The Major and the Minor (1942)

[blubirdsky]

The Major and the Minor Blu-ray

The Major and the Minor

Legendary actress and dancer Ginger Rogers (Monkey Business) stars as Susan Applegate, a struggling young woman who pretends to be an 11-year old girl in order to buy a half-price train ticket. Fleeing the conductors, she hides in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland, The Big Clock, The Pyjama Girl Case). The Major believes Susan is a child and takes her under his wing, but when they arrive at the military academy where Kirby teaches, his fiancée (Rita Johnson) grows suspicious of Susan's ruse...

Co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett (Hold Back the Dawn), The Major and the Minor assumes the guise of a light romance narrative in order to cleverly explore themes of identity and deception. Wilder’s American debut is presented here for the first time in stunning High Definition, with a selection of illuminating extras.

Extras

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation transferred from original film elements
Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio soundtrack
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
New audio commentary by film scholar Adrian Martin
Half Fare Please!, a newly filmed video appreciation by film critic Neil Sinyard
Archival interview with Ray Milland
Rare hour-long radio adaptation from 1943 starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland
Image gallery
Original trailer.
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: COLLECTOR’S BOOKLET WITH ESSAY BY RONALD BERGAN

Info from arrowfilms.com

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq6kgy-chlk

Finally on Blu-ray!! !

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-M...lu-ray/245558/

[HuggyBear73]

Day 1 release for me!

[blubirdsky]

Originally Posted by HuggyBear73

Day 1 release for me!

Same for me. Did anyone else pre-order?

[anthonyjhc]

Well, of course. Billy Wilder's finest comedy.

[oak table]

I will be getting this. The extras look great. I vote with my pocket book, so I am hoping for Kitty Foyle on Blu-ray at some point. More Ginger Rogers on Blu-ray please.

[blubirdsky]

Originally Posted by oak table

I will be getting this. The extras look great. I vote with my pocket book, so I am hoping for Kitty Foyle on Blu-ray at some point. More Ginger Rogers on Blu-ray please.

Looking forward to this one. Great review here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUJkvgqDOs

[oak table]

My copy is on the way from a Walmart distribution center. It should be here on Wednesday.

[Majin Blu]

The Blu-ray review is up.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-M...245558/#Review

[James Luckard]

Was this a limited run?

Amazon had it for full price for ages.

Then, last week, it suddenly dropped down to $13.99 - nearly %70 off. I bought it (and fell in love with the film, FYI)

Now Amazon isn't stocking it and doesn't say that it's "out of stock" or that any more is "on the way", which they usually would.

I wonder if that fire sale was to get rid of the final stock.

[Gunsnroses092789]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Was this a limited run?

Amazon had it for full price for ages.

Then, last week, it suddenly dropped down to $13.99 - nearly %70 off. I bought it (and fell in love with the film, FYI)

Now Amazon isn't stocking it and doesn't say that it's "put of stock" or that any more is "on the way", which they usually would.

I wonder if that fire sale was to get rid of the final stock.

I doubt it. Probably because of the pandemic they're not rushing to re-stock middlingly-popular titles like this one.

Kudos on the deal though!

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Gunsnroses092789

I doubt it. Probably because of the pandemic they're not rushing to re-stock middlingly-popular titles like this one.

Kudos on the deal though!

I just saw what it was when I read the item description more closely.

The first pressing has a booklet, which is exclusive.

Bizarre, usually Arrow titles I've bought that had first runs with exclusives were like The Apartment, which had a fancy case and hardback book, or Ronin and Twelve Monkeys, which had slipcovers.

I've never heard of calling a standard booklet an "exclusive" before.

With The Apartment they didn't do the second pressing for a full year, no idea how long it will be with this title.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I just saw what it was when I read the item description more closely.

The first pressing has a booklet, which is exclusive.

Bizarre, usually Arrow titles I've bought that had first runs with exclusives were like The Apartment, which had a fancy case and hardback book, or Ronin and Twelve Monkeys, which had slipcovers.

I've never heard of calling a standard booklet an "exclusive" before.

With The Apartment they didn't do the second pressing for a full year, no idea how long it will be with this title.

Originally, "The Apartment" was an limited edition release of 3,000 copies and the "second pressing" is the standard release without the slipbox and book.

