Car Wash (1976)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1976
Running Time	92:24
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (49:28)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Michael Schultz
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Richard Pryor Franklyn Ajaye Sully Boyar Richard Brestoff Carmine Caridi George Carlin Ivan Dixon Bill Duke Antonio Fargas Michael Fennell Arthur French Lorraine Gary Darrow Igus
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	Norman Whitfield

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Portuguese Dutch Swedish Danish Finnish Norwegian Hebrew Arabic Russian Turkish Greek	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, As credits roll

    Well, Car Wash was nowhere near as entertaining second time around. I can remember catching it on TV one day while stuck at home mending my body, and at the time I thought it was an interesting movie. After watching it again this time with a sane mind and body, it was d*** boring, so I can only assume that the prescribed tablets did more than dull the pain.

    Set in Los Angeles, this is a story about a bunch of guys that work down at Sully Boyar's local car wash. Business is down because the other car wash business in the area has moved to automated cleaning machines, and therefore have less of a labour overhead. Each of them has a story to tell, and a brief background is explained as the story progresses. The entire film is set over two days and at times seems so drawn out that you are getting a minute-by-minute breakdown.

    Richard Prior is billed as one of the big names in this movie, but he only makes a brief appearance as the local minister. It was a letdown to see the true master of comedy have such a small part.

Video

    Considering the age of the film (1976) it does have a rather clean and pleasing transfer.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is surprisingly sharp with a nice level of detail being evident in all scenes. The majority of the movie is filmed under natural sunlight outside the carwash. Scenes shot inside the building are well lit and always contain a high level of detail. The re is a brief point which is at dusk of the first day where shadow detail diminishes, but this appears intentional to portray the end of the day. At 55:15 there is a shot with the least amount of lighting during the day and it too is still quite visible. There is only mild low level noise.

    Colour is consistent for films of this era and therefore there are no real instances of bright vibrant colour. The red beanie at 62:25 is about the brightest splash of colour you will see for the entire film. There were no irregularities with the colour rendition of this transfer.

    There were no MPEG artifacts seen. Aliasing is very mild and also rare with the most noticeable form appearing at 39:03 on a piece of ribbed plastic hose pipe. Film artifacts are very rare and not distracting at all.

    There are a huge number of subtitles on this disc and the English version I checked was close to but not exactly the spoken word.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed between Chapters 10 and 11, at 49:28. It is a quick scene change, so slow players may show a pause at this point.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are a total of five audio tracks on this DVD. There is no default language - instead you need to select from a language menu which is then followed by the corresponding Main Menu in your language of choice. The choices are English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, with all as Dolby Digital 2.0 non-surround encoded soundtracks. I listened to the English soundtrack in it's entirety.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times.

Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer.

    The disco-style music in this movie never seems to stop. It is quite fulfilling and well balanced across the front sound stage, especially since it is not surround encoded. At no times did the music drown out any of the talking sequences.

    Being a non-surround encoded track there is no surround presence or activity.

    Likewise, there is no subwoofer activity either.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extra's on this disc.

Menu

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• Nothing

• English Dolby Digital 2.0
• French Dolby Digital 2.0
• German Dolby Digital 2.0
• Italian Dolby Digital 2.0
• Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0

    Detailed information about the Region 1 version of this disc is hard to find. But in each case it appears that the best soundtrack available for that region contains a Mono English and Mono French soundtrack.

    First time through it was great. Second time I was very bored, so I will leave it up to the individual punters as to the enjoyment value.

    The video quality was pleasing with some touch-up being done during the transfer, or a well looked-after original was available. Good to see that films from the 70s can have an acceptable transfer, too.

    The audio is only available with two channels, but it appears that this is one more than the Region 1 version anyway. The whole story is dialogue-based, so at no time did I feel that extra channels use would be warranted anyway.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall