What’s Up Doc? Blu-ray
Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, Madeline Kahn
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich
Originally released 1972
Warner Home Video 2010
94 minutes
Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up Doc is my all-time favorite slapstick comedy and finally available on Blu-ray. Compared to the DVD version of What’s up Doc? the Blu-ray picture is slightly crisper, as if a very thin gauze veil has been lifted off. Most important is this comedy is still extremely funny some forty years later.
What’s Up Doc? is the story of four identical plaid suitcases. One contains igneous rocks and belongs to a musicologist named Howard Bannister (O’Neal), one belongs to a young woman always followed by comic trouble (Streisand), one contains top secret documents, and one contains a fortune in jewels. All the suitcases and their owners get mixed up, leading to a great comedy of errors, the destruction of a hotel room, and the greatest comic chase scene ever featuring the streets of San Francisco.
Madeline Kahn comes yeah close to stealing the movie as the very tightly wound Eunice, Bannister’s fiancée. She received a Golden Glove for her performance
Timing is everything and it is exquisite in this comedy. The set ups for the gags themselves are also excellent, especially the series involving the suitcases being switched from one hotel room to another and back and another.
The courtroom scene near the end of this comedy features some very good verbal work.
Streisand sings You’re the Tops in the opening credits and part of As Time Goes By.
What’s Up Doc? Blu-ray includes a decent commentary track by Peter Bodganovich (also available on the DVD version), a short selected scenes commentary track by Streisand which consists in her mostly saying “I don’t remember that”, and a Making of 8-minute feature.
Other Warner Brothers Blu-ray comedies
Caddyshack Blu-ray
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation Blu-ray
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