Throw Momma From The Train
Studio: MGM/20th Century Fox (originally produced by Orion Pictures)
Year: 1987
Rated: PG-13
Length: 88 Minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Resolution: 1080p
Languages: English 2.0 Surround DTS-HD MA, Spanish Mono, French Dolby Surround
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
MSRP: $19.99
Film Release Date: December 11, 1987
Disc Release Date: July 5, 2010
Review Date: July 21, 2010
“Hate makes you impotent, Love makes you crazy, somewhere in the middle you can survive.”
The Movie:
4/5
Murder still continues to shock and draw attention whenever it’s in the news, as Western Civilization deems it the most abhorrent crime of all. Matricide is even more abhorrent; it even breaks two of the Ten Commandments. But what seems horrible in real life can seem less so if it’s presented within the context of a black comedy, one of the most difficult types of comedy to execute well. In 1987, Orion Pictures bet that the moviegoing public would find humor in the subject with a film called Throw Momma From The Train. They were right; the film was a considerable hit in the final weeks of the year. More than two decades later, it hasn’t lost its charms or become as laughably dated as some films of the era have.
Larry Donner (Billy Crystal) is an author suffering from a huge case of writer’s block, frustrated by his ex-wife Margaret’s (Kate Mulgrew) success in taking a book he wrote, Hot Fire, getting it published under her name, and becoming so successful she makes it to The Oprah Winfrey Show. Meanwhile, he is stuck teaching a creative writing class for adults of questionable talent, taste, and morals. One of his students, Owen Lift (Danny DeVito, who also directed) has a problem with his mother (Anne Ramsey), with whom he still lives. She’s overbearing, demanding, and insulting to him to the point where he can no longer abide her abuse. While asking Larry for advice on how to improve his not-very-mysterious mystery story, Larry advises him to see an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It just so happens that the Vista Theatre in Hollywood is showing Strangers on a Train, which gives Owen the idea that he should kill Larry’s ex-wife—at lunch one day he overheard Larry telling his new girlfriend Beth (Kim Greist) that he wants to kill Margaret dead—and in return for doing this, Larry will kill Owen’s mother.
The film is an enjoyable, endearing, and consistently funny romp with a good cast and a storyline that never fails to hold the audience’s interest, Billy Crystal is very funny as his usual wisecracking self, while he and co-star Danny DeVito work exceptionally well together; luckily, Stu Silver’s cleverly put-together screenplay gives them a good starting point to play off of each other. For a black comedy to work, the characters must evoke the audience’s empathy and clarify both their motivations and the moral implications of their actions. Both Silver—a sitcom writer with no other feature credits—and DeVito show that they know this. As an actor, DeVito is not only amusing but proves he can play a sympathetic character as well as he played unsympathetic ones on Taxi and in Ruthless People. One clearly senses that underneath Owen’s matricidal frustrations lie a genuine desire for his mother’s love and approval, which he never gets. As a director, his theatrical directorial debut shows a tad more flair for visual composition than most comedy directors—although it is certain that cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who later became a comedy director in his own right with the two Addams Family movies and Men in Black, contributed in no small part to this—while the pace is steady and the humor is almost always on-target. Of course, the other notable key performance comes from Anne Ramsey as Momma, who received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nomination. Her distinctively slurred speech was caused by operations for the mouth cancer that ended her life less than a year of the film’s release. Her character is not just a rehash of that age-old sitcom standby, the sharp-tongued old biddy whose bark is worse than her bite. She is a genuinely nasty, hateful, selfish, and frankly frightening old bag who hindered Owen’s emotional and social development, and Ramsey does everything within her ability to make you want Owen or Larry to kill her. She gives the role exactly what it calls for, which is the simplest definition I can give of what good acting is about.
The Video:
3.5/5
Making its HD debut in an AVC-encoded 28 mbps 1080p transfer that preserves the film’s original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, it looks as good as it’s ever going to look, and it’s considerably better than the DVD. Close-ups reveal fine detail previous video versions would have been unable to show. But the quality of the transfer reveals the technical shortcomings of the original cinematography, as well as the use of rear projection effects—perhaps another nod to Hitchcock? Grain is noticeable but not overpowering except in the transitions and credits, which are very grainy and occasionally marred by specks of dust. Don’t blame the studio; blame the quality of the dupe stock available then. Except for a couple of exterior shots of Margaret’s house near the beach, the film isn’t very colorful, but it’s not unnaturally pale or washed out. The contrast levels are not too high or too low, shadows are deep black but somewhat lacking in detail, but highlights are restrained and nowhere near the point of getting blown out. MGM has done a good job handling the elements as best they could for this transfer, and has wisely chosen not to ruin it with edge enhancement or DNR.
The Audio:
3.5/5
The film’s soundtrack is presented as a 2.0 Surround DTS-HD MA track; the theatrical release was Dolby SR. Most of the surround activity is subtle, and the only time one can really get the feeling of surround sound is from David Newman’s peppy music score. Overall, there is nothing to complain about where the fidelity of the track is concerned; its clarity reveals just how sloppily the bowdlerization of the name of Mr. Pinsky's book was handled. Also included are Spanish mono and French surround tracks, both at 256 kbps.
The Extras:
3/5
Most of these extras were created in 2007 and are exclusive to this Blu-Ray. Perhaps MGM planned a 20th anniversary DVD re-release that was shelved until now? Either way, better that we get these extras late than never. All are 480p and 16x9 unless otherwise noted.
—Crafting A Dark Comedy (17:11): Screenwriter Stu Silver, and producer Larry Brezner discuss the origins of the film, casting, production, and release. Sadly, the two stars did not participate.
—Why Do You Hate Your Mother? (9:36): Psychologists and therapists, all of them female, analyze the relationship between Owen and his mother as well as that between Larry and the women in his life, and how they reveal the film’s overarching theme.
—The Night Was… (3:56): A trifle of a featurette in which everyday people of all ages and walks of life each make up a story sentence by sentence, starting with the phrase “The night was…”
—Deleted scenes (2:06): Four scenes cut from the film, presented in 480p and 4x3. The film lost nothing when it lost these scenes.
—Theatrical trailer (1:20): A short and to-the-point teaser trailer presented in 1080p at 1.85:1.
Sadly, they couldn’t even create a main menu for the film; all these extras must be accessed via a pop-up menu.
Final Score:
3.5/5
A highly amusing and engaging black comedy from the 1980s, Throw Momma From The Train rides onto Blu-Ray in a better-than-expected manner. It sports a good transfer despite the limitations of the cinematography and a decent amount of extras. And it’s a fun time. I don’t think one could ask for more from a Blu-Ray of a film like this.
