FILM FRENZY

Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson in Dead Again (Photo: Kino & Paramount)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

BLUE SUNSHINE (1977). A year after making his feature-film debut with the killer-worms movie Squirm, writer-director Jeff Leiberman masterminded another out-there oddity that has since amassed cult status. Unique enough to overcome some limp acting, clunky dialogue, and an underwhelming denouement, this manages to stick it to both mainstream conformity and the anti-establishment movement. Future softcore director Zalman King delivers a bizarre and ineffective performance as Jerry Zipkin, who notices that a string of murders committed by normal people suddenly turning bald and homicidal might be the result of a strain of LSD taken by former Stanford students back in the ‘60s. Congressional hopeful Ed Flemming (Mark Goddard) might be the link, and it all ends with a rampage in a mall discotheque. Blue Sunshine is effective at establishing and maintaining an eerie aura of unease, and even if the tension fades significantly during the third act, the overall result is a unique endeavor aggressively staged by Lieberman. Lou Grant’s Robert Walden is good as a weary doctor who might eventually turn into a killer, and look for Blade Runner’s Leon, Brion James, as the party guest who squawks like Rodan.

Extras in the 4K Ultra HD edition include two audio commentaries by Lieberman; several interviews with Lieberman; two edits of Lieberman’s first film, the 1972 short The Ringer; two anti-drug “scare films,” 1967’s LSD-25 and 1968’s LSD: Insight or Insanity; and a still gallery.

Movie: ★★★

DEAD AGAIN (1991). Having successfully entered into Olivier’s domain with 1989’s Henry V, Kenneth Branagh followed his directorial debut by next venturing into Hitchcock territory. The delirious result was Dead Again, which found him making the most out of a jigsaw-puzzle script by Scott Frank. Leaping between the present (filmed in color) and the past (presented in black-and-white), this casts Branagh as Mike Church, a private eye whose latest case involves ascertaining the identity of an amnesiac he calls Grace (Emma Thompson, Branagh’s then-wife). Plagued by nightmares, Grace finally starts getting some answers with the assistance of an antique dealer and hypnotist (Derek Jacobi) — he steers her into the past, when, in 1948, composer Roman Strauss (also Branagh) is executed for the murder of his wife Margaret (also Thompson). How the two storylines tie together is at the center of what’s best described as a murder-mystery, a supernatural yarn, and a love story all rolled into one irresistible package. The film is overwrought in the best sense, from Patrick Doyle’s marvelous, Bernard Herrmann-inspired score to that wonderfully ridiculous climax. Leave it to Robin Williams, then, to be the one underplaying — he scores in the role of a disgraced psychiatrist, as do Andy Garcia as a boozy ‘40s newshound (Robert Mitchum would have been perfect casting in an earlier era), Wayne Knight as Mike’s jocular buddy, and Campbell Scott as Grace’s “fiancé.”

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition consist of audio commentary by Branagh; audio commentary by Frank and producer Lindsay Doran; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★½

FRED ASTAIRE: 4-FILM COLLECTION (1948-1968). The immortal dancing team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made 10 films together, and how infuriating is it that only one of them is available on Blu-ray, with a mere one more planned in the near future? (Criterion released 1936’s Swing Time on Blu in 2019, while the Warner Archive Collection will offer 1934’s The Gay Divorcee later this month; meanwhile, 1935’s Top Hat, the most celebrated of their films as well as my pick for cinema’s all-time best musical, is, like the other seven, still in limbo.) But while Astaire & Rogers are largely MIA from the format, Astaire w/o Rogers is well-represented. Here are four such musicals made with others.

