A Fish Called Wanda (Special Edition) - DVD Review

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Review

Plot Outline

John Cleese as English Barrister Archie gets caught up in a London diamond robbery, where there's little honour amongst thieves Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis), the psychopathic Nietzsche quoting Otto (Kevin Kline in an Oscar winning performance) and Michael Palin as the stuttering animal lover Ken. A fast paced tale of immense wit, twists and turns, and dark comedy.



Review

I bought the original release last October, but when I heard there was to be a special edition I sold it on ebay as fast as I could. The previous version had only the trailer, an eight page booklet, non-anamorphic widescreen, and a mono soundtrack!

If you are overly sensitive then be warned that a number of laughs involve the demise of various dogs and fish, although the violence is cartoon-like rather than realistic. John Cleese reveals that a lot of thought went into toning it down to retain the comedy, and notes that no one ever worries that Ken is trying to kill the old lady at the time!

All the extras are on the second disk, which means there's plenty of room for the film on disk one without a layer change. The animated menus are imaginative, and the chapter selections have clips rather than still images. The packaging is nice, with a cardboard sleeve around a Keep Case, where the cast faces from the cover are revealed through 'air bubble' holes.

This is just a great film that shows how English humour can be enjoyed worldwide, no doubt helped by the appreciation that John Cleese has of English and American culture.



Video

Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic transfer. Slightly muted colours and soft in places, but from memory of the earlier version and the theatrical release these are faithful to the original. A good quality master has been used and I saw no scratches or damage. The transfer is excellent with no evidence of video artifacts.

Audio

Although the extra speakers on the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack do lift the music and help the occasional sound effects, this is essentially a dialog driven film and you might as well leave the subwoofer turned off for all the use that is made of it.

Extras

As with most disks, there is a fair amount of repetition, mostly about the background of the cast and director, but sometimes about locations and background to the filming.

'John Cleese's First Farewell Performance' is a documentary made at the time of filming, so is the one that contains the most 'behind the scenes' footage. It also features an interview with John Cleese in which his background, thoughts on comedy, and English life are quite candidly explored. At 48 mins it's quite a generous length for an extra.

'Something Fishy' is the modern retrospective in which cast members get to reminisce. However, it also contains a surprising amount of outtakes and deleted scenes, considering that there is a specific extra to cover this aspect. This extra runs approx 30 mins.

There is a shorter 'On location' documentary made for Carlton Cinema which adds little. It is presented by Robert Powell, who tries valiantly tries to make traipsing round the London locations exciting, but patently wishes he was somewhere more exotic.

The Easter eggs are an outtake from Jamie Lee Curtis's interview for 'Something Fishy' and yet two more deleted / alternate scenes.

The Trivia feature pops up quotes from Nietzsche, some repetition of facts again, but some unique stuff as well. It's worth watching just the once, but I noticed that having it turned on suppresses the 'what happened to...' text that appears just before the end credits. Looks like they weren't on the print that was used, and were added by use of a different subtitles track to the trivia feature.

John Cleese's commentary is mainly enlightening, but not always relevant to the screen action. It also contains long pauses which helps to see something the narrator has just mentioned, but is seldom the case here. It's OK, but don't worry if you never get round to hearing it.



Overall

A worthy addition to anyone's collection, and a shining example of what can be done with a good mix of comedic talents, enough time spent in development and rehearsal, and the sterling support of a truck load of British supporting talent, both in front of and behind the camera. Nice to see it finally getting a quality DVD release.

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About Richard Baylis

Richard was born in Chesterfield in November 1957, which makes him 45 at the time of writing. Since then he has lived in Kent, Sussex, and Gwent. He now lives in Chelmsford, Essex with his wife and two children who largely tolerate his passion for DVD and Home Cinema, and the time he spends studying or browsing the web. The fact that he is still madly in love with his wife is probably a sign of a biological imbalance or illness from which he does not want to be cured, thank you very much. A fan of DVD since buying his first player and disk back in February 2000, his only regret is the inevitable limit that family finances put on acquiring DVDs. Otherwise the living room would be full of them. Actually, then he'd have another regret - that he doesn't have time to watch them all, so perhaps it's just as well. With some films crossing multiple genre boundaries, he finds it difficult to easily categorise what films he does like. So he finds it easier to say he's not a fan of very violent movies, gross-out comedies, and any film that insults the audience's intelligence with bad plotting and characters. Otherwise, turn down the lights, bring on the popcorn, and let's go.