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Released by: Twilight Time Releasing
Released on: July, 2015.
Director: George Hill
Cast: Peter Sellers, Tom Bosley, Angela Lansbury, Tippy Walker, Merrie Spaeth, Paula Prentiss
Year: 1965
Purchase from Screen Archives
The Movie:
Directed by George Roy Hill, probably best known for Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and The Sting, 1964's The World Of Henry Orient tells the amusing story of two fourteen year old girls - Val (Tippy Walker) and Gil (Merrie Spaeth). Like a lot of girls their age, they obsess over things and here the target of said obsession is an egotistical womanizing concert pianist named Henry Orient (Peter Sellers).
One fine day, the girls decide to chase the object of their affections across New York City and as they do, they wind up foiling his liaisons with various grown women, some married and some not, in the process. It's going quite splendidly for the girls until Val's mother, Isabel (Angela Lansbury), finds out what is happening and sets out to stop it.
This is a product of its time to be sure - it's unlikely you'd see a movie about two young teenage girls pursuing a grown man through Manhattan these days, at least not made the same way that this one was made - but that's not a bad thing at all. There's an innocence here that's more than a little bit charming and that innocence goes a long way towards making this as enjoyable as it is. At the same time, the movie is not short on innuendo, but it never feels crass, dirty or unwholesome. At its core, the film is one that deals with the issues that plague everyone, male or female, as they 'evolve' from childhood into adolescence, trying to come to terms with all of those changes that take place around this time in human development and the complications that most certainly accompany them. Given that, it's an easy film to relate to even if you weren't personally coming of age (or born, for that matter) in the mid-sixties.
The movie is shot well. It's a colorful and crisp looking film that serves as a nice showcase of the upper class side of Manhattan. Don't expect gritty Times Square locations of bombed out Bronx tenements, it's not that type of movie. Rather we get a look at the more high society part that's always been a large component of the city's lifeblood (more so now than ever, sadly). This leads itself to a very handsome looking film. The various interior and exterior locations shot off some swanky architecture, beautifully colorful wardrobe and furnishings and just some really nice looking 'stuff' throughout the film. The fact that Elmer Bernstein contributes a jaunty (yes, I said jaunty) score to the picture doesn't hurt things either. In fact it fits perfectly.
This is, however, a movie that's made by the performances. As glossy as the camera work is and as great as the locations, the score and the colors all are it wouldn't have worked had the film not been cast properly. Young actresses Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth do excellent work here. Child actors, or teenage actors for that matter, can often sink a picture but not here. They're fun, they're believable enough (if you remember that this is fiction and not necessarily concerned with depicting reality as we know it) to really work in their respective roles and you like them enough that you want to see how their plight plays out. Throw in some great supporting roles from Angela Lansbury and Tom Bosley as some parental figures and that just adds to the fun but of course, the main draw here is Peter Sellers. This film doesn't see him going as full on insane as he did in some of his better known pictures and here we're instead given a more restrained effort from the man but it's an excellent turn. The amount of actors out there who can combine physical comedy with such perfect comedic timing and such chameleon-esque character transformations are few and far between. This picture gives him the opportunity to show off his comedic skills as well as some of his more traditionally dramatic abilities and it's all the better for it.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The World Of Henry Orient gets a very nice AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.35.1 widescreen that leaves little room for complain. Aside from a couple of shots that look to have been filmed with some softness in mind, this is a picture with very strong detail and depth. Texture is also quite solid here and color reproduction is nice and natural looking. Black levels are good, the image is clean and free of all but the most minor instances of print damage and there are no obvious issues with any noise reduction or edge enhancement. The movie looks excellent here.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language 1.0 DTS-HD Master Audio track with optional English closed captioning provided. The lossless audio on the disc does a very fine job of relaying the subtleties of the score at key points during the film. As this is a movie light on action or really hyper-active set pieces and is instead more dialogue based the single channel mix handles everything without any issues, so it's doubtful a surround remix would have offered much more. Levels are properly balanced and there are no problems with any hiss or distortion.
The extras on the disc are highlighted by a commentary track from Film Historians Jeff Bond, Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman. As is typical of the historical tracks that Twilight Time have been including on their releases over the last year or so, this is a well put together discussion that does a very good job of exploring the origin of the picture under discussion. There is, not surprisingly, quite a bit of talk about Sellers' work here but we also get some interesting discussion as to the effectiveness of the film's use of music and some interesting facts and trivia about the cast and crew.
Aside from that we get an isolated score track that reproduces Elmer Bernstein's work on the film in losses DTS-HD, the original theatrical trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection. Additionally, a color insert booklet contains some nice archival images as well as some informative liner notes from Julie Kirgo that offer some interesting analysis and background information on the picture.
The Final Word:
The World Of Henry Orient will obviously appeal to Peter Sellers fans more than anyone else but don't let this one pass you by - it's warmer and less over the top than the comedies that Sellers is best remembered for but it's not less an enjoyable picture. The film has a warmth to it that's rather infectious and for lack of a better cliché to use here, it is a very charming picture. Twilight Time's Blu-ray debut provides an interesting commentary to compliment the excellent audio and video presentation. Great stuff!
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