Arrow has been doing "first pressing" booklets for years. Though, it's always random since I've gotten booklets for titles that have been available for years (sometimes through Arrow direct).

[James Luckard]

As for the film, it's absolutely brilliant. It's one of the most perfect comedies I've ever seen, I'm amazed it isn't more well known.

Granted this is off just one viewing, but I really think it's one of Wilder's top 10. I've been on a Wilder kick lately, trying to see all of his "minor" films, since I've seen the biggest ones, and it's certainly better than nasty-without-being-terribly-funny The Fortune Cookie, which I just watched, or the profoundly unfunny The Seven Year Itch, which I also just watched. I really think it's the equal of Sabrina, for example.

Wilder and Brackett's script is like a Swiss watch. The characters are all fantastic, the situations are perfectly constructed so hilarious obstacles just keep on building and building, yet always in organic and (more importantly) unexpected ways - setups that feel like they're building to cliches are cleverly inverted.

I really think it's one of my favorite 40s comedies now.

[Gunsnroses092789]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

As for the film, it's absolutely brilliant. It's one of the most perfect comedies I've ever seen, I'm amazed it isn't better known.

Granted this is off just one viewing, but I really think it's one of Wilder's top 10. I've been on a Wilder kick lately, trying to see all of his "minor" films, since I've seen the biggest ones, and it's certainly better than The Fortune Cookie, which I just watched, or the profoundly unfunny The Seven Year Itch, which I also just watched. I really think it's the equal of Sabrina, for example.

Wilder and Brackett's script is like a Swiss watch. The characters are all fantastic, the situations are perfectly constructed so hilarious obstacles just keep on building and building, yet always in organic and (more importantly) unexpected ways - setups that feel like they're building to cliches are cleverly inverted.

I really think it's one of my favorite 40s comedies now.

Yes, it is a great film. Is it one of his best films? Well, that's hard to say because he has so many great ones. Considering he did Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Sunset Blvd, Ace in the Hole, Witness for the Prosecution, The Lost Weekend Stalag 17, Some Like It Hot, Irma La Douce, A Foreign Affair, which are all great, etc...

Even though they were just written by him and not directed, I highly recommend Hold Back the Dawn (available via Arrow), Midnight (on DVD) - both directed by Mitchell Leisen; as well as Ninotchka by Lubitsch (on BD via WB) and finally, Ball of Fire by Hawks (on DVD).

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I've been on a Wilder kick lately, trying to see all of his "minor" films, since I've seen the biggest ones, and it's certainly better than nasty-without-being-terribly-funny The Fortune Cookie, which I just watched, or the profoundly unfunny The Seven Year Itch, which I also just watched.

If you thought "The Seven Year Itch" was profoundly unfunny, then you ain't see the mediocrity of "Irma la Douce". That one is a slouch to get through.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Gunsnroses092789

Yes, it is a great film. Is it one of his best films? Well, that's hard to say because he has so many great ones. Considering he did Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Sunset Blvd, Ace in the Hole, Witness for the Prosecution, The Lost Weekend Stalag 17, Some Like It Hot, Irma La Douce, A Foreign Affair, which are all great, etc...

Even though they were just written by him and not directed, I highly recommend Hold Back the Dawn (available via Arrow), Midnight (on DVD) - both directed by Mitchell Leisen; as well as Ninotchka by Lubitsch (on BD via WB) and finally, Ball of Fire by Hawks (on DVD).

I agree, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment are flawless masterpieces, among the greatest works of world cinema.

I'd put Sabrina close up there, and I adore Love in the Afternoon too. Witness is a beautifully realized Christie, probably tied with Lumet's Orient Express as the only two films truly worthy of her writing. I would put The Major and the Minor firmly in that second tier of brilliant works that aren't quite masterpieces.

I still need to see Ace in the Hole, The Lost Weekend and Stalag 17, I've heard they're all great.

I also intend to see the other films, like Irma La Douce, but frankly I've never heard anyone speak a word about it, or seen anything written about it, it doesn't seem to be one of his immortal classics.