Gene Kelly was supposed to headline Easter Parade (1948) with his frequent screen partner Judy Garland, but a sporting accident placed him out of commission, thereby leading him to implore his friend Fred Astaire to take the role. It was a fortuitous mishap in that it allowed two of our greatest stars their only opportunity to make movie magic together. Astaire plays Don Hewes, a (what else?) dancer who’s incensed when his partner Nadine (Ann Miller) leaves their act for a more lucrative contract. In true Pygmalion fashion, he’s convinced that he can pluck anybody out of a chorus line and make her a star replacement for Nadine; he nabs Hannah Brown (Garland), who’s slow to start but eventually blossoms into a top talent. Easter Parade earned Johnny Green and Roger Edens an Oscar for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, and small wonder: It’s packed with well over a dozen Irving Berlin tunes, performed with gusto by the stars. The most famous act finds Garland and Astaire dressed as bums for the stage number “A Couple of Swells,” but there’s also Miller knocking “Shakin’ the Blues Away” out of the park, the clever design of “The Girl on the Magazine Cover,” Astaire taking over a toy store for “Drum Crazy,” Garland and Astaire tackling the title tune, and — my favorite — Astaire showing off his incomparable tap-dancing prowess in the fabulously choreographed “Steppin’ Out With My Baby.”

The 1931 Broadway revue The Band Wagon was the basis for director Vincente Minnelli’s opulent MGM musical The Band Wagon (1953), for which the legendary writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Singin’ in the Rain, On the Town) built a plot around the stage show’s Howard Dietz-Arthur Schwartz songs and in the process made a film that’s amusingly self-reflexive. While not as perceptive — or hilarious — as 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain in its skewering of backstage shenanigans among artists, it offers plenty of astute observations as it centers on has-been movie star Tony Hunter (Astaire), who hopes his flagging fortunes will be salvaged by appearing in a lightweight Broadway musical written by his friends Lily and Lester Marton (Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant). But problems materialize when the Martons select as their director Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan), a self-important blowhard who changes the Martons’ frothy piece into a portentous reimagining of Faust. To further complicate matters, Cordova decides the leading lady should be ballet star Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse), whose classical training causes Tony to wonder whether their different styles will allow them to be compatible dancers. Buchanan steals the show as the pompous director, and key musical bits include the dreamy “Dancing in the Dark,” the amusing “Triplets,” and the classic “That’s Entertainment,” which was introduced in this film. This earned three Oscar nominations, including one for Best Story & Screenplay.

The 1939 comedy classic Ninotchka (with the famous tagline, “Garbo Laughs!”) led to a Broadway musical adaptation 16 years later; that stage hit was in turn followed by the musical screen version Silk Stockings (1957) a couple of years after that. The picture effectively marked Astaire’s retirement from dancing — it was his last significant on-screen hoofing, and he’s as sublime as ever. Yet it’s co-star Cyd Charisse who dominates the picture, effectively essaying the Greta Garbo role of a frosty Russian emissary who’s sent to Paris to retrieve three wayward comrades (Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin, and Joseph Buloff), only to find her Communist principles melting under the capitalist gaze of an American movie producer (Astaire). Charisse is captivating in one of her best roles, and there’s an amusing supporting turn by Janis Paige as a ditzy actress (basically a reworking of Jean Hagen’s Lina Lamont from Singin’ in the Rain). The Cole Porter score features approximately a dozen tunes, including the wildly entertaining “Stereophonic Sound,” a clever salute to the new technical wonders of cinema in the 1950s, and “The Ritz Roll and Rock,” a gentle dig at the burgeoning rock n’ roll scene.

Francis Ford Coppola made his directorial debut with the 1963 Roger Corman cheapie Dementia 13 and followed that with 1966’s low-budget Warner Bros. effort You’re a Big Boy Now. From these humble beginnings came the opportunity to helm the big-screen adaptation of a popular Broadway musical starring a Hollywood legend. Then as now, Finian’s Rainbow (1968) remains one of Coppola’s most debated pictures, with many finding it enchanting and others declaring it execrable. Based on a 1947 show that was daring at the time for its anti-racism stance, its emergence on film in 1968 revealed a project that at that point was arguably past its expiration date. Astaire plays Finian McLonergan, an Irishman who lands in America with his daughter Sharon (Petula Clark) and a pot of gold he had swiped from a leprechaun named Og (Tommy Steele). Finian and Sharon get caught up in the conflict between the locals and a racist senator (Keenan Wynn) who magically turns into a black man and is shown the error of his bigoted ways. Any possible offensiveness at seeing Wynn in blackface is negated by the story’s liberal humanism, but this is nevertheless an awkward morality tale further diminished by uninspired musical numbers and Steele’s obnoxious performance as Og — he recalls Mickey Rooney’s Puck in 1935’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and indeed, Rooney was picked for the part for a late-40s adaptation that never materialized. Astaire is awfully charming, though, and he even gets to sing and dance a little. This earned a pair of Oscar nominations for its sound and adapted score.

