Keaton's 'Hanging Up' hits video

DVD tips-- 'The Guns of Navarone'

June 28, 2000
Web posted at: 12:02 p.m. EDT (1602 GMT)

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By Scott Hettrick

(Columbia TriStar, VHS priced for rental, DVD $24.95, rated PG-13) 2000.
Directed by Diane Keaton; starring Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, Lisa Kudrow, Walter Matthau and Adam Arkin.

You'd think that of all people, Diane Keaton would be able to direct herself as a character other than the same old familiar frenetic, woman-in-a-man's-business-suit gal she so often plays.

But if you thought that, you'd be wrong.

Keaton directed "Hanging Up," a movie in which she also stars, along with Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow, as the, you guessed it, overly stressed businesswoman.

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That familiarity aside, the movie is a rather unsatisfying blend of comedy and drama. Keaton, as director, seems to think that since her characters have always been overly busy and somewhat out of control, that it would be three times as funny to have all these three sisters, the main characters in this movie, be that way.

It isn't. It's just overkill.

Meg Ryan's character gets the primary spotlight as the daughter who is the least self-centered of the three and the one who is nearly obsessed with the seemingly imminent death of their father (Walter Matthau), whose intermittent spells of apparent Alzheimer's disease are unsettling as they are played both for laughs and for dramatic effect.

The three sisters all come off as unrealistically close for siblings who could not have less in common. Yet they are constantly feuding and constantly using one another for their own gains. That is, until the anticipated fateful event finally happens, and they all get together to have a good unifying cry. Apparently the message is that a good cry together wipes out all previous transgressions and insensitivities.

Adam Arkin, as the husband of Ryan's character, is the only sensible and therefore the only likable character in this movie that feels as disjointed and flighty as most of the characters Keaton plays.

Two new special DVD editions of powerful thrillers from the early 1960s offer notable features:

"The Guns of Navarone" (Columbia TriStar, $24.95) presents four amusing, entertaining short promotional featurettes about the making of the 1961 World War II movie, plus an introductory message from writer/producer Carl Foreman that was shown at the movie's premiere. One of the black-and-white featurettes is narrated by co-star James Darren, who describes what it was like spending his honeymoon on location in Rome with his new bride. Another follows the two female actresses in the film, Irene Papas and Gia Scala, around on a shopping spree.

A new 30-minute documentary features current interviews with Darren and stars Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn, as well as director J. Lee Thompson and others. Although it is not the most riveting of documentaries, there are some fascinating and humorous anecdotes, such as the participants describing how Quinn created an ongoing chess tournament on the set and always beat everyone. Another common remembrance is how Quinn cleverly began slightly rolling up the sleeves of his uniform in each scene to show a little bit of a red sleeve under so that when it came time to take off his uniform in an otherwise gray scene in the water he would really stand out with an all-red undershirt. Because of the earlier scenes in which a bit of the shirt was revealed, no one could make him change his shirt for the climactic scene.

Thompson also recorded an audio commentary that runs the length of the 2-and-1/2-hour movie that is presented in its full 2.35:1 widescreen format.

"Seven Days in May" (Warner, $24.98) is a lesser-known black-and-white John Frankenheimer film from 1964, the same period that spawned other cautionary Cold War films such as "Fail Safe" and "Dr. Strangelove," Or "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb."

The impressive "Seven Days" -- which tells how easily an overzealous U.S. general could mount an overthrow of the government -- features Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Frederic March, Martin Balsam, Ava Gardner, John Houseman and Edmund O'Brien. Rod Serling wrote the screenplay, and the picture's effectively intense score is by Jerry Goldsmith.

The only significant supplemental feature on the DVD is an audio commentary full of fascinating anecdotes about the production by Frankenheimer. For instance, he recalls how President Kennedy asked him when he needed to shoot the opening scene in front of the White House so he could be sure to take a weekend in Kennebunkport.

The director also relates how he had to get a writer friend to pay off his tennis-bet losses by helping resolve a last-minute emergency when Frankenheimer suddenly realized that the Preakness horse race was always held on a Saturday, not Sunday, the day that was to be used in the movie as the pivotal plot point for the seventh day as referred to in the title. His writer friend paid his debt by simply suggesting that Frankenheimer have a sign in the airport reading that the Preakness would be run that week on a Sunday for the first time.

(c) 2000, Scott Hettrick. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

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Official 'Hanging Up' site
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