Hanky Panky

A crazy comedy? Oh that’s right, Gene Wilder is in it - Ronald McDonald on speed. That says it all. Anyone who thinks Gene Wilder is sexy has some serious issues. Mind you, Wilder can still get some laughs with his brutal presence on screen and his strangely unique method of delivering comedy. Rather than delivering lines gently to the audience, he stands and screams at the camera with his spaced-out face, Ronald McDonald afro, and kooky appearance. Willy Wonka really was Gene Wilder in a nutshell...

Real life wife of Wilder, Gilda Radner (who sadly recently passed away), co-stars opposite her husband and the pair get up to some hanky panky of their own. The cast of characters has more backstabbing and double crossing than an entire series of Melrose Place, Dawson’s Creek and Jerry Springer combined. Now that’s a lot of backstabbing! The pacing of this film is beyond a joke and there are only two words left to say: “Editing Room�. C’mon folks, it’s not that hard. “Editing Room� and then “Deleted Scenes�. Sometimes long-winded scenes build an atmospheric tension, but these end up boring the living shite out of you. The pacing is so slow and really distracts from the story of the film, making it harder to follow just who is who. Even after watching bits of it again while writing this review, it still doesn’t make sense. It’s about as clear as a window on a car with dirty words fingered in it. Now, speaking of dirty words, this film is rated PG. After a few “F� words it usually goes up to an M15+ rating. Then why, oh, why is this film still PG, because this has more than a few “eff� words?

The film opens at a farmhouse set in 1981, where we see a man wander through the property into the barn and then hang himself. We then meet Michael Jordan (no, not the basketball player), played by Gene Wilder, who is an architect in New York on a business trip from Chicago. He fights with a woman to get a cab, and they decide to share. This woman, Janet Dunn (played by Kathleen Quinlan), is more than she appears when she brutally and clearly dismisses Jordan’s advances on her. As it transpires, she is a secret agent carrying a magnetic computer tape which Jordan posts along the way to Janet's hotel. Anyway, Jordan finds her hotel room and follows her there to try his luck again, but she then comes out of her room, blood dribbling from her mouth and dies on the hotel passage floor. Neighbours curiously stick their heads out of their rooms only to see Jordan over her body, holding the gun that she dropped and, well, assumptions are made. After fleeing the scene, and being caught on camera doing so, the government want him dead, and the people that killed Janet Dunn want him dead because he knows too much. Everyone wants him dead. Then along comes Kate, played by Radner, a journalist who is trying to make a big break in the journalism world. She tags along with Jordan – the man everyone wants dead, but who is, of course, innocent.

Here the film branches into two genres, comedy and thriller. The thriller side continues with this chase of doublecrosses, and the comedy side with the romance between Kate and Michael. Needless to say, the passage of events brings them to the Grand Canyon for the funniest airplane ride since Flying High and the grand finale.

The video is presented in its original widescreen aspect of 1.85:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. For a 1982 film, it looks simply superb on screen. Remastered like a true classic should be - but here is the question – if a 1982 film can look superb on DVD, why then can a 2002 film look terrible? Just follow Columbia Tristar’s move and release every title on DVD with the same base standard which is still brilliant.

Colours are bright and vibrant, and look terribly '80s, as do the fashions. However, the picture does appear to be coated with a fine yellow wash throughout the entire duration of the film. Blacks are reasonably solid and fairly black, but are not as bold as they could have been. Shadow detail is adequate, but could have been improved slightly given the genre of film.

Film artefacts would be the largest problem, and even these are barely worth considering seeing as they are hardly noticeable. Those that are occur during the finale when a helicopter is blowing sand around and some physical damage to the stock may have occurred. The remainder of the film is remarkably clean – a real example of how good an older film can look given a little tender loving care.

But the audio... The video is a great example of video restoration, but the audio needs a hell of a lot of work. The five audio tracks included are all encoded using the Dolby Digital algorithm, and are all mono tracks. Five languages have been included on the disc, with English being the prime option along with French, German, Italian and Spanish.

The audio sounds very tinny and magnetic, and is at times painful to listen to. Dialogue is clear for most of the film, but during one of Wilder’s many hissyfits of so-called humour, it does distort. The clarity of the track is quite high, but this is just let down by the poor dialogue. The music sounds great too, if you’re into that funky-’70s-ho-down-Mod Squad-freaky-phat style of music.

The only extra feature on this disc is a movie trailer for the film, which does a strange job at telling the story. It aims the film at more of a romantic comedy audience, when in fact the film is closer to a thriller. This trailer runs for just over a minute, and features Dolby Digital mono audio.

Hanky Panky is a reasonable film, it's just let down by the issue of pacing. The video is remarkable for a 1982 film, especially compared to more recent releases with poorer transfers, yet the audio is not as nice as it could have been. The addition of a trailer is plenty for a 20 year old film, and is probably all that remains in the area of promotional materials. For a Wilder or Radner fan, this is a great presentation of the film, while for others it is worth a hire for a Saturday night of bizarre hanky panky.