Blu-ray extras on Easter Parade include audio commentary by Ava Astaire McKenzie (Fred’s daughter) and John Fricke (author and authority on all things Judy Garland); a making-of retrospective; and the deleted musical number “Mr. Monotony.” Blu-ray extras on The Band Wagon include audio commentary by Vincente Minnelli’s (and Judy Garland’s) daughter Liza Minnelli and singer and film historian Michael Feinstein; a making-of retrospective; and the 1973 PBS TV special The Men Who Made the Movies: Vincente Minnelli. Blu-ray extras on Silk Stockings include a making-of retrospective; the 1934 short Paree, Paree, starring Bob Hope and featuring Cole Porter’s music; and the 1955 short Poet and Peasant Overture, featuring the MGM Symphony Orchestra. Blu-ray extras on Finian’s Rainbow include audio commentary by Coppola; an introduction by Coppola; and a vintage half-hour special on the picture’s world premiere in New York.

Easter Parade: ★★★½

The Band Wagon: ★★★

Silk Stockings: ★★★

Finian’s Rainbow: ★★

THE GHOST (1963). Playing some territories under the title The Spectre, this Italian production borrows the famous “gotcha!” of a classic French thriller from the 1950s. Alas, actually mentioning the moniker of that earlier picture would basically serve as a spoiler regarding this film’s plot twist, so let’s resist that temptation, shall we? Suffice to say, it isn’t even this plotline that’s the primary draw here, not when horror icon Barbara Steele is the star and when director Riccardo Freda is able to offer interesting visuals that help sustain the proper mood of Gothic ghoulishness. Set in 1910 Scotland, this finds Steele cast as Margaret, whose husband is the horrible Dr. Hichcock (Elio Jotta). The doctor is trapped in a wheelchair and slowly dying — too slowly, so Margaret implores Dr. Livingstone (Peter Baldwin), the attending physician and her lover, to murder him already. That he does, but a series of eerie incidents suggest that Dr. Hichcock might still be alive — the couples’ increasing paranoia leaves them wary of each other, a condition helped along by the mansion’s creepy housekeeper (Harriet Medin). Even if one guesses the twist (and it’s not hard), the final sequence, in which the principals get what’s coming to them, is devilishly satisfying.

Extras in the deluxe 4K + Blu-ray + CD edition include separate audio interviews with Steele and Medin; a video essay on Steele by author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (1000 Women in Horror, 1895-2018); an interview with author Roberto Curti (Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957-1969); and the 2019 documentary Executioners, Masks, Secrets: Italian Horror of the 1960s.

Movie: ★★★

LITTLE AMÉLIE OR THE CHARACTER OF RAIN (2025). A current Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Feature, this adaptation of Amelie Nothomb’s autobiographical novel The Character of Rain (Métaphysique des tubes) possesses a unique lyricism that’s proudly its own. Upon her birth, little Amélie, part of a Belgian family living in Japan, believes herself to be a god and is content existing in a vegetative state. It’s only when her doting grandmother gives her a bite of white chocolate that all her senses are awakened. (Yeah, I can definitely see white chocolate having that effect. But I digress.) She loves her parents, her grandmother, and her sister (her brother, not so much), but she holds a special place in her heart for Nishio-san, the young housekeeper who introduces her to many of the wonders of the world. While certain shots recall Studio Ghibli at its weirdest — check out the gasping, gobbling koi who all morph into her brother — and others resemble nothing so much as the flatness of cardboard cutouts, the animation style is different enough that it will distract and disappoint many while delighting many more. Nevertheless, it ultimately suits what can only be described as an animated exercise in existentialism, gently documenting the necessity of family solidarity and the invaluableness of personal experience in a manner that recalls Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma.

