Knight at HOME at the Movies
"V" for "Vendetta" and "Va-Va-Va-Voom!"

Ten points if you can guess the theme of this week's DVD picks -- okay, okay, a tad hokey -- but how else to logically
connect a tale of a maverick insurgent and a trio of comedies by a buxom bombshell like La Mansfield?
I found the James McTeigue V for Vendetta galvanizing – a real artistic call to arms.  
This near future tale of one man against Big Brother, highly reminiscent of
1984, The
Matrix
and dozens of other futuristic Davy vs. Goliath films, books, comic books and
the like, was spectacularly realized.  Why didn’t gay people, subject of the most
resonant subplots in the movie, embrace V wholeheartedly?  Not sure but they have
their chance now with Warner Home Video’s two-disc Widescreen edition of
V for
Vendetta.  

The first disc, naturally, presents the feature in all its visual and aural glory (a huge
shout out to
Dario Marianelli, the film’s music composer) and a 16-minute making of
documentary while the second gives us a raft of other mini-docs that include
production backstory, a history of England’s Guy Fawkes (inspiration for the source
material) and a history of the V story itself.  I would have preferred more
supplements focusing on the movie’s amazing design and technical aspects but
even without the second disc of supplements, this is a must have.  The film is a
visual feast for the eyes with a very compelling story – no matter your political or
sexual persuasion.


Now onto the “Va-Va-Va-Voom” gal – none other than late 50s icon/cartoon
bombshell Jayne Mansfield.  Mansfield was a virtual physical manifestation of an egg
timer (check out her teeny tiny waist supporting those child bearing hips and that,
well, RACK in the opening sequence of
The Girl Can’t Help It for visual proof).  
Mansfield seemed to epitomize the old star sickness (as described in
Valley of the
Dolls) – a need for mass love at any cost.  She toiled day and night to keep her
enviable figure and delighted squeal in the press but had an all too brief career in
Hollywood considering all the fuss that fluttered around her.  Now 20th Century Fox
brings us the three-disc
Jayne Mansfield Collection that brings together her two
acknowledged semi-classics and one lesser but still okay comedy from the same
period.  The two semi-classics are the aforementioned
Girl Can’t Help It from 1956 in
which Mansfield plays the ditzy girlfriend of gangster Edmond O’Brien who wants her
turned into a star and hires a down on his luck press agent (Tom Ewell) to do it.  
This likeable, broad parody comedy by Frank Tashlin is noted for its many classic
rock-n-roll performances (the agent squires the dame around town to the hot spots
where these early rock stars are performing to get her seen).  Mansfield is game
and keeps a lid on her patented squeal.

The squeal – and much more besides – are on display in Mansfield’s one major hit
A-list picture,
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?  This 1957 effort (again helmed by
Tashlin) finds Mansfield playing a parody version of herself – a vain movie star who
wants to make her muscleman boyfriend (hunky Mickey Hargitay – Mansfield’s real
life love) jealous and takes up with nebbish nerd Rock Hunter (played with his usual
droll outrage by Tony Randall).  Mansfield is supported (expertly) by Joan Blondell
and others.  Finally, there is the lesser but still enjoyable western comedy,
The Sheriff
of Fractured Jaw
which suffers from the miscasting of English actor Kenneth Moore
opposite Mansfield (the two have as much electricity as Yves Montand and Barbra
Streisand in
On a Clear Day).  But for a wild west comedy, it’s not half bad.

Extras in the boxed set include Fox’s now standard set of mini lobby card
reproductions, vintage features on each of the discs (
Fractured Jaw only has a stills
gallery however) while on
Girl there is also a full length biography on the tragic short
life of the buxom blonde from A&E.  These three pictures show off the best of
Mansfield, who, unfortunately, arrived too late, peaked too early, and died too soon.