback (Ron Rich) who knocked Harry over the stadium's tarpaulin is devastated by what he has apparently done. He becomes like a mother hen to the supposedly convalescing Harry, in the meantime letting his football duties and skills atrophy to the point where he isn't much use to the team. Then, he gets into a bar room brawl and gets suspended. Meanwhile, Harry's ex-wife (Judi West) smells a buck to be made and comes back to nurse him to health. The rest, as they say, is history. The cast is excellent, as might be expected, and the chemistry between Lemmon and Matthau is the stuff of legends. Overall the film packs into it a few good laughs, too, so at worst you're in for a relatively entertaining couple of hours in the home theater. The DVD is in black and white, but with its original widescreen image - 16x9 TV compatible - preserved. Picture quality is good, but not great. The audio is Dolby Digital mono and is also good, but not great. The only "extra" is the theatrical trailer and a "fact from the vault" on the back of the box. Irma La Douce So he disguises himself as an English Lord who can afford to pay for Irma’s exclusive services and all’s well until Irma confides to her manager that she’s actually fallen in love - with his charade character! The only extra on the DVD is the theatrical trailer. Kiss Me, Stupid stars Dean Martin in a self-parodying role as a crooner who, when passing through a Nevada town, is kidnapped by a couple of wannabe songwriters determined to have him listen to their repertoire. Sounds like “Misery?” Maybe, but what the kidnappers hadn’t counted on was Dino’s (Martin) insatiable appetite for the finer things in life - booze and broads. So one of the men uses Kim Novak to help put Dino into the mood to buy their songs. Does it work? Watch the movie and see! This DVD includes a welcome extra besides the trailer: an alternate scene. One, Two, Three is a hilarious bit of Cold War comedy that, while dated now, is still a very funny outing. James Cagney is C. R. MacNamara, who runs the Coca Cola company’s office in Berlin, West Germany in the days just before the wall. He wants to climb the corporate ladder, with an eye to being appointed head of European operations based in London. His wife, on the other hand, just wants to be Stateside again, but what can she do? Well, we’ll find out later in the film…. Anyway, Cagney has a scheme to make Coke far more profitable by setting up bottling plants behind the Iron Curtain. But fate has other things in store: His boss phones him one day and informs him that his wandering daughter - a handful wherever she goes - is arriving in Berlin and he wants MacNamara to keep an eye on her. This chick (Pamela Tiffin) is a free spirit and the next thing Mac knows she’s gone secretly and married a young commie (Horst Buchholz) from the Eastern sector - a guy bound and determined to capitalism fail. Of course this happens just as her parents are due in Berlin for a visit, and Mac knows that the current situation will be detrimental to his future career if he doesn’t do something. So he decides to make the young Marxist over into a model capitalist - much to the kid’s chagrin! It’s a hilarious tale! The DVD includes a Pan&Scan version as well as the preferable anamorphic widescreen one, though for extras you only get the theatrical trailer. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is kind of misnamed. The story isn’t really about the famous fictional sleuth’s private life, but rather it’s a case that seems to have slipped by the pen of Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes (Robert Stephens) and Watson (Colin Blakely) find themselves caught up in an adventure that takes them from London to Scotland in a story that end up being more than a mere mystery: it’s also a bit spy story with some romance mixed in for good measure. It’s a good tale, well told, and with a delicious cast that also includes Christopher Lee, Genevieve Page, and a stellar supporting cast that includes such names as Stanley Holloway. And there’s also a typically sweeping score by Miklos Rosza. The DVD actually has a decent set of extras, too. First up is “Christopher Lee: Mr. Holmes, Mr. Wilder” a featurette, followed by an interview with the film’s editor (Ernest Walker). There are also some deleted sequences and a photo gallery as well as the theatrical trailer. Some Like it Hot is Wilder's classic comedy of mistaken identity - a good showcase for the talents of its three main stars: Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis. It's no wonder it was nominated for seven Oscars. Lemmon and Curtis are starving jazz musicians forced into hiding after they witness a mob hit. They disguise themselves as girls and embark on a trip to Florida with an all girls' band. Naturally, things don't proceed according to plan. Daphne (Lemmon) starts getting chased by an old playboy (Joe E. Brown) who wants to marry her, while Josephine (Curtis) falls under the spell of Monroe's siren song causing him to adopt yet another disguise in order to woo her. Then there's the mob boss (George Raft), who refuses to give up on his obsession to find and 'air out' the duo. He arrives in Florida for a convention, spies Lemmon and Curtis, and starts the chase all over again. Lemmon and Curtis are good in their parts and there are some wonderful moments, for instance when Curtis adopts his best Cary Grant impression in order to woo Monroe. As for Monroe, she's very good in her role as the bimbo looking for a rich husband. Her acting is better than that for which she has often been given credit, and her costumes are far sexier and more revealing than one would think possible in the late 1950's. The DVD is presented in its original widescreen aspect ratio, though it isn't enhanced for 16x9 TV's. This is a shame, because it forces widescreen TV owners to zoom the picture out, which reduces the picture's detail. Oand the quality is okay. Not surprisingly considering the movie's monaural source, there isn't a lot of surround info and that's okay. Extras a limited to the original theatrical trailers and a couple of "Facts from the Vault" on the box's back panel. The Billy Wilder Collection, from MGM Home Video The Apartment The Fortune Cookie Irma La Douce Kiss Me, Stupid One, Two, Three The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
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