Blu-ray extras include an interview with directors Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han; a directors Q&A session at Animation Is Film Festival; scene breakdowns; and an art gallery.

Movie: ★★★

RETRIBUTION  (1987). One of those ultra-‘80s horror yarns that didn’t gain much traction away from the VHS copies in the local video store, Retribution proves to be a pleasant surprise. Failed artist George Miller (a rare leading role for character actor Dennis Lipscomb) attempts suicide by hurling himself off a building, but he survives the fall. However, this act has left him vulnerable to some sort of possession, one which forces him to murder select people by particularly grisly means. The plot by writer-director Guy Magar eventually comes into focus, but along the way the film displays some humanizing grace notes usually exempt from this sort of gory thriller. George Miller is a fully developed character, and he’s allowed time to build relationships with the other residents of his apartment building, with his psychiatrist (Leslie Wing), and with Angel (Suzanne Snyder), a young prostitute with whom he unexpectedly bonds. While many will feel these character beats slow down the film, they actually enhance it, providing emotional resonance to go along with Magar’s eye-catching visuals.

The 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition offers both the theatrical cut and an unrated version. Extras include audio commentary by Magar; an interview with co-writer Lee Wasserman; separate interviews with Wing, Snyder, composer Alan Howarth, special effects coordinator John Eggett, and production designer Robb Wilson King; a promotional trailer show reel; a poster gallery; and Magar’s student short film, Bingo.

Movie: ★★★

RICHARD PRYOR… HERE AND NOW (1983). The least of the three major Richard Pryor concert films, Here and Now still offers enough solid material to make it a good bet for fans of the greatest stand-up comedian of all time. The 1979 stone-cold classic Richard Pryor: Live in Concert grossed $32 million, while 1982’s almost-as-excellent Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip earned $36 million — those hauls made them the biggest moneymaking comedy concert films until 1987’s Eddie Murphy: Raw broke the record (and still retains it) with $50 million. Here and Now grossed $16 million — still an impressive gross for a concert film but well below its predecessors. That was probably due to viewer overexposure — it was released the year after Live on the Sunset Strip — and perhaps also due to Pryor himself serving as director (his only such credit along with 1986’s Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling) and not knowing the best way to shape this material. As one example, there’s far too much focus on the audience members, with pre-show testimonials on Pryor’s awesomeness as well as in-show heckling from dolts. Yet most of his actual monologue material remains strong. He reflects on his trips to Africa, discusses his post-drugs life, notes the usual imbalance between being white and being black in America (“They call [drug use] an epidemic now. That means white folks are doin’ it.”), and makes a couple of amusing cracks involving President Ronald Reagan (“Motherfucker looked at me like I owed him money”).

The 4K UHD edition contains no extras.

Movie: ★★★

SOMEWHERE IN TIME (1980). It was savaged by critics and performed poorly at the box office. Yet according to Andrew Lloyd Webber, love never dies, and apparently neither does Somewhere in Time. Not just loved but LOVED by its devotees, this film has been popular enough to still have its own fan club (see extras below). It’s easy to see its appeal, and just as easy to see its flaws. Adapted by Richard Matheson from his own novel Bid Time Return, it stars Christopher Reeve (in his first post-Superman role) as Richard Collier, a successful playwright who becomes obsessed with a photograph of Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), a celebrated actress from the early 1900s. After consulting with a former college professor (George Voskovec) who insisted he once time-travelled via the power of self-hypnosis, Richard likewise attempts such a journey and succeeds. He awakens in 1912 and immediately seeks out Elise — she’s receptive to his charms, but her manager (Christopher Plummer) is determined to keep them apart. Reeve and Seymour are a handsome couple (and became lovers in real life) and the particulars of Richard’s time-jumping difficulties are well-established and figure in the powerful climax. But director Jeannot Szwarc rarely provides this with the all-consuming passion the narrative requires, and Reeve and Seymour are good but not great, another sine qua non in a love story such as this.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by Szwarc; a retrospective making-of documentary; and a look at the fan club INSITE (International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts), which has existed for 36 years.

