Abrahams & the Zuckers Week, Day 5: The Naked Gun Trilogy

After Top Secret!, our trio tried their had at a more conventional comedy, as opposed to their zany parodies they're known for, with 1986's Ruthless People.  It's charming with a great cast, but it feels a bit dated and you can tell they weren't playing to their strengths.  Apparently, so could they, because in 1988, they came home.  And so we conclude our little history of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker with their final triumph, 1988's The Naked Gun.  But I'm not just going to cover that film today; I'm gonna do the whole trilogy.  As you'll see, some critical changes took place between these films, both in how they've been issued on disc, and more so in terms of the films and their creators themselves.  This is where the story really begins to change, and in some senses at least, comes to a sad end.
The full title of the first film is actually The Naked Gun: From the Files Of Police Squad, because yes, this is a follow-up to their short-lived 1982 television show Police Squad!  A strange thing to make a big budget feature film based on a series that had been cancelled after just four episodes six years ago (though it should give heart to devotees who keep a candle burning for We Are Men).  And it is a bigger budget version, more locations, stunts, bigger set pieces.  Sometimes it works in their favor, allowing them to execute ideas they may've had to shelve at ABC.  But other times it feels like they're just showing off, and it might be throwing them a bit off the mark.  An ideal example is the very opening, the pre-credits sequence, which starts out in Beirut, and has Leslie Nielson, back as Lt. Frank Drebin, infiltrate a meeting of enemy world leaders, including Idi Amin, Gorbachev and Khadafi, and beating them all up before jumping out of a window.  On its own, it's a harmless wink at the audience to sort of say "we're off the leash now;" but it feels way outside of The Naked Gun's beat and ultimately, every time go far off in other directions, they seem to wind up further away from the funniest material they've really got a bead on.
Being "from the files of Police Squad," doesn't just mean Drebin is back, however.  It means a lot of the same material is back.  You can understand why they felt it was a well to freely dip into at first... a third of the Police Squads didn't even initially make it to air, and none of them got good ratings.  So these were quality jokes that didn't have a chance to play before a proper audience, right?  But as the series has gone on to such a successful life on home video, and you can now just as easily watch Police Squad on DVD or blu as The Naked Gun, it starts to feel more like cheap rehashing.  The third Naked Gun even cheekily owned up to it, giving the film the tagline "mostly all new jokes."  Still, the pacing and humor of the film is on fire, and at the end of the day, The Naked Gun is still plays excellently no matter how well you've committed Police Squad to memory.  The principle that if you keep the jokes coming fast enough, it doesn't matter if some fall flat really does hold true, and some of the recurring material works as a running gag, or at least triggers nostalgic memories, like a favorite cast member coming back for another bow.
And Drebin isn't the only cast member returning.  Fellow Police Squad members Ed Williams and Tiny Ron as Al are back; and while it's a damn shame to lose Alan North and Peter Lupus, George Kennedy and OJ Simpson turn out to be their ideal replacements.  Ricardo Montalban had a cameo in the original series to return now as a classic villain, and Priscilla Presley joins the family for the entire trilogy.  Despite any issues, this is still a ripping success that will have you laughing just as hard if you were a Police Squad! lover eager for its big time comeback on the silver screen or an innocent newcomer fresh off the streets.
It was a big hit theatrically, and even bigger on television and home video, which ultimately lead to The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear raking in even more at the box office than the first, despite not actually being as good.  The sequels are still pretty darn good though, mind you, with a terrific cast and premise locked into place and plenty more Police Squad! jokes to mine.  You've got some great new villains including Robert Goulet, Fred Ward and The Willies' Kathleen Freeman.  I've always had it in my head that there was a steady decline with the films, but actually rewatching them all this latest time back to back, I think the second one dips the most, and the third one perks back up a bit.  The plot's just as silly and continues to stray off the original Police Squad! mark with parodies and subplots that don't feel as carefully thought through or tied to the original aesthetic.  Presley is given an extended Thelma & Louise saga that spins it wheels until they finally give up on it.  But it just feels like it has more clever jokes at a consistent rate, with some inspired material when Nielsen goes undercover in prison, and plenty of film/ Academy Awards bits where the trio was probably able to draw from their own experience in the industry.  Or, a third of the trio anyway.
Because when I said this where the story begins to change?  Yeah, something happened mid-trilogy, specifically between parts 1 and 2 1/2: the band broke up!  Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker are gone in the 90s, off to pursue their own projects (Jerry finding particular success with 1990's Ghost); and David Zucker is the sole director, sharing writing credit with Police Squad! co-writer Pat Proft.  And for 33 1/3, newcomer Peter Segal is directing, with Zucker and Proft now sharing writing credit with Robert LoCash, who started out as an associate producer on 2 1/2.  You already begin to feel the magic of the trio's earlier masterworks isn't in its perfectly full force here, but it really smacks you in the face if you deign to slog through these guys' future parodies.
The quality really declines after the Naked Gun films, eventually sinking into the state of Epic Movie, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie muck as we know it today.  Though if you're going to wade into them, I'd recommend Hot Shots! (Jim Abrahams film with Police Squad! co-writer Pat Proft) and Wrongly Accused (Pat Proft's solo effort, as both writer and director) as the best of them, and no coincidentally two of the earliest ones.  Because Jerry got out of it, but Jim and especially have David kept their hand in these things all along.  David Zucker wrote and directed the terrible Michael Moore parody/ right wing polemic An American Carol with Bill O'Reilly and, sadly, Leslie Nielson in one of his final roles, then wrote and produced BASEketball in the mid-2000s.  And they've strongly staked their claim in the Scary Movie franchise after it was taken from The Wayans Brothers.  You know, I could still find a sporadic laugh or two in Scary Movie 3, but by the time they got to 5?  I've actually been revisiting all their later era movies, just because I'm fascinated how they could've gone so wrong.
Of course, there's the influx of other writers.  Abrahams brought on two new guys for Mafia!  Zucker and longtime collaborator Robert Weiss only produced Superhero Movie.  And Aaron Seitzer and Jason Friedberg, who made their debut with Spy Hard, which starred and was produced by Leslie Nielson in the 90s, joined forces with Zucker, Proft and Abrahams on the Scary Movie franchise.  But ultimately they took the ball and ran with it on all those Date Movie, Meet the Spartans, Starving Games movies on their own.  You've gotta make sure you're pointing the right fingers in the right directions.

