What do you get when you take a colorful character from Australia and cast him as the lead in a film about, well, a colorful character from Australia? You get 'Crocodile Dundee', the most successful Australian import since Olivia Newton-John and one of the best cross-cultural comedies one is likely to find. Unfortunately for Paul Hogan, the film's star and driving force, the stong association between himself and his character in the mind of the public may well have type cast him for life. Not to mention the off-screen romance with his on-screen love interest, Linda Kozlowski. The pair later married and teamed up again for a better than average sequel.
'Crocodile Dundee' was filmed in Panavision and made it's video debut in 1987, before the major studios had reached the video equivalent of the 'age of enlightenment', meaning, until now, we have had to put up with a rather poor full-frame transfer. Paramount has finally rectified this sad state of affairs by releasing a new letterboxed transfer on laser. To be sure, this new disc surpasses the old in every way, but I do have a few nits to pick. First, the Panavision frame has been cropped to about 2.15:1. Though obviously a vast improvement over full-frame, it's still not 'right'. I am finding it harder and harder to understand the justification for under-letterboxing video transfers. The difference in vertical resolution between 2.15 and 2.35 is not that great, so why not just do it right. Someone should remind Paramount (or Pioneer) of the old truism, 'compromise satisfies no one'. The other problem I noted is the overall look of the transfer. In a word, grainy. Or maybe 'noisy'. It's difficult to tell if this is inherent in the film elements or an artifact of the transfer. The older disc exhibits a similar appearance, though somewhat worse. The color on the new disc is markedly better than the first effort. However, the higher color saturation also seems to enhance the grain in a number of scenes, as well as having a bit of smearing and chroma noise from time to time. Contrast and brightness are very good as are sharpness and detail.
The audio has also benefitted from a new transfer. The Dolby Stereo soundtrack is very clear, especially when compared to the older disc that has an unusually noticable hiss. Dialog in natural sounding and directional effects are more clearly defined. Frequency range is improved with a solid low end and crisp mids and highs. No complaints here about the sound.
'Crocodile Dundee' runs 98 minutes and Paramount has added 16 chapter markers for those that appreciate such things. This single disc lists for $39.95. Some may note this price is $5 more that Paramount's usual price but it seems that a price increase, at least for some titles, is in the offing. Perhaps they could have included the trailers for both 'Crocodile Dundee' films for the extra $5 but, alas, for your 3995 pennies you get only the film, and a flawed presentation at that.
I will add a final closing thought. If one gets a negative impression from the above comments, that would not be my final intention. Having gotten used to some truly stunning laser transfers in the last couple of years, some of which came from Paramount, I suppose I was hoping for a bit more than was delivered. Fans of this film should be quite pleased with this new letterboxed disc which is, as I said, quite an improvement over what was previously available.
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