Movie: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

CINDERELLA MAN (2005). No filmmaker in his right mind would want his boxing picture released a scant few months after Million Dollar Baby cleaned up at the Oscars and at the box office, but Cinderella Man is so structurally and tonally different from Clint Eastwood’s masterwork that it might as well be about jai alai. Not that Cinderella Man would completely suffer from such a contrast: This one never touches greatness like Clint’s Baby (and its box office proved disappointing), but it’s a sturdy film on its own terms. It relates the real-life story of pugilist James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe), a once-successful boxer whose career took a nose dive about the same time as the stock market at the onset of the Great Depression. Considered past his prime and barely able to provide for his wife (Renee Zellweger) and kids, he finds himself on an unlikely comeback trail as a one-time gig inside the ring turns into a late-career flourishing. Crowe’s touching portrayal is instrumental in earning audience sympathy — and look for excellent support from Paul Giamatti in an Oscar-nominated turn as Braddock’s manager-friend — and director Ron Howard and scripter Akiva Goldsman take care to spend as much time detailing the ravages of the Depression as they do Braddock’s return to the ring. Cinderella Man may not break new ground, but in its ability to provide old-fashioned entertainment, the gloves come flying off.

Movie: ★★★

CITY LIGHTS (1931). City Lights was made several years after talkies had been introduced, but such was the power and popularity of Charlie Chaplin that he was able to risk releasing a silent movie in the sound era — and then sit back as the rave reviews and strong box office poured in. Considered in many circles to be Chaplin’s best movie — the American Film Institute’s 100 Films list places it much higher than either The Gold Rush or (my pick) Modern Times, and even Chaplin named it his favorite among his own works — this finds him once again playing the beloved character of the Little Tramp, here falling in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) and befriended by a millionaire (Harry Myers) who’s only jovial when he’s drop-dead drunk. No filmmaker has ever been as successful as Chaplin in tugging at our heartstrings while simultaneously leaving us helpless with laughter, and City Lights finds him operating at the peak of his abilities, even throwing his usual social critique into the mix. The film is one superb vignette after another — the unveiling of the statue, the millionaire’s attempted suicide, the mix-up between the hunk of cheese and the bar of soap, the shenanigans at the restaurant, and that amazingly orchestrated boxing match — and it all leads to a final few minutes of incredible power, truly one of cinema’s great fadeouts.

Movie: ★★★★

ELLERY QUEEN (1975-1976). Like Norman Lear (All in the Family, Sanford and Son) on the comedy side, Richard Levinson and William Link were identified with quality crime shows, serving as creators, producers, and/or writers on such classics as Columbo and Murder, She Wrote. Ellery Queen proved to be a rare flop for the team, lasting only one season and 23 episodes (including the pilot). That’s a shame, because this ranks as one of the top detective shows of the 1970s, with Jim Hutton (Timothy’s dad) a delight as the absent-minded mystery writer who solves the murders that his father, Inspector Richard Queen (David Wayne), is unable to figure out. Unlike Columbo, in which the identity of the killer was revealed right away, this series fills each episode with a who’s-who of suspects (actors include Ray Milland, Vincent Price, Ida Lupino, Larry Hagman, and Betty White) and offers clues throughout the hour so that viewers can have a shot at I.D.ing the murderer themselves — before the final scene, Ellery would in fact address the TV audience directly, asking them if they solved the mystery before he would reveal all. Hutton and Wayne make a wonderful team, and John Hillerman provides amusing antagonism in several episodes as Simon Brimmer, a radio-show detective who’s always outsmarted by Ellery.