Also, in one of their commentaries, the trio talk about how, on their later films, they steered away from verbal humor in favor of visual gags, because they translated better in foreign markets... but which also probably had an effect in dumbing down these movies.  And I've been found a few refreshingly forthcoming interviews with David Zucker, where he's fully aware and open about the genre's decline.  In one with Yahoo, he says, "It becomes watered down. I produced Scary Movie 5, [and] that was so watered-down that [it] contributed to ruining the genre, as did all the Friedberg and Seltzer movies. [Parody] has come on hard times."  And this one with MTV clearly nails a major factor I hadn't ever considered: they're no longer in control of what they lampoon: "we made our own movie 35 years, and 30 years ago, and 25 years ago, and 20 years ago. And now, you know, I mean, the studio controls this franchise. And so we were directed to do Paranormal Activity, Black Swan, I think we added Planet of the Apes. And also Mama, and Evil Dead, and Hunger Games, 50 Shades of Grey -- all these things are stated by, demanded by the studio... I didn't want to do Hunger Games, but they insisted Hunger Games had to be in it, so we shot it... And Evil Dead comes out a week before we do! And so we had to spoof the trailer! It's really – there is more insanity in making this movie than there is in the movie."  Wow, okay.  I always wondered just who thought half of Scary Movie 3 should be about 8 Mile.  If the writers are no longer allowed to follow their inspiration or mine where they find their best material, well no wonder.
Anyway, let's get back to The Naked Gun movies, which are actually good.  All three were released on DVD by Paramount in 2000.  They've been repackaged, in sets, bundles, etc all through the years since then, but it's always been the same discs.  Personally, I acquired all three in their 2002 Naked Gun DVD Gift Set[left], which just put the three DVDs in their original 2000 art and cases in a 2002 slip-box.  Blu-wise, Paramount issued From the Files of Police Squad in 2011, but didn't get around to the sequels until 2015.  As with the DVDs, they've been reissued and repackaged, together and separately, multiple times, but it's always been the same discs.  This time I just got them individually, because I bought the original before 2015, so by the time the sequels made it out of the gate, there was no point in getting one of those 3-disc collections.
2002 US Paramount DVD top; 2011 US Paramount BD bottom.
Again, we see Paramount sticking to their apparent tradition of framing everything at 1.78:1 (or technically 1.77:1 for the DVDs).  Interestingly, however, you'll notice the blu is zoomed in tighter, losing not a ton, but more than just a sliver, around all four sides.  Except for that, though, the blu is a big improvement.  Detail like grain is smoothed away, but the image is still noisy with compression artifacts.  That's naturally cleaned up completely in the HD transfer, and grain is surprisingly strong for a 2011 BD.  Brightness and black levels are strong, colors are natural; I have to say I'm surprised to find this blu holding up as well as it does.  The audio leaves a little more to be desired, however.

