By Steven Suskin
15 Aug 2011

	Four Weddings and a Funeral

If it's a breezy, unconventional and sharp comedy that you want, here comes Four Weddings and a Funeral [MGM/Fox] on Blu-ray. This is the 1994 British comedy that introduced Hugh Grant to audiences at large. (Merchant-Ivory fans had already been impressed by Grant's performances in "Maurice" and "Remains of the Day.") Grant, as one of several friends who we follow through four jolly weddings and a sad but emotionally uplifting funeral, is only one of the pleasures of this adult comedy from director Mike Newell.

Andie MacDowell is paired with Grant as the American who he keeps bumping into — and more — at weddings. You immediately know, of course, what'll happen with this pair despite obstacles strewn in their path. Kristen Scott Thomas, Charlotte Coleman, Simon Callow and John Hannah stand out among the cast. The surprise of this surprisingly good film, though, is Rowan Atkinson providing unexpected belly laughs as a novice priest.

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	Honeymoon in Vegas

Also debuting on Blu-ray is the less highbrow but thoroughly engaging Honeymoon in Vegas [MGM/Fox]. This from director/writer Andrew Bergman, an author of such items as "Blazing Saddles," "Soapdish," and the remarkably good "The In-Laws." (The original being remarkably good, not the remake! And if you've never seen the 1979 version, starring Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, do so immediately.)

"Honeymoon in Vegas" is the 1992 comedy in which Nicolas Cage and fiancee Sarah Jessica Parker go to Vegas for their honeymoon. Millionaire James Caan, taking a fancy to Parker, takes Cage in a fixed card game; Cage's only way out is to give Parker to Caan for the weekend. (No sex, please; they're American, not European.) Cage and Parker are so likable, and Caan is so smooth, that the whole thing turns into a lark. Hilarity is compounded by a plane full of flying Elvises, with whom Cage is forced to skydive his way back to the casino. (The film is being turned into a stage musical by Jason Robert Brown, by the way.)

Scattered it might sound, but the whole thing is good-natured and very funny. Plus Anne Bancroft in the small role of Cage's mother.

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	The Hucksters.

And on the rare-films-finally-appearing-on-DVDs-by-demand list comes The Hucksters [Warner Archive]. This is a 1947 item about the advertising game, and it is quite good. Think "Mad Men," but years earlier. (The action takes place 15 years earlier, and the sensibility is post-World War II.) Clark Gable is an ad man from the Midwest, just back from wartime service and determined to scale the heights. He meets up with British war widow Deborah Kerr, and they make music together. But he is bothered and perturbed by the lack of integrity on Madison Avenue (although the locations are actually on Park Avenue), leading to a crisis.

Eight years after "Gone with the Wind," Gable does Gable; but he does so very well, in his second film after returning from wartime service. The "Hucksters" ads featured the blurb, "GABLE's new star is DEBORAH KERR (rhymes with star)." Which does tell us all we need to know. The 26-year-old Kerr had been around since 1941, but this was her first major American film. (She presumably got the part by virtue of her starring role in the 1946 thriller "I See a Dark Stranger" — and there's a film that we'd like to see reissued on DVD.) Gable and Kerr make a good couple, grappling with romance and matters ethical.

The supporting cast is stocked with actors we like to watch, led by Sydney Greenstreet (as a memorably detestable mogul), Adolphe Menjou, and a most interesting Edward Arnold. All these plus notable contributions from Ava Gardner and Keenan Wynn.

"The Hucksters" was directed by Jack Conway, an old-timer with more than 100 films to his credit (starting back in the silent days of 1912). The especially good screenplay is credited to Luther Davis, who would try his hand at Broadway in 1953 with Kismet; the adaptation comes from George Wells and accomplished playwright Edward Chodorov. (When Jerome Robbins was hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953, Chodorov was one of the names he named.) Whoever wrote the dialogue — and I suspect much of it came from Chodorov — had an incisive flair.

Gable, Kerr and the others contribute to a provocative two hours of huckstering.

(Steven Suskin is author of the recently released Updated and Expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble" and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He also pens Playbill.com's Book Shelf and On the Record columns. He can be reached at ssuskin@aol.com.)

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