ONE,
TWO, THREE ($20) is co-writer/director Billy Wilder’s frenetic comic
masterwork about a savvy Coca-Cola executive assigned to the company
office in West Berlin. Hollywood legend James Cagney has a field day in
the role C.R. MacNamara, who knows how to play hardball with the
communists and an entirely different game with his beautiful secretary,
especially with his wife and kids are scheduled to take an extended
holiday in Italy. Unfortunately for MacNamara, his private vacation with
his secretary goes out the window when his boss from the home office in
Atlanta saddles him with babysitting his teenage daughter, who will be
visiting in West Germany.
As
it turns out, southern belle Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin) is
something of a wild child, with MacNamara managing to keep her out of
trouble during her extended two-month visit- or so he thinks. Just as his
boss announces that he is coming to Germany to pick up his daughter,
MacNamara discovers that Scarlett has been sneaking out every night into
East Berlin. To make matters even worse, it turns out that Scarlett has
married one Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz), a boy she met in the East,
who turns out to be a card-carrying member of the communist party. What
follows are MacNamara’s rapid fire machinations to not only hold on to
his job, but to secure a promotion by turning the idealistic young
communist into the perfect capitalist son-in-law—all in less than twenty
four hours. The cast of ONE, TWO, THREE also features Arlene
Francis, Howard St. John, Hanns Lothar, Leon Askin, Ralf Wolter Karl
Lieffen and Lilo Pulver.
MGM
Home Entertainment has made ONE, TWO, THREE available on DVD in a
2.35:1 wide screen presentation that has been enhanced for playback on
16:9 displays. This is a really nice black and white transfer that has
been taken from a good quality film element. There are few blemishes or
other signs of age to remind one that this movie is more than four decades
old, but nothing worth complaining about. A grain structure is noticeable
somewhat noticeable at various times throughout the course of the film,
but is never excessive. The image itself is rather crisp and well defined,
with only a few shots that come across as a bit soft looking. Blacks are
nice and inky, while the whites appear crisp and clean. Grayscale is
generally very good, with the picture producing quite a bit of nuance.
Digital compression artifacts are usually very well camouflaged.
ONE,
TWO, THREE features a fairly solid Dolby Digital monaural soundtrack.
For the most part, the track is clean sounding without any serious
evidence of background hiss or surface noise. Fidelity has some age
related limitations, but the film’s musical content, which prominently
features Aram Khachaturian’s The Sabre Dance, sounds
perfectly fine when a bit of amplification is applied. Dialogue is crisply
rendered and is always perfectly intelligible, that is, as long as the
characters are speaking English. French and Spanish monaural soundtracks
are also provided on the DVD, along with English, Spanish and French
subtitles. The basic interactive menus allow one access to the standard
scene selection and set up features, as well as a theatrical trailer.
ONE,
TWO, THREE is a genuine comic delight and one of Billy Wilder’s
funniest films. MGM has done a good job with the DVD, offering a good
looking and fine sounding presentation. If you are a Wilder or Cagney fan,
or a just a comedy buff in general, then you should definitely pick up a
copy of ONE, TWO, THREE on DVD.
ONE,
TWO, THREE ($20) is co-writer/director Billy Wilder’s frenetic comic
masterwork about a savvy Coca-Cola executive assigned to the company
office in West Berlin. Hollywood legend James Cagney has a field day in
the role C.R. MacNamara, who knows how to play hardball with the
communists and an entirely different game with his beautiful secretary,
especially with his wife and kids are scheduled to take an extended
holiday in Italy. Unfortunately for MacNamara, his private vacation with
his secretary goes out the window when his boss from the home office in
Atlanta saddles him with babysitting his teenage daughter, who will be
visiting in West Germany.
As
it turns out, southern belle Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin) is
something of a wild child, with MacNamara managing to keep her out of
trouble during her extended two-month visit- or so he thinks. Just as his
boss announces that he is coming to Germany to pick up his daughter,
MacNamara discovers that Scarlett has been sneaking out every night into
East Berlin. To make matters even worse, it turns out that Scarlett has
married one Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz), a boy she met in the East,
who turns out to be a card-carrying member of the communist party. What
follows are MacNamara’s rapid fire machinations to not only hold on to
his job, but to secure a promotion by turning the idealistic young
communist into the perfect capitalist son-in-law—all in less than twenty
four hours. The cast of ONE, TWO, THREE also features Arlene
Francis, Howard St. John, Hanns Lothar, Leon Askin, Ralf Wolter Karl
Lieffen and Lilo Pulver.
MGM
Home Entertainment has made ONE, TWO, THREE available on DVD in a
2.35:1 wide screen presentation that has been enhanced for playback on
16:9 displays. This is a really nice black and white transfer that has
been taken from a good quality film element. There are few blemishes or
other signs of age to remind one that this movie is more than four decades
old, but nothing worth complaining about. A grain structure is noticeable
somewhat noticeable at various times throughout the course of the film,
but is never excessive. The image itself is rather crisp and well defined,
with only a few shots that come across as a bit soft looking. Blacks are
nice and inky, while the whites appear crisp and clean. Grayscale is
generally very good, with the picture producing quite a bit of nuance.
Digital compression artifacts are usually very well camouflaged.
ONE,
TWO, THREE features a fairly solid Dolby Digital monaural soundtrack.
For the most part, the track is clean sounding without any serious
evidence of background hiss or surface noise. Fidelity has some age
related limitations, but the film’s musical content, which prominently
features Aram Khachaturian’s The Sabre Dance, sounds
perfectly fine when a bit of amplification is applied. Dialogue is crisply
rendered and is always perfectly intelligible, that is, as long as the
characters are speaking English. French and Spanish monaural soundtracks
are also provided on the DVD, along with English, Spanish and French
subtitles. The basic interactive menus allow one access to the standard
scene selection and set up features, as well as a theatrical trailer.
ONE,
TWO, THREE is a genuine comic delight and one of Billy Wilder’s
funniest films. MGM has done a good job with the DVD, offering a good
looking and fine sounding presentation. If you are a Wilder or Cagney fan,
or a just a comedy buff in general, then you should definitely pick up a
copy of ONE, TWO, THREE on DVD.
