Cactus Flower (1969) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Comedy |
Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Groundhog Day, Seems Like Old Times |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1969 | ||
Running Time | 99:33 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Gene Saks |
Studio
Distributor |
Shock Entertainment |
Starring |
Walter Matthau Ingrid Bergman Goldie Hawn Jack Weston Rick Lenz |
Case | Amaray-Opaque | ||
RPI | ? | Music | Quincy Jones |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles |
English French Italian German Dutch Polish Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Swedish Turkish |
Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
Dr Julian Winston (Walter Matthau) is a womanising dentist. To avoid commitments he tells his girlfriends that he is married and has three children, but after a year seeing Toni (Goldie Hawn) he has fallen in love with her and she with him. She, however, cannot stand the situation any longer and attempts to commit suicide, sending Julian a suicide note. Toni is rescued and revived by her neighbour, the handsome writer Igor (Rick Lenz); Julian rushes to Toni’s side and proposes marriage, telling her that his wife wants a divorce too. Toni accepts but wary of being a home wrecker insists on meeting Julian’s wife and hearing it from her.
Julian enlists the help of his staid receptionist Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman) to play his wife. Stephanie has looked after Julian for over ten years, managing his office, buying his shirts and making his lunch and is in love with him. She reluctantly agrees to help Julian and meets Toni in the record shop where she works. Toni takes a liking to Stephanie and becomes even more upset about hurting her so Julian tells Toni that his wife has a lover, which backfires when Toni also insists upon meeting him as well! Julian’s patient and old friend Harvey (Jack Weston) agrees to play the role of Julian’s wife’s new flame but of course further complications ensue and it is certainly the case that true love, whatever that may be, does not run smoothly.
Cactus Flower is based on the successful stage play by Abe Burrows (which featured Lauren Bacall in the role of Stephanie) which itself was based upon a French play by Barillet and Gredy. The story is certainly durable, the film having been remade twice, one in Hindi as Maine Pyaar Kyn (2005) and as Just Go With It (2011) with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. Cactus Flower is amusing in places with some good one-liners but, given its origins, it is more a French farce of situation than a laugh out loud comedy. The director Gene Saks had been a stage director whose first three films, Barefoot in the Park (1967), The Odd Couple (1968), also with Walter Matthau, and Cactus Flower, were all successful comedies of situation which all now seem somewhat quaint and old-fashioned. Goldie Hawn, at the start of her career, won both an Oscar and Golden Globe for her role as the “kooky” Toni; she is indeed delightful but is matched in the film by the indomitable Ingrid Bergman who, in her first film in Hollywood for about 30 years, is both deadpan and beautiful, making the most of her part. The men fare less well, the craggy and stoic Matthau doing his best in a part that, as written, is a cad but who at the end comes out far better than he deserves.
Cactus Flower commences with a sequence of a bearded hippy placing flowers under the windscreen wipers of parked cars to the song A Time for Love is Anytime, sung by the honeyed voice of Sarah Vaughan, so this has to be the 1960s, even when the fashions of flower shirts and mini-skirts does not give it away. Despite the dark subject matter, including hedonistic attitudes, womanising and attempted suicide, this is an inoffensive film that, without the top notch female cast, would be rather forgettable.
Cactus Flower is presented in the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.
This is a decent print. Detail can be soft but with only a couple of exterior scenes this is not a problem. Colours are natural but muted, again because most of the film is set indoors. Blacks and shadow detail are fine, skin tones natural, brightness and contrast consistent.
There were a number of small specks scattered throughout the film, although none were large or distracting, plus occasional motion blur with movement. Grain is present and under control.
Subtitles are available in English and a huge range of European languages plus Hindi and Arabic.
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Audio is a choice of English, French, German, Italian or Spanish, all Dolby Digital 2.0 mono at 192 Kbps.
The film was originally shown with a mono audio track. Based on a stage play there is no action and not a lot of effects even in the nightclub scene but dialogue is always clear and easy to understand, which is the important thing. The original music by the prolific Quincy Jones, who was nominated for Oscars 7 times but never won, is appropriate to a light comedy.
I did not notice any lip synchronisation issues and pops and hisses were absent.
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Trailers for Cactus Flower (1:05),Groundhog Day (2:39) and Seems Like Old Times (2:07).
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Our Region 4 PAL version of Cactus Flower is the similar to the NTSC Region 1 US version but with many more audio and subtitle options. I suspect it is identical to the Region 2 UK PAL release.
Cactus Flower has an average rating of 7.1 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes and a similar 7.2 /10 by IMDb users so it remains a popular film four decades after being made. Goldie Hawn and Ingrid Bergman are indeed delightful, but I must say I could not warm to the attitudes or situations on show, and found the film to be somewhat dated. But that is probably just me, so if you are a fan of the stars, the film or the light comedy genre, this DVD of Cactus Flower is worth getting. It has acceptable video and audio, but only a trailer as extras although this is the same in other regions.
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Review Equipment | |
DVD | Sony BDP-S580, using HDMI output |
Display | LG 55inch HD LCD. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
Audio Decoder | NAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated. |
Amplification | NAD T737 |
Speakers | Studio Acoustics 5.1 |