Stick (1985) - Coming from Kino

[gates70]

Just announced in the Kino tread...

Originally Posted by Kino Lorber Insider

We had planned to announce this next week, but with the very sad news of Burt Reynold's passing, we will go ahead and announce the film today.

Coming 2019 on Blu-ray!

Stick (1985) Starring Burt Reynolds, Candice Bergen, George Segal, Charles Durning, Richard Lawson, Alex Rocco and Dar Robinson - Shot by Nick McLean (City Heat) - Screenplay by Elmore Leonard (52 Pick-Up) and Joseph Stinson (Sudden Impact) - Based on a Novel by Leonard - Directed by Burt Reynolds (Gator).

Attachment 207519

[seagal]

Great news but I can´t smile on that release right now because I´m so shocked that Burt Reynolds is no longer with us.

What a sad day.

[gates70]

Originally Posted by seagal

Great news but I can´t smile on that release right now because I´m so shocked that Burt Reynolds is no longer with us.

What a sad day.

I hear ya...glad more of his movies are coming out though. A lot are missing and Burt was the man!

[Mr. Eddy]

Wow. I almost bought this DVD last as I had heard about Burt's passing and this was one of my childhood favorites of his. Glad a higher quality edition is coming sooner than later. Definitely day one for me.

[philip74]

best news of the day!!

[rocknblues81]

I've actually never seen this one. I pretty much stopped watching Burt movies after Stroker Ace.

[Aclea]

Posted this on the Kino thread, but it's worth repasting:

After Reynolds delivered his cut of the film which was much more faithful to the novel, Universal hated it, pushed it back a year and asked him to reshoot the second half of the picture, adding a new character (his daughter) and dropping another entirely (Annie Potts' movie executive: stills from her scenes are in the stills gallery on the German DVD). You can easily tell the reshot parts of the movie because Reynolds had lost so much weight after his accident on the set of City Heat, which was shot after he wrapped the first version. Reynolds always regretted agreeing to the reshoots:

"I gave up on the film. I didn't fight them. I let them get the best of me...Leonard saw the film the day he was interviewed for a Newsweek cover and told them he hated it. After his comment, every critic attacked the film and he wouldn't talk to me. When I reshot the film, I was just going through the motions. I'm not proud of what I did, but I take responsibility for my actions. All I can say--and this is not in way of a defense--is if you liked the first part of 'Stick,' that's what I was trying to achieve throughout."

An early version of the poster for the movie had the tag line 'If only they'd left him alone.' Elmore Leonard reportedly had a doctored version of that in his office with the tag line changed to 'If only they'd left the script alone.'

To add insult to injury, the film flopped so badly it went straight to video in most international territories - and that's where the original cut apparently turned up. A few scenes from that version, including the original ending, turned up on Youtube, while the BBC showed the original cut in 1989 but never repeated it.

We know that some stuff was lost in the Universal vault fire in 2008, but since that version was seen in Europe it may still be out there (the BBC used to keep prints of all the films they showed even after they lost the rights, but that policy changed when they switched over to digital masters). Even an SD version would be very welcome. Since clips turned up on Youtube it may be that if the master is lost, someone has a tape copy that could be used in the way that Shout used an off-air tape of the TV version of Two-Minute Warning for their Bluray. I'm sure even the pickiest people would reluctantly admit that seeing it in lower quality just to have it was better than not having it at all.

So, how about it, Kino?

[ergumat]

Great news, I like this movie and will pick it up.

[Marv Inc.]

Burt Reynolds original ending to Stick - YouTube

[Fred Sliman]

So glad this one is coming, has been on the want list for ages. Avoided the heavily derided overseas edition and was counting on this in the Universal deal. Will say that for all their problems (80% of The Big Fix DVDs wouldn’t play per Amazon reviews; I was burned twice), Universal Vault’s DVD of this had one of the best and richest stereo tracks I’ve ever heard for a film of this vintage. Looking forward to hearing this one.

Couldn’t agree with Aclea more about even an SD of the original cut ala Two-Minute Warning being a great addition if possible.

[Tom Sharky]

So, I'm a big fan of Sharky's Machine (my favorite movie of Reynolds that I have seen so far).

How does Stick compare? Slightly worse overall than Sharky's Machine? I assume Stick is worth checking out.