Series: ★★★½

GARFIELD: THE MOVIE (2004). A movie featuring the star of one of the least inspired newspaper comic strips ever to line birdcages coast to coast? We’re talking about an uphill battle, and Garfield: The Movie doesn’t even make it past the footstool. As envisioned by creator Jim Davis, the cartoon Garfield is an ugly, unseemly beast, and that pretty much describes this starring vehicle as well. Small kids will get their parents’ money’s worth — they’ll squeal with delight at the slapstick mayhem perpetrated by the computer-generated cat — but the movie will feel like a slow crawl through broken glass for anyone old enough to have mastered the fine art of shoelace-tying. As in the comic, Garfield (voiced by Bill Murray) lives only to eat, sleep, and torment his owner Jon (Breckin Meyer), but his lazy existence as master of his own domain gets disrupted by the arrival of a friendly pup named Odie. (Inexplicably, Odie isn’t a CGI creation like Garfield but a real dog that looks nothing like his toon counterpart.) The plot shifts from idle into low gear after Odie gets kidnapped and a suddenly brave and conscientious (as if!) Garfield must come to the rescue. Is there anything positive to say about Garfield: The Movie? Sure. At least it’s not Family Circus: The Motion Picture. Trying to sit through a film version of that atrocious comic strip would exhaust all of my nine lives — and then some.

Movie: ★

SECRETARY (2003). Too many American movies continue to present sex as the most vanilla of human functions, suitable only for missionaries and their positions. But director Steven Shainberg’s Secretary recognizes that different people require different modes of expression, even ones that aren’t generally condoned by society at large. This adaptation (by Erin Cressida Wilson) of Mary Gaitskill’s short story centers on Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a young woman with low self-esteem who has spent most of her life practicing self-abuse (she has a nasty habit of cutting herself). She lands her first adult job as secretary to E. Edward Grey (James Spader), a twitchy disciplinarian who, remarkably, turns out to be just the person she needs in her life. Grey (not to be confused with Christian Grey from those terrible Fifty Shades flicks, all recently reviewed here) slowly introduces Lee to the world of S&M, and this in turn leads her to blossom as a person, shuck her self-destructive tendencies, and discover an outlet for all her pent-up emotions. An honest and nonjudgmental movie about the unorthodox ways that lonely people often connect in an increasingly disconnected world, Secretary works largely because of Gyllenhaal, who delivers a performance of breathtaking range.

Movie: ★★★

SLEUTH (1972) / SLEUTH (2007). Directed by the great Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve) in his cinematic farewell, 1972’s Sleuth is a delicious adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s stage hit (scripted by the playwright himself), with Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine trading verbal blows as, respectively, mystery writer Andrew Wyke and hairdresser Milo Tindle, the former peeved that the latter is having an affair with his wife. A critique on British class differences as well as a cinematic jigsaw puzzle, the credit for the movie’s success was shared equally by writer, director, stars, and, crucially, production designer Ken Adam, who turned the Wyke mansion into a funhouse maze of theatrical props and other eye-catching bric-a-brac. A modest box office hit, Sleuth earned four Academy Award nominations: Best Director, Best Original Score (John Addison), and Best Actor for both Olivier and Caine.

Working with writer Harold Pinter, director Kenneth Branagh opted to remake Sleuth, this time with Caine in Olivier’s old role and Jude Law in Caine’s former part. (Caine and Law also share celluloid DNA by having both played Alfie on screen, and this Sleuth even works in that film’s signature line, “What’s it all about?”). But this new version isn’t lean and mean as much as it’s choppy (50 minutes shorter than the original) and mean-spirited. It starts out intriguingly enough, with Pinter placing some notable zingers in both actors’ mouths, but once he begins veering away from Shaffer’s template, the movie turns disastrous. Not surprisingly, it was a box office flop, with the original earning three times more in 1972 dollars than this one did in 2007 dollars.

Whereas the ’72 Sleuth was informed by Adam’s elaborate set, so too does this edition takes its cue from Tim Harvey’s vision for the Wyke home, which is all sparse, sleek surfaces usually bathed in metallic colors. It’s gorgeous to behold but also cold to the core, and a similar chill punctuates every moment of this poorly realized remake. None of the plot twists enhance the story, and whereas Milo and (to a lesser degree) Andrew were sympathetic in the original, here we find Andrew barely tolerable and Milo outright odious. Pinter and Branagh taint the material even more by introducing a homosexual spin to the piece; it adds nothing to the storyline but instead seems like a dare on the part of the filmmakers to see what they could pile onto this once sturdy story. But Sleuth is no longer a fun whodunnit; it’s been transformed into a baffling whatthehellweretheythinking?

Sleuth (1972): ★★★½

Sleuth (2007): ★½