Even though this DVD dates all the way back to 2000, they've still remixed this film into 5.1.  It's the only English audio option, with a French dub in mono and optional English subtitles.  And it's the only English option on the blu-ray, too, though they do bump it up to DTS-HD.  The French dub and English subs are still there, but they also add Portuguese & Spanish dubs and French, Portuguese & Spanish subs.

And the sequel?
2002 US Paramount DVD top; 2015 US Paramount BD bottom.
Disappointingly, The Smell Of Fear looks like it was taken from a print, which was not the case with the first film.  This one, despite being a newer blu, more contrasty, with heavier blacks and thicker grain.  That goes for both the DVD and blu, though it's more noticeable on the latter, where there's an expectation of finer quality that isn't all there.  Paramount's "everything in 1.78" mandate hasn't changed, though.  Again, the DVD is technically 1.77:1, while the blu is exactly 1.78:1.  This time the BD isn't zoomed in, though, and the slight difference in AR is explained by a little horizontal squish, which the BD corrects, giving us extra slivers along the top and bottom while losing slivers on the sides.  It's a respectable enough transfer given the source, though, I suppose.  Grain is less consistent and blacks look crushed, but that was true on the DVD, too, and again is probably the fault of not having the OCN for a source.  A fresh 4k scan could capture the grain and all better, but assuming the negatives are for whatever reason really unavailable, the movie probably wouldn't look much more attractive than it does now.

But while the PQ's a little disappointing compared to the first film, the DVD's AQ is a nice surprise, as here they include both a 5.1 and the original stereo mix, in addition to English subtitles.  Unfortunately, though, it's just the DVD we're talking about, as the blu reverts to just the 5.1 (in DTS-HD).  But they go nuts with the foreign language options, including twenty-one additional subtitle tracks (!) and seven dubs.  I guess that disc space is why we lost the original stereo mix?  Boo.
2002 US Paramount DVD top; 2015 US Paramount BD bottom.
The Final Insult looks like it's from the negatives again; and this time they've re-timed the colors nicely, too, pulling out the redness that had seeped into the DVD.  Yes, we still have the usual 1.77:1, 1.78:1 aspect ratios, but this time it's the inverse of the first film: the BD pulls our to reveal more information along all four sides.  It would appear to be the best transfer of the three, except it seems to have been DNR'd, smoothing away some grain and detail and leaving patchy, uneven detail.  Some shots look better than others, and other times, like in the shots above, it just depends where in the frame you look.  Overall, it looks better in motion than in zooming in on stills, but it's definitely a flaw.

The third DVD is the best yet in terms of audio.  It's got the 5.1 and the stereo mix, plus the French dub and English subtitles.  But the blu-ray?  You can probably guess: 5.1 in DTS-HD but bye-bye stereo and hello a bajillion dubs and subs.  ((sigh))
So let's talk extras.  The DVDs weren't quite fully loaded special editions, but they were pretty satisfying thanks to each film getting another Zucker brother audio commentary.  That's "brother" singular because none of them include Jim or Jerry, even though they did work on the first one.  In their stead, we got producer Robert Weiss alongside David, plus Peter Segal and associate producer Michael Ewing on The Final Insult.  But they're no less fun or informative for the lack of the two founders; in fact, the commentaries might bring you more in favor of the sequels after listening.  Each film also included the theatrical trailer; in fact The Smell Of Fear had two.  Now, there was definitely room left to grow.  Besides the series of interviews and documentary featurettes one could imagine, they definitely could've included deleted scenes.  We've already seen some on Top Secret! and Airplane! discs, and there's no question many exist for the Naked Gun series, too.  The commentaries talk about how they shot big, alternate endings for these movies that were swapped out after audience tests (the original apparently ended with some kind of lavish "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" musical number).  And fans on Youtube have already collected a series of fun extra scenes from television broadcast versions of the sequels.  But nope, it's just the commentaries and the trailers.
That's not the biggest disappointment, though.  The biggest bummer is that while the blu-ray for From the Files of Police Squad carried over the DVD extras, the sequels did not.  They're completely barebones - the commentaries (and trailers) are gone!  😞  So hang onto those DVDs, folks.  But that doesn't mean don't also upgrade.  I mean, the original film is an easy upgrade decision, but even the sequels are worthwhile advancements to HD, and the good news is that the market is flooded with Naked Gun discs, so it's pretty cheap to pick up both DVD and BD copies of the sequels.  Of course, all three could certainly stand getting the Paramount Presents treatment; and they have been consistent money-makers for them, so there might be reason to hope if their line proves successful and last for a while.  We'll see.

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