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Buttercup Chain: Martini Movies (The)
R1 - America - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan C. Stevenson (30th August 2009). |
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The Film
 Superfluous, overwrought, ludicrous, "The Buttercup Chain", my second outing with wave three of Sony’s “Martini Movies” series, is a movie that somewhere along the way was lost to the sands of time. Forgotten, locked away, today I count a mere 37 votes on the IMDB. Some may think that it’s unfortunate that this film disappeared from the collective conscience – personally I don’t. After checking the clock for what was probably the 40th time during the relatively scant 95 minute runtime, I think I’d rather "The Buttercup Chain" go back into that deep, dark hole it was hiding in for all these years. Better yet, someone burn the negative. Please. Based on the novel of the same name by Janice Elliot, "The Buttercup Chain" is primarily the tale of the (incestuous) love story between cousins born on the same day to twin sisters in London. Margaret (Jane Asher) and France (Hywel Bennett) – pronounced “Franz” – are very close: after the death of Frances mother, the boy and girl were raised more as brother and sister than cousins (which makes the undertones of incest even weirder). The two are separated in their adolescence when Margaret is sent to London for school. Flash-forward many years and upon her return, Margaret and France reunite for a vacation across Europe. France decides that his cousin needs a male companion and quickly sets her up with a tall blond Swede named Fred (Sven-Bertil Taube). Fred, sorry that France has been jettisoned to third-wheel status decides that he will find “the second most beautiful woman in the world” for his lover’s relative. The search is over quickly when a mishap leads Manny (Leigh Taylor-Young) into our European trio – her presence now makes a quartet, and the love triangle, a Buttercup Chain. All four of them run off to Spain for a romantic get away but Margaret seems disinterested in Fred. In her absence Manny steps in and she and Fred begin an affair. France and Margaret stare longingly at each other but do nothing else because they know it would be wrong… blah, blah, blah – lather, rinse, repeat three more times set against different backdrops: jetting off to Switzerland, Italy and their home-base of England. Ultimately boring: I find it extremely unentertaining to watch spoiled rich youth travel to exotic locales as they fall in and out of love with each other. Time passes, eventually Manny and Fred marry but their union falls apart with the miscarriage of their first child. Marge and Fran continue their absurd tale of wanting a love that they cannot have. Fran grows one of those douchey chinstrap beards. And so on and so forth, lives are ruined in similar fashion but the film remains uninteresting. Robert Ellis Miller nicely directs the film and the actors all give decent, if honest and fairly believable performances, but the story is just such ridiculous melodrama. Blame it on the source material (I guess, I don’t know how faithful the movie is to the book) or screenwriter Peter Draper – who’s ever fault it is, I blame them. I blame them for wasting an hour and 35 minutes on such boring, unlikable characters. This was Britain’s entry into the Cannes Film Festival circa 1970. If "The Buttercup Chain" won anything, my respect for the festival has dipped to dangerously low levels. (Aside: according to IMDB it was nominated but didn’t win a thing – huzzah!).
Video
Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen "The Buttercup Chain" looks, at times, downright disgusting. I hated the film and the 70's-era production design and cinematography only made it worse. Colors are horrid. Diffusion filters look dated; the image is soft and tacky (like I said, 1970's production design). The print is a bit dirty with various instances of scratches and grime present throughout and there are signs of damage (specks, discoloration, tattered edges) too. There’s some gate-weave present in the credits and interspersed throughout with odd transitions. Colors occasionally bleed and whites tend to bloom out of control. Contrast is flat, with no depth. The Panavision photography is inherently soft but even more so due to creative decisions. Details are mediocre at best. The film is set in some stupendous locations but, unfortunately, the filtered camerawork makes everything so damn hazy that I’d rather not be looking at it. The picture is sometimes noisy with poorly compressed grain. This is an odd mix of visually unattractive (at least to my eye) design and a half-assed DVD transfer. Surely, the best the film will ever look on home video (and sometimes it really isn’t half-bad), I don’t think this will ever be remastered or see a Blu-ray release, but I wouldn’t really say that matters as I would never recommend the film even if it looked excellent. Alas, it doesn’t, so the anti-recommendation is all the easier.
Audio
The original English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono offered here is a bit better than the video – but not by much. The 2.0 encoded track is mixed at 192 kbps this is serviceable but imperfect with flat, tinny dialog and frankly nothing else. The soundtrack is cheap and adds little. At least Sony didn’t try and create a faux-5.1 mix – I’m not sure the source could take it. Certainly if one could imagine a worse sounding version of the film it would be found in a remix. English subtitles are also offered. Personally I had no need for the subtitles but I could see them being quite useful for American audiences as 3 of the 4 main characters are accented Europeans.
Extras
All of the discs in the third wave of Sony’s “Martini Movies” collection have no extras of consequence. The DVD's aren’t completely bare – there is the theatrical trailer and a few bonus trailers, even one that is irrelevant to the feature film – but, frankly, I don’t think it matters. The original theatrical trailer for "The Buttercup Chain" is included in anamorphic (cropped to 1.85:1) widescreen. Runs 3 minutes 3 seconds. Bonus trailers include: - "Columbia Classics" spot runs 3 minutes 34 seconds. - "The Three Stooges Collection" runs 1 minute 10 seconds. - "The Norman Lear Collection" runs 2 minutes 3 seconds. - "Easy Virtue" runs 2 minutes 2 seconds. - "The Maiden Heist" runs 2 minutes 6 seconds.
Packaging
All of the “Martini Movies” come packaged in Viva Eco-boxes with some wickedly hideous cover art – seriously, who ever designed the artwork for this series has very little (quite possibly no) taste.
Overall
No. Just no. Walk away. I greatly dislike whoever pulled "The Buttercup Chain" out of the vault – the film deserves to be lost forever. I wish this film upon no one (except maybe that guy who brought it to DVD). I can’t imagine there are tons of fans salivating in anticipation of this film but if there are…. sorry, the DVD isn’t that good either: bad video, crummy audio and no extras.
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