I have to admit, I saw Some Like I Hot a few years back and just didn't get it at all. I never laughed once. I'll give it another try, but at the time it just wasn't for me. (ducks head to avoid projectiles)

I LOVE the Marlene Dietrich stuff in A Foreign Affair, I've watched it many times, her portions are up there with The Third Man for world-weary noir brilliance, but the film is kind of schizophrenic, and the comic portions don't work for me. I find Jean Arthur almost unwatchable in her role, and John Lund a non-entity in his. If the film had a less shrill female lead, and a more charismatic male lead, like Cary Grant, I might have enjoyed it more overall, but I still would have preferred it be a pure noir and lose all the Jean Arthur stuff entirely. I think there's a reason it's not a widely watched classic.

I also have a soft spot for One, Two, Three. It's a bit too zany, with no emotional grounding, but it's just so clever and witty.

I own and love Ninotchka, it's one of my favorite comedies:
Buljanoff : How are things in Moscow?
Ninotchka : Very Good. The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.
I bow before the brilliance of writing like that.

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

As for the film, it's absolutely brilliant. It's one of the most perfect comedies I've ever seen, I'm amazed it isn't more well known.

Granted this is off just one viewing, but I really think it's one of Wilder's top 10. I've been on a Wilder kick lately, trying to see all of his "minor" films, since I've seen the biggest ones, and it's certainly better than nasty-without-being-terribly-funny The Fortune Cookie, which I just watched, or the profoundly unfunny The Seven Year Itch, which I also just watched. I really think it's the equal of Sabrina, for example.

Wilder and Brackett's script is like a Swiss watch. The characters are all fantastic, the situations are perfectly constructed so hilarious obstacles just keep on building and building, yet always in organic and (more importantly) unexpected ways - setups that feel like they're building to cliches are cleverly inverted.

I really think it's one of my favorite 40s comedies now.

I love Wilder and have this film on saved searches list to see when/if I can score a good deal on it. Great to hear that you were impressed with it. I haven't seen it and look forward to the chance.

TSYI ranks pretty low on my list of Wilder films, too.

I'm curious, though.. what did you find "nasty" about The Fortune Cookie? I loved it.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

I'm curious, though.. what did you find "nasty" about The Fortune Cookie? I loved it.

I just found all the characters hateful. Matthau was brilliant, but just kind of one-dimensionally smarmy, nothing like the nuanced colorings he showed a couple of years before in my favorite film of all time, Charade.

Lemmon is a lovable loser, like in The Apartment, but his character is doing something so profoundly selfish that I just couldn't work up any sympathy. He's only doing it to get the wife back, but those stakes are never properly set up, so I didn't care, and then once we meet her, she's an absolutely foul character and the actress gives her zero humanity.

The only character I cared about at all was the football player caring for him, but his bits were all actually fairly serious, so it was a pretty bleak watch.

I've seen Wilder do dark and outrageously funny before, but this one was more just dour.

I still laughed out loud a few times, I'll admit, but the drop in narrative quality from The Apartment to this was staggering. In that film even the caddish boss played by Fred MacMurray feels interesting and human.

All this is not to say I can't enjoy a good dark social satire, I loved Michael Winterbottom's recent Greed, starring Steve Coogan, but that film recognized that it couldn't subsist on nothing but foul characters, so it had two I genuinely liked.

I like to say to friends that in scripts and films my test is "would I care if everyone in this got killed my a meteor." The Fortune Cookie didn't pass that test.

I should add that I don't mean I necessarily need to like the characters, they can be bad people, they just have to be so compelling, charismatic and complex that I'm interested in spending time with them.

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I have to admit, I saw Some Like I Hot a few years back and just didn't get it at all. I never laughed once. I'll give it another try, but at the time it just wasn't for me. (ducks head to avoid projectiles)

Interesting because I felt the exact same way after the first time I saw it, even going so far as to say something like, "men dressed like women is just not great comedy to me."

I watched it again a couple weeks ago and it is so much more than my initial impression. It's perfection, really. Everything works - the gangster scenes in Chicago, Tony Curtis doing the Cary Grant voice, Lemmon and his special suitor. and that last bit of dialogue between him and Lemmon... I don't think you can end a film on a comedic high note more sky high than that.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

I love Wilder and have this film on saved searches list to see when/if I can score a good deal on it.

I'm not sure which saved searches you have, but it was on 70% off at Amazon last week, when I got it, but the first pressing is now sold out, unfortunately.