Glengarry Glen Ross appeared in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Across the board, this 4K scan looked terrific.
Sharpness seemed strong, as the film exhibited good delineation. Nary a sliver of softness materialized here.
I noticed no moiré effects or jaggies, and edge haloes remained absent. Grain seemed appropriate and I witnessed no print flaws.
Glengarry demonstrated a stylized palette, and the disc showed nice replication of those colors. The tones appeared lively and vivid and showed no noticeable concerns.
Black levels seemed deep and rich, while shadow detail was appropriately heavy but not overly thick. Everything here worked well.
Given the film’s heavy emphasis on dialogue, Glengarry, I didn’t anticipate a tremendous amount of activity from its DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, and for the most part, the mix matched my expectations.
The audio remained oriented toward the front speakers. Those offered good stereo imaging for music and also presented a reasonably engaging sense of environment.
The surrounds contributed a fairly positive sense of place, though they actually seemed a little too active at times. Ambient office and weather sounds appeared somewhat unnatural and distracting on occasion.
However, overall the soundfield offered a pretty convincing setting. Trains provided especially vivid audio from the rear speakers.
Audio quality appeared good. I noticed some vocal bleeding to the side speakers, but speech usually seemed well located and also came across as natural and distinct. I noticed no issues related to intelligibility or edginess.
Music sounded clear and vibrant and showed nice dynamic range across the board. Effects also seemed clean and accurate, and they demonstrated solid low-end response when appropriate. This was a more than competent mix for a dialogue-intensive film from the early 1990s.
How did the Shout “Collector’s Edition” Blu-ray compare to the original BD from 2016? Audio seemed the same for both.
On the other hand, the Shout Blu-ray looked better defined, cleaner and more natural than the previous release. This turned into a nice upgrade over the old BD.
The Shout release mixes old and new extras, and we find two audio commentaries, the first of which comes from director James Foley. Taped for an early 2000s DVD, he gives us a running, screen-specific look at his initial involvement in Glengarry, changes made from the original play, and working with the all-star cast.
The latter element dominates the chat and offers some terrific material. Foley seems frank with his thoughts and even discusses some potential controversies, such as a run-in between Lemmon and Pacino.
The biggest problem here comes from dead air, as we find acres and acres of empty spaces. The DVD presented an edited version of the commentary that made it “scene-specific”, a format that allowed the listener to skip all the lulls.
Why didn’t this translate to the Blu-ray? I have no idea, but the presentation becomes an issue.
While Foley provides good information, he only speaks for about 60 percent of the film’s running time. That makes the commentary a bit of a chore.
For the second commentary, we hear from actor Jack Lemmon. Recorded for a 1990s laserdisc, he delivers a running, screen-specific view of his career, his work on Glengarry and acting in general.
Going into this track, I feared Lemmon would follow in the footsteps of many older actors and do little more than narrate the movie. Happily, those concerns became unfounded.
Lemmon does lose steam in the film’s second half, but he nonetheless offers plenty of fine insights across the subjects I mention. He also displays enough self-deprecating humor to turn this into a fine chat.
After this we find Magic Time: A Tribute to Jack Lemmon. This 30-minute, five-second program includes comments from James Foley, actor’s son Chris Lemmon, actor Peter Gallagher, Save the Tiger director John Avildsen, manager David Seltzer, and Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton. The piece concludes with a few minutes of Jack Lemmon’s 1998 appearance on Lipton’s show.
Instead of a career retrospective, the participants simply relate their memories of Lemmon. Not surprisingly, these reminiscences stay heavily on the positive side of the coin, but that doesn’t cause a problem. The stories include topics like Lemmon’s obsession with golf and his relationship with Walter Matthau.
Lipton offers the most memorable story, however, as he relates the way that Lemmon acknowledged his alcoholism. While I’d prefer a documentary about Lemmon’s life and work, “Magic Time” offers a fairly interesting program.
ABC: Always Be Closing purports to examine “the psychological intersection of fictional and real-life salesmen”. This means that we hear about productions such as Death of a Salesman and Salesman and also get comments about their work from actual salesmen.
The 29-minute, 59-second show offers a stark presentation. For the most part, we simply watch the speakers as they chat in front of a blank background.
Normally I don’t mind “talking head” pieces but this visual motif does harm the program. This show consists of almost nothing but these images, which makes “Closing” rather slow going. A few movie clips appear, but they don’t do much to break up the piece.
The content does little to make me forget the blandness. It offers some decent information about the lives of salesmen and the background of the different productions, but it doesn’t delve into the topics with any great depth or insight.
Toward the end, it explores some topics related to the movie, and those provide the most interesting moments, though some of them repeat information we heard elsewhere. Normally I like this kind of program, but “Always Be Closing” comes across as somewhat dull and lifeless.
The next two pieces come new to the Shout Blu-ray, and A Conversation with James Foley runs 37 minutes, 23 seconds.
The director looks at how he came to this film, the source play and its adaptation, cast and performances, sets and locations, photography, editing, music and the movie’s legacy. Foley duplicates some of the content from his commentary, which almost eliminates the need to listen to that inconsistent track.
Almost, but not quite, as “Conversation” fails to duplicate all the material from the commentary. Still, it becomes a tighter and more satisfying chat with the filmmaker.
Finally, God Bless Ricky Roma spans 24 minutes, 31 seconds. It features actor Joe Montegna.
Though Montegna didn’t work on this film, he played Roma in the stage version of Glengarry, so he gives us notes about that production as well as working with writer David Mamet. Montegna tells us about this side of Glengarry in a satisfying manner.
Note that the Shout Blu-ray loses a Charlie Rose segment and an Inside the Actors Studio snippet. Some “bonus commentaries” on the DVD but not the prior BD also remain MIA.
While I can’t say Glengarry Glen Ross bowled me over, it provides a crisp and crackling piece of work buoyed by a slew of excellent performances. The Blu-ray offers very good picture and generally positive audio along with a decent array of bonus materials. Though we lose some existing supplements, the improved visual quality makes this the best version of the film on the market.