[Aclea]

Before Get Shorty and Out of Sight broke the curse, adapting Elmore Leonard’s crime novels seemed beyond Hollywood. John Frankenheimer gave it a good shot with 52 Pickup only for the film’s convincingly seedy atmosphere to keep audiences away, but most either missed the target like Cat Chaser and The Ambassador or withered and died in preproduction. Burt Reynolds’ attempt to adapt Stick suffered a somewhat worse fate. After delivering an apparently somewhat faithful adaptation scripted by Leonard himself to Universal in 1984, in a move that would foreshadow the later tinkering with Mel Gibson’s Payback and Edge of Darkness, the studio weren’t convinced, shelved the film and convinced the star to reshoot, re-edit (dropping all of Annie Potts’ part) and rework much of the film as something more audience-friendly a year later. This time audiences weren’t convinced, and the film flopped so badly it was barely released outside the US while Leonard made his displeasure with the result known – he even had a poster of the film doctored and hung in his office, with the original tagline ‘The only thing he couldn't do was stick to the rules’ changed to ‘The only thing he couldn't do was stick to the script.’

It’s a typical Leonard plot in many ways – resourceful smalltime criminal caught up between alternately colourful/disturbed villains and wealthy civilians with a fascination for lowlives and somehow just about coming out on top. Reynolds’ Ernest Stickley is no sooner out of jail for armed robbery than he finds himself and an old friend in a money drop that goes fatally wrong and leaves him on the run from both Charles Durning’s flamboyant drug transporter, Castulo Guerra’s drug wholesaler and Dar Robinson’s psychotic albino (are there any nice albinos in films?). Where better to hide out and plan his revenge than as chauffeur to crime groupie and wheeler dealer George Segal, who’s putting together a movie deal that Durning desperately wants to be a part of?

Unfortunately, Charles Durning’s potential threat as a villain is diluted by his comical appearance. Dressed like Dune’s Baron Harkonnen in a Hawaiian shirt, you get the feeling he’d be more at home in one of Burt’s Bandit pictures. More effective by far is Castulo Guerra’s drug dealer, using Santeria rituals to terrify business associates and underlings and demanding a life – not just a disposable underling but someone close to him – from Durning for inadvertently costing him one of his best soldiers in a promising plot development that’s just allowed to fizzle out. Sadly, pace is also a problem: as a director, Reynolds never could build up the kind of head of steam a thriller needs, and this is no different, starting off well with a killing and spectacularly fiery escape in a sugar cane field but losing momentum as it ambles towards its finale. It’s not helped that one villain’s spectacular demise, falling from a building while still shooting at him without the aid of greenscreen or visible wires in an unbroken single take (it’s pretty easy to tell which villain I’m talking about from the credits, since he’s played by a stuntman who specialised in high falls), is so genuinely impressive that the film’s actual ending seems almost an afterthought.

The post-production scars are sporadically visible: Reynolds’ weight fluctuates throughout the picture because of the jaw injury he sustained on City Heat, the reshoots often easy to tell from his increasingly thin appearance, while Candice Bergen’s financial advisor is surprisingly appealing but doesn’t have a great deal to do in the film when she does finally turn up in the second half of the picture. The end result is a not bad but rather flat thriller, not as bad as its reputation but not as good as it needs to be to rise above its straight to video fate. The original 1984 preview cut apparently did emerge on video and TV in some territories and is an improvement, but the version released on DVD in Germany is the 1985 reworked theatrical cut: just how much was cut can be gauged from the large number of stills from deleted scenes on the discs stills gallery.

[seagal]

Originally Posted by Tom Sharky

So, I'm a big fan of Sharky's Machine (my favorite movie of Reynolds that I have seen so far).

How does Stick compare? Slightly worse overall than Sharky's Machine? I assume Stick is worth checking out.

I like "Stick" but it´s not as great as "Sharky´s Machine".

"Sharky´s Machine" is a top 5 Burt Reynolds film.

[Marv Inc.]

Not been keeping up with the Kino thread. Any news on this extra's wise and what cut they are using?

[philip74]

any news on the possible release date?

[RedHarvest]

Originally Posted by philip74

any news on the possible release date?

I think the Kino rep has stated that there was not yet a release date for it.

[Member-222782]

Stick does not have a street date and it looks like it won't be coming anytime soon according the KL Insider. They made the announcement shortly after Burt Reynold's passing. I think they're trying to secure the longer cut (if there even is one), so I'm all for waiting until everything is sorted out. I really hope they do find usable elements for a long version even if it's just as deleted scenes.

[philip74]

If there is a longer cut I`m definitely willing to wait, although I hope it`s not one of these releases that just keeps getting delayed and delayed and yet again delayed
Then again I don´t remember Kino having been an offender of this in the past.

[gates70]

December 3rd, 2019 is the release date.

[Marv Inc.]

Any specs for this yet?