DVD Review: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

Originally posted on May 24, 2006

A Carl Reiner comedy starring Steve Martin in his early years as an actor. I've known about this movie for years but never got around to watching it. A few nights ago, I bought a copy of it on the DVD format. I knew to expect a comedic take on the oldies but I was taken off guard by some quirky moments in the movie. As this movie was released in the year of 1982, it still holds up strongly after two decades. The DVD I picked up had no special features except for a theatrical trailer and production notes. After seeing this movie, I feel that Universal Studios should favour a double-disc edition. Carl Reiner, the actor/director is still alive and kicking, better move on it before it's too late.

Anyway, what I really liked about this movie was how they wrote the screenplay around some of the classics, they took footages of actors including Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, Joan Crawford, Vincent Price and many more from a bunch of movies and edit them together and have Steve Martin interact with them. It actually works very well in most of the movie. Carl Reiner himself is a comic genius, no doubt about that. So was Steve Martin, I like him today but he seems to have mellowed out a lot in the last few years in his comedic roles. I do kind of miss the old him.

The movie is in black and white and made to look like a movie from the 40s. It's a hilarious flick, and I highly recommend it. The DVD could be better though, I found the video quality to be quite grainy but it should be easy to watch without being distracted by the grains. I don't know about the sound, I'm just deaf, but I can tell you that it's in mono, not stereo. Yeah, it's kind of a drag, couldn't feel the action through the sound in this one. I got this at a sale at a store around here during the long weekend.

For these who enjoy comedies and classics, this may be a good one for you to watch.