PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981) (Warner Archive Blu-ray Review)

PRINCE OF THE CITY (1981)

Label: Warner Archive

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: R

Duration: 167 Minutes

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, Richard Foronjy, Don Billett, Kenny Marino

The sprawling Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon) directed cop-drama Prince of the City stars Treat Williams (Hair, Deep Rising) as Danny Ciello, a detective on the NYPD's Special Investigations Unit, a criminal unit with a high success rate and history of big busts, including The French Connection, but it's also lousy with rampant crime and corruption within the ranks. Danny joined the force to make a difference but through the years he has leaned into the corruption, taking cash from drug busts, indulging in bribes, and suppling his junkie informants with heroin straight from the department's seized drugs cache. 

He lives a flamboyant lifestyle with a too-nice-for-a-cop house, expensive wrist watches and fancy duds, which draws the attention of both his junkie brother and his unimpressed father, both of whom take note of lifestyle and disapprove. This family shame combined with the remorse he feels after he beats the snot out of one informant junkie to steal drugs for another junkie informant causes him to have a change of heart, he now feels that he needs to come clean. The opportunity to just that occurs when he is courted by the assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Cappalino (Norman Parker, Death By Invitation), who is out to bust corruption among the ranks of the SIU. With his own guilt chipping away at his conscious Danny agrees to work undercover for the Feds, but steadfastly refuses to turn on his partners; Gus (Jerry Orbach, The Sentinel), Dom (Kenny Marino, Death Wish 3), Joe (Richard Foronjy, Repo Man), and Bill (Don Billett, Ordinary People),

This is a cop flick gets into the cracked-psyche of a cop and his oath and loyalty to his brothers in blue; how they are almost lovers in how close they are to each other, and the idea of betraying your partners is an idea way beyond the pale. Danny works undercover for the feds wearing a wire over the course of several years, exposing the dozens of instances of illegal police activity and corruption among cops outside the SUI, politicians and businessmen, and he seems to get a thrill from it initially. However, when the higher-ups with the feds keep pushing him to turn on his partners he begins to crumble and is increasingly tormented by his choices, and things quickly begin to spiral out of control. I do like Treat Williams in this, from a cocksure crooked cop to a fidgety informant, at times I thought he was a bit too over-the-top, but it still works for me. 

Despite his initial demand that he not turn on his partners  his undercover actions eventually cause injury to those around him. His mob-connected cousin who saves his ass at one point, eventually gets thrown out with the trash, and more than one cop associate chooses to eat a bullet instead of turning into an informant and turning on his friends or facing an federal indictment for corruption. It's a film that was way ahead of it's time, things like this are still being explored on TV and on the big screen today, so I think this has probably aged quite well in that respect. 

I thought that I'd never seen Prince of the City before, but as I watched it certain scenes early on were familiar to me, so I am thinking that I caught this on TV when I was a younger and just never finished it, in the 80's I was not watching three-hours movies, it was more quantity over quality back then, haha. Which is not too surprising, at nearly three-hours long this is a true commitment to sit down and watch, but I am glad I finally did give it a watch, it's probably one of my favorite cop drama now. Treat Williams is terrific as the cop-turned-informant, the various stages of his moral collapse while he free falls down a rabbit hole of his own creation is absolutely fascinating, and well-acted. Again, the length of this cop-drama epic might be a bit of a put-off, so I won't blame you for splitting this up into two separate viewings, but definitely check it. If you're into cop dramas like TV's The Shield or films like Serpico and Donnie Brasco, I think you're gonna love this flick. 

Audio/Video: Prince of the City (1981) arrives on Region-free Blu-ray from warner Archive in 1080p HD and framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The images of NYC are shot by cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak (Death Trap) are grim, claustrophobic and depressing, the Blu-ray offers gritty visuals with a nice layer of film grain throughout. Colors are on the muted side but are well saturated and skin tones look natural, the urban landscapes look scummy and decayed, particularly a scene of Danny chasing a junkie through a crumbling neighborhood in the rain at night. Black levels are solid throughout as well, and the source is in great shape without dirt and debris. Also quite pleasing is the amount of fine detail in the close-ups of vintage period clothing and fabrics, the various well-groomed 70's era moustaches.

Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono with optional English subtitles. Dialogue is crisp and clean and the two-channel sound design has some atmospheric moments like the sound of heavy downpour and a few of the more violent scenes. The score from Paul Chihara (Death Race 2000) has nice placement in the mix as well. 

No new extras on this release but WAC carry-over the 29-minute archival featurette Prince of the City: The Real Story with contributions from director Sidney Lumet, screenwriter Jay Presson Allen, author Robert Daley, production designer Tony Walton, actors Treat Williams, Bob Balaban, and Lance Henriksen, plus we get the 2-minute Theatrical Trailer for the film.  The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster artwork, which is also excerpted on the Blu-ray disc. .  

Special Features:

- Prince of the City: The Real Story (29 min) 

- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) 

Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City (1981) is a terrific cop drama, a fascinating character study of a crooked cop turned informant who is broken down by the process and anguishes over his betrayal of his beloved partners. At nearly three hours long it's an epic-length watch, but it's an epic story that I would highly recommend to anyone who loves a good cop drama. 

Screenshots from the Warner Archive Blu-ray: 

HAIR (1979) (Olive Signature Blu-ray Review)

HAIR (1979)

Label: Olive Signature
Region Code: A
Rating: PG
Duration: 121 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widecsreen (1.85:1)
Director: Milos Forman
Cast: John Savage, Treat Williams, Beverly D’Angelo, Dorsey Wright, Don Dacus, Annie Golden, Charlotte Rae, Nell Carter

Synopsis: In New York City for the first time while on his way to enlist in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, Oklahoma farm hand Claude Hooper Bukowski (John Savage) meets up with a freewheeling group of Central Park hippies led by the irrepressible George Berger (Treat Williams, Deep Rising). When the unlikely friends meet upper-middle-class debutante Sheila Franklin (Beverly D'Angelo, The Sentinel), sparks fly between the country boy and the city girl, and Berger's troupe attempts to keep the young lovers together.

Sometimes you just don't "get it" when you watch a movie, and the first time I saw Hair (1979) was probably as a highschool freshman, and I certainly didn't "get it". I'd heard my folks talk about it being "wild and crazy", and at some point I ended up watching it on VHS with a girlfriend, and as soon as Bukowski (John Savage, Lucio Fulci's Door Into Silence) ends up in Central Park seeing the hippies do a song and dance routine I was already checked out if I am being honest, at that point the only musical I could stomach was Annie (1982), which at one point was my younger brother's favorite movie, it might still be.

This hippie-culture shock spectacle was a bit out of date when it hit the cinemas in '79, a full decade after the Summer of Love, and by the time I saw it over a decade after that I was full-on into gory horror films, punk rock and metal, and these goofy hippies were purely comical to me, a dated relic from the past that I couldn't relate to at that time. Not long after that ill-fated watching I smoked weed for the first time, started listening to the Grateful Dead a bit, watched Woodstock (1970) and Easy Rider (1969), and while I still wasn't quite "into it" I had more of an appreciation for the counter-culture hippies of the 60's at least, and appreciated the idealistic goals of the movement that largely drown in it's excess.

That said, I didn't end up re-visiting Hair (1979) again until this week, courtesy of a new Blu-ray edition from Olive Films. It's the story of a young man from the Midwest named Claude (John Savage, The The Deer Hunter) who has been drafted during the era of the Vietnam War, lucky him. Before being sent off to boot-camp he travels to New York City, where in Central Park he encounters a "tribe" of hippies lead by the free-spirited George Berger (Treat Williams, Dead Heat) with a majestic mane of hair, who is joined by long-haired hippie type Woof (Don Dacus), black hippie Hud (Dorsey Wright, The Warriors), and Jeannie (Annie Golden, Orange Is The New Black), whom is pregnant. The father of her child could be either Hud or Wood, she's not quite sure which, this being the era of free-love, and she's not too concerned with it either, even offering it to Bukowski as an excuse to get out of being drafted.

The hippies take an immediate liking to the naive Bukowski and get him high, opening his mind to the social and cultural revolution happening at the time. At Central Park Bukowski spots an attractive blonde debutante named Sheila (Beverly D’Angelo, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) riding horses with friends, briefly making her acquaintance after skillfully halting a runaway horse. The next day Berger convinces Bukowski to join him in crashing a dinner party at the home of Shelia, upsetting her snooty family and making quite a scene, but the shenanigans succeed in catching the attention of Sheila.

Sheila sort of splits her affections between the more outgoing Berger over Bukowski, but with time running short before he has to report for enlistment they do eventually bond, before he ends up at boot camp. In his absence the tribe along with Sheila make a cross-country trip to reunite with him before he leaves for Vietnam, leading to a comically doomed finale for one characters that while highly improbable still packs a punch in a silly sort of way that works for the film. 

I liked the film a lot more than I did the first go around, the main cast is uniformly excellent, and the myriad of counter-culture musical numbers hit a lot of the right notes with me as well. A few of these songs are quite risque for that era, particularly songs like the masturbation-themed "Sodomy", the racially charged "Colored Spade" and the celebration of multi-racial love "White Love/Black Love", all with some excellent choreography, with vocals highlights from Nell Carter (Modern Problems) on a pair of memorable tunes, and Cheryl Barnes belts out the wonderful "Easy To Be Hard". Let's not forget the iconic tune "Aquarius", though my favorite version of that nugget is the nightmarish Killdozer/Alice Donut team-up!

A testament to how ratings standards have changed is that the Beverly D'Angelo is seen topless in not one, but two, scenes, which could never happen these days regardless of the context, the 70's and 80's were a different time. It's a gorgeous film, skillfully directed by Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) with cinematography by Miroslav Ondříček (Amadeus), and of course all the colorful hippie costuming, but overall it's got a reality based look about it, the New York City scenes looking appropriately gritty and trashy in that era, with the only real visual flourishes coming during a surreal bad-trip scene that happens inside a church.

