California Suite (Neil Simon's) (1978)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Trailer-Manhattan Murder Mystery; Jerry Maguire
Rating
Year Of Production	1978
Running Time	98:25
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Herbert Ross
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Alan Alda Michael Caine Bill Cosby Jane Fonda Walter Matthau Elaine May Richard Pryor Maggie Smith
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Claude Bolling

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I've never really watched California Suite in its entirety before, but I've sampled various scenes on TV many times and have always promised myself that one day I'll see it from beginning to end.

    The film is based on a Neil Simon play of the same name, and consists of four completely different stories featuring different groups of characters (who don't know and never meet with each other). The common theme linking across stories is that all the characters are visiting California and staying at the same hotel (presumably the Beverly Hills Hotel, but I'm not sure whether the film states this explicitly). Each story deals with some aspect of the characters' personal lives and their reason for visiting California.

    The first story concerns the Visitors from New York: Hannah Warren (Jane Fonda) is a smart but cynical New York based journalist - she is in California to visit her ex-husband Bill Warren (Alan Alda) over custody of their daughter Jenny (Dana Plato). Jenny is supposed to be staying with Hannah but has recently run away from home to be with Bill. I found this story to be the funniest as well as the most touching - Hannah and Bill engage in some brilliant verbal fencing. This story milks stereotypes of Manhattanites and Californians and their perceptions of each other brilliantly.

    The second story concerns Visitors from London: Diana Barrie (Maggie Smith) is an English actress who has been nominated for an Oscar and is flying in to Los Angeles to attend the Academy Awards. She is accompanied by her husband Sidney Cochran (Michael Caine) who used to be a stage actor but is now an antiques dealer. I also found this story touching in that the two characters are obviously in a marriage of convenience (Sidney's homosexuality, or at least bisexuality, is referred to several times in the dialogue) but underneath the pretence they do love one another in their special way. Apparently Maggie Smith actually won an Oscar for her portrayal of Diana which is supremely ironic.

    The third story is about Visitors from Philadelphia: Marvin Michaels (Walter Matthau) is attending his nephew's bar mitzvah, and is picked up in the airport by his brother Harry (Herb Edelman). Harry hires a prostitute (Denise Galik-Furey) as a present for his brother. The only problem is Marvin wakes up late, discovers that the prostitute is sleeping naked in his hotel room and apparently has crashed out from too much alcohol. He goes into panic when he realises that his wife Millie (Elaine May) is due to arrive at the hotel any minute now...

    The last story is about Visitors from Chicago. Two couples - Dr (Richard Pryor) and Mrs (Gloria Gifford) Gump and Dr (Bill Cosby) and Mrs (Sheila Frazier) Panama - decide to take a joint vacation and everything turns out wrong. First their rental car broke down, then they find themselves locked out of the car, and finally the car got involved in an accident. After that, things become far worse...

    I like Neil Simon's plays, and The Goodbye Girl (made the year before this film) is one of my favourite films. This film certainly has a lot going for it - including a star-studded cast - but somehow I don't find it as satisfying. In particular, the slapstick antics of the Chicago visitors are more annoying than funny, and none of the characters ever break from being one-dimensional. Still, it is enjoyable to watch and to exclaim how young the cast look.

Video

    The transfer is presented in widescreen 1.78:1, with 16x9 enhancement, and presumably corresponding to the intended aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

    Given that the film is nearly 25 years old, I did not expect the print to be pristine and it isn't. The overall look is soft and grainy with faded colours. At least I did not detect too many film marks.

    Detail levels are rather poor and I was straining my eyes to try and decipher the closing credits for the "film within a film" around 3:19 but I couldn't really make out any names apart from James Coburn (yes, it was really him in a cameo role) and "Diana Barrie."

    I suppose it would not have been so bad if the transfer quality was excellent, but unfortunately there is persistent minor pixelization present which further softens the image. To make things worse, haloing from over use of edge enhancement is also present.

    Finally I also noted some minor posterization, particularly around faces.

    Film to video artefacts are limited to aliasing, such as around 25:35 on the car.

    There are quite a number of subtitle tracks on this disc (I counted 21). I turned on the English subtitle track briefly to verify its existence. The accuracy of the subtitle track is mediocre as some dialogue lines are not captured at all.

    This is a single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on this disc: English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192kb/s), French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192kb/s), German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192kb/s), Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192kb/s), Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192kb/s). I listened to the English audio track.

    The sound of the audio is firmly in the "tinny and somewhat distorted" category. Just pretend you are watching the midday movie on TV, because that is about the level of audio quality you are going to get.

    Thank goodness the dialogue is still relatively easy to understand and I did not notice any audio synchronization issues.

    The original music score by Claude Bolling is not really that memorable.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Apart from two trailers, there are no extras present on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is static and rather soft looking, but is 16x9 enhanced.

Trailer - Manhattan Murder Mystery (1:43); Jerry Maguire (2:30)

    The trailer for Manhattan Murder Mystery is presented in 4:3 and Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kb/s) and, judging from the framing, appears to be based on an open matte full frame transfer.

    The trailer for Jerry Maguire is also presented in 4:3 and Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kb/s), but this time the audio track is flagged as surround encoded and, judging from the framing, the transfer seems to be pan & scan.

    Both trailers are also subtitled in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• 4:3 version on a double sided disc (DVD10)
• Additional Asian languages subtitle tracks

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on:

• Additional foreign language audio and subtitle tracks
• Two trailers

    The differences are not compelling so I would declare it a draw.

    California Suite is four separate stories about different visitors to a hotel in California and the reasons that brought them there and what happens to them. It is based on a Neil Simon play. I kept hoping that eventually these stories would connect somehow like in a Robert Altman movie but unfortunately that was not to be. Still, it is worth watching for the star-studded cast. Video and audio are below average, and extras are limited to two trailers.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall