Frankie and Johnny (1991) |
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Frankie and Johnny (1991) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Drama | Theatrical Trailer | |
| Rating | ? | ||
| Year Of Production | 1991 | ||
| Running Time | 112:58 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (58:46) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Programme | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Garry Marshall |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Paramount Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Al Pacino Michelle Pfeiffer Hector Elizondo |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $24.95 | Music |
Peter Beckett Marvin Hamlisch |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0  (192Kb/s)French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
 |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English English for the Hearing Impaired Slovenian French German Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Dutch Bulgarian Icelandic Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Arabic Turkish Polish Italian Spanish Romanian Czech Hungarian |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Johnny (Al Pacino) is released from prison and makes his way to New York City in search of a job. As it turns out, his stay in prison has transformed him into a great short-order cook, and helped him to become a well educated man. I suppose when in prison there is not much else to do, so why not read and cook... Johnny manages to find a job at the Apollo Cafe where Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer) works as a waitress. There is an instant attraction between the two and Johnny is determined to make something of the relationship.
Now, Frankie is not so keen on the idea. She carries a great deal of emotional baggage and she does not want to face up to her demons. Johnny's sheer persistence in his quest for love seem to be turning Frankie against him. Undaunted, Johnny must find his way through Frankie's multitude of emotional defences before their relationship can grow. He, in turn, must exorcise his own demons.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, Frankie and Johnny is a relationship drama, and a good one. It has some comedic moments and you really do get quite wrapped up in the characters. If this fits in with your idea of a relaxing night at home then I really have to recommend this title. Hey, I enjoyed it.
This transfer presents the movie very close to its original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 - it is in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.78:1.
The movie begins a little soft but the sharpness does pick up as you progress through the movie. Shadow detail is very good and there was no low-level noise.
Colours are well rendered but never remarkably vibrant. Nothing of concern.
I did not notice any MPEG artefacts. There was, however, some telecine wobble noticeable around 89:00. There was a light spattering of film artefacts, particularly noticeable towards the beginning of the movie.
The English subtitles seemed quite accurate to the spoken word over my 15 minute sample.
This is an RSDL disc with the layer change occurring at 58:46. I cannot comment on the quality of the change as I did not notice it at all on a DVD-ROM.
| Sharpness |  |
| Shadow Detail | |
| Colour |  |
| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
There is a total of 5 audio tracks on this disc, one of which was in English. I listened to the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track (at 448Kbps) in its entirety.
The dialogue quality is fine for the majority of the movie, except for a small segment around 60:30 where a bit of distortion creeps into the mix. It is not bad - just annoying. The dialogue is always understandable - a good thing given the dialogue-driven nature of the movie.
Audio sync is fine throughout. Along with the minor distortion mentioned above there were also a couple of instances of an annoying whine at 60:30 and 71:30. These were relatively short lived and some people may not even notice them.
The music is fairly run of the mill relationship drama fare. Nothing to get excited about. I actually found it to be somewhat "Elevator Muzak"-like in places. The odd contemporary song that made it into the soundtrack did get my foot tapping along happily.
The surrounds were used minimally throughout but they did manage to open the soundscape somewhat. The subwoofer was used to occasionally support the music. That is all.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use | |
| Subwoofer | |
| Overall | |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The video quality is very good.
The audio quality is good with a few minor flaws.
Extras - does a trailer count?
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras |  |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer 106S DVD-ROM with PowerDVD 4.0 scaling to 864p, using RGB output |
| Display | Mitsubishi VS-1281E CRT front projector on custom 16x9 screen (270cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS787, THX Select |
| Speakers | All matching Vifa Drivers: centre 2x6.5" + 1" tweeter (d'appolito); fronts and rears 6.5" + 1" tweeter; centre rear 5" + 1" tweeter; sub 10" (150WRMS) |