I got a real kick watching this again, I still don't love it, musicals are just not my thing, but the counter-culture messaging and visuals are fun and pacing is quite good. The main attraction for me is seeing a quite young Beverly D'Angelo, the nudity certainly didn't hurt, and a pair of actors who were TV staples for me in the 80's when I was a kid, those being Charlotte Rae who played Mrs. Garrett in the TV sitcom The Facts of Life (1979-1986)), and the aforementioned Nell Carter who was in Gimme a Break! (1981-1987), both of which I loved as a kid. They may not be the biggest stars in the film but they're the ones that hit the nostalgia-button for me in a big bad way.

Audio/Video: Hair (1979) arrives on Blu-ray from Olive Films as part of their Olive Signature series, framed in 1.85:1 widescreen in 1080p HD, in what is advertised a brand new restoration of the film. The image looks filmic with an appropriate amount of film grain, the source is in fantastic shape with only a few white speckles to be found throughout. The color pallete is natural looking and the black are solid, with good contrast levels, offering modest depth and clarity. I never did see the previous MGM Blu-ray from nearly a decade ago so I don't have a comparison for it, but to my eyes this is a great looking HD release of the film. 

Audio is limited to English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles. There's good separation throughout and the musical numbers and score spring to life in the surrounds. Everything sounds well-balanced, it feels authentic, but I do wish they would have included the original stereo mix as well.  

Onto the extras we begin with a brand new audio commentary with assistant director Michael Hausman and actor Treat Williams, it's quite good when they're actually talking but there is a bit of dead air as they seem to sit back and enjoy the film from time to time without comment. They get into the origins of the theatrical version, working with the cast and crew, what it was like working with the late Milos Forman. They touch on quite a bit even with the dead air, it's a solid track, but it seems they could have used a moderator to keep the commentary on track and paced.

On top of the commentary we get a handful of new featurettes produced by Elijah Drenner, beginning with the 30-min 'The Tribe Remembers'with interviews from actors Beverly D'Angelo, Don Dacus, Ellen Foley, Annie Golden, John Savage, and Dorsey Wright. It's a great remembrance of the film with much of the time dedicated to remembering the late Milos Forman, the way he worked and what made him so special, he having created an atmosphere on-set that freed up the actors to go all out. It's a great mini-doc with lots of behind-the-scenes images sprinkled throughout, and let me just say that Beverly D'Angelo is still a cutie these days, I have always had a crush on her, ever since seeing her National Lampoon's Vacation (1983). Strangely Treat Williams is not present for these interviews, so it's nice that we got that commentary with him.

Legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp (Amadeus) shows up for a 12-min 'Making Chance Work: Choreographing Hair' who goes into how she came to work on Hair after refusing it several times, her strict requirements and how she choreographed based on environments and sets, and the strong suites for each of the actors.

The 21-min 'Cutting Hair' features both editors who worked on the film, Lynzee Klingman (A River Runs Through It) and Stanley Warnow (The Honeymoon Killers), and it's a fairly fascinating discussion of how both came into the field of editing and how it was they started working with Forman.

'HairStyle' is a 16-min interview with production designer Stuart Wurtzel (Brighton Beach Memoirs) who gets into what it was like to set design on this particular musical, including the surreal bad-acid trip at the church. 

Director James Mangold (Logan) gives 24-min appreciation of the director with 'Artist, Teacher, Mentor: Remembering Milos Forman', beginning with taking a screenwriting class with him, his influence on his own filmmaking, and what makes Hair so special.

The last of the extras is a 3-min trailer for the film and an essay by critic Sheila O'Malle, which is also included in the 8-page booklet that accompanies this release. The single-disc release arrives in a clear keepcase with a sleeve of artwork featuring a new cover illustration, on the reverse side is an image from the film with along with a song list. As part of the Olive Signature series it also gets an attractive slipcover with the same artwork, and inside there's a 8-page booklets with stills, movie posters and an essay on the film by critic Sheila O'Malle. 

Special Features: - New Restoration of the Film 
- Audio commentary by assistant director Michael Hausman and actor Treat Williams
- 'The Tribe Remembers' with actors Beverly D'Angelo, Don Dacus, Ellen Foley, Annie Golden, John Savage, and Dorsey Wright (30 min) 
- 'Making Chance Work: Choreographing Hair' with choreographer Twyla Tharp (12 min) 
- 'Cutting Hair' with editors Lynzee Klingman and Stanley Warnow (21 min) 
- 'HairStyle' with production designer Stuart Wurtzel (16 min) 
- 'Artist, Teacher, Mentor: Remembering Milos Forman' with director James Mangold (24 min) 
- 8-Page Booklet with an Essay by critic Sheila O'Malle
- Trailer (3 min) 

While I don't exactly love this film I do love that Olive Films via their Olive Signature imprint finally give this counter-culture cult-classic the love it deserves on home video. If you're a fan of this film, or checking it out for the first time, this Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic and the extras are plentiful and deep-diving. Hats off to Olive Signature for the excellent work they did here, and to Elijah Drenner and his crew who produced the brand new extras on it.