One of Hollywood’s most venerable studios has offered its fourth collection of award-winning and critically acclaimed films, all debuting in the ultra-high definition format with Columbia Classics Collection: Volume 4 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, PG, PG-13 and R, 720 minutes, 1.37:1 to 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $215.99).
The 14-disc set delivers six entertaining films focused on complex relationships:
• Legends Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell star as fast-talking newspaper veterans, loving and hating one another, in “His Girl Friday,” director Howard Hawks’ 1940 hit that defined the screwball comedy.
The dialogue will make a viewer’s head spin and comes rapid-fire, as The Morning Post’s feisty editor Walter Burns (Grant) tries to persuade his former reporter/wife Hildy (Russell) to leave her fiancée and stick with writing for his paper, with a death row inmate’s escape spicing up the deal.
4K in action: The restoration uses the original 35mm nitrate negative, but possibly to reflect the original source material, suffers with some serious grain issues during close-ups to the point of being distracting. However, the crisp and detailed imagery as well as black-and-white toning is fantastic.
• Director Stanley Kramer’s romantic dramedy “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” tackled the provocative topic of mixed-race couples in 1967.
The Academy Award-winning effort starred Katherine Hepburn (who won an Oscar) and Spencer Tracy (in his final role) as the parents of Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton), a 23-year-old woman ready to marry her older Black widowed boyfriend, Dr. John Wade Prentice (Sidney Poitier), and seeking her parents blessing. Complications ensue when Dr. Prentice’s parents fly up from Los Angeles to San Francisco to meet their son and his new girlfriend, having drinks and dining with the couple and Joey’s parents at their home.
4K in action: The movie suffers from occasional bouts of soft focus and outdoor grain in some close-ups, but the colors are strong, especially at a burger drive-in packed with hot rods and a room glowing orange by an oceanside sunset.
• The winner of five Academy Awards including best picture finally gets a 4K restoration to highlight a custody battle in Robert Benton’s 1979 legal drama “Kramer vs. Kramer.”
Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep star as the Kramers, immersed in a nasty divorce and fight for control of their 7-year-old son Billy and willing to allow their lawyers to do whatever takes in the courtroom to win. The story often focuses on an evolving father-and-son relationship, as the dad does his best as a single parent before his ex-wife decides to return after 18 months and attempts to take their son.
4K in action: With details sharp enough to count Ms. Streep’s facial freckles, the restoration delivers the best version of “Kramer vs. Kramer” available with colors defined (especially at an office Christmas party and a school Halloween play) but oddly, once again, a few close-up scenes were slightly soft.
• John Carpenter strayed out of his horrifying comfort zone in 1984 to direct the sci-fi romantic drama “Starman.”
Jeff Bridges (nominated for an Academy Award) stars as an extraterrestrial stranded on earth, whose glowing orb clones the body of deceased husband Scott Hayden and strikes up an unsettling relationship with the widow, Jenny (Karen Allen). She helps him travel from Wisconsin to Arizona to rendezvous with his species as they run into plenty of police and government agents trying to capture them.
4K in action: Considering the film’s age and special effects complexity for the time, it’s by far the best restoration of the group — crisp and perfectly color-toned throughout and scanned from the original camera negative. Shining moments include the symbiotic transformation of the alien into Scott with all of its creepy practical effects.
• A staple of the romcom genre arrived in 1993, directed by Nora Ephron and starring a pair of Hollywood’s hottest commodities in “Sleepless in Seattle.”
The story about lost love and the possibilities of a long-distance relationship focused on widow Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) baring his soul on a talk radio show after his young son Jonah (Ross Malinger) instigates the call, and eventually meeting an already engaged Annie Reed (Meg Ryan) intrigued by Sam, nicknamed by the radio host as Sleepless in Seattle.
The ensemble cast included Bill Pullman as Annie’s fiancée, Rob Reiner as Sam’s work buddy Jay Mathews, Rosie O’Donnell as Annie’s friend Becky and David Hyde Pierce as Annie’s brother Dennis.
4K in action: The perfunctory visual cleanup offers stunning panoramic views of Chicago, Baltimore and Seattle.
• An absurdist, dark romantic comedy released in 2002 gave director Paul Thomas Anderson a critically acclaimed box-office flop and comedian Adam Sandler a chance to show off his dramatic chops in “Punch-Drunk Love.”
The story explores the owner of a novelty company Barry Egan (Mr. Sandler) regularly abused by his seven sisters. Barry lives a lonely, occasionally rage-filled and socially anxious existence while always on the verge of a breakdown. While attempting to stop the owners of a sex line from extorting him, he meets a woman (Emily Watson) willing to accept his excessive foibles. They fall in love, leading to the emergence of a more confident and fearless Barry in a bizarre cinematic ride.
4K in action: The 35mm interpositive (an orange-based film version created for more accurate color reproduction) made from the original camera negative was used for a restoration supervised by the director with longtime collaborator Gregg Garvin handling the coloring duties. The result brings forth Mr. Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit’s vivid visual choices such as primary colors that pop and moments of intense light and shadowy darkness as the film runs crisp and clean throughout.
Equally eye-catching are the artistic options that have emotional scenes set up in colorful transitional screens flowing by like abstract paintings.
Overall, “Columbia Classics Collection: Volume 4” is sure to end up residing on a movie connoisseur’s home entertainment shelf.
• Joseph Szadkowski can be reached at jszadkowski@washingtontimes.com.
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