Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984) + Paul McCartney: The Music and Animation Collection – DVDs

GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROAD STREET
**/**** Image B Sound B+
starring Paul McCartney, Bryan Brown, Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach
screenplay by Paul McCartney
directed by Peter Webb

PAUL McCARTNEY: THE MUSIC AND ANIMATION COLLECTION
*½/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B+
directed by Geoff Dunbar

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Self-absorption is probably an occupational hazard at a certain level of fame: once the world lays itself at your feet, pelts its money at you, and replaces your mirrors with airbrushed portraits, it's well-nigh impossible not to be nudged a little closer to the realm of the narcissistic. Such is the case with Paul McCartney, who, having been canonized during his stint with The Beatles, apparently came to believe that anything involving his personage would be a celestial experience for all. The ego trips of 1984's Give My Regards to Broad Street and his more current forays into animation show a McCartney trapped in his own private hall of mirrors, one whose past musical triumphs are looking ever more distant from the tepid easy-listening of his present-day output.

Give My Regards to Broad Street is, predictably, about Paul McCartney. There's a wisp of a plot, to be sure: the master tapes for The Cute Beatle's latest album are missing, and his company will be taken over if they're not recovered by midnight. But that's merely a slender thread on which to hang a) tacky performances from his back catalogue, and b) examples of what a swell guy he thinks he is. Category a) is sort of a Ken Russell film told as a rumour at film school–it strives for a visionary quality that director Peter Webb never quite achieves, creating fantasias reliant on borrowed imagery and which never really convince. "Silly Love Songs" somehow morphs into a white-on-white New Wave number involving a moonwalking dancer and a lot of face paint, while, most embarrassingly, "Eleanor Rigby" becomes a Victorian-era romp in which the members of the cast (including Ringo Starr and Bryan Brown) metaphorically enact the plot. Kelly and Donen should feel their reputations are safe.

All through this, McCartney pushes his innate laid-backness to ensure that you notice he's going about his business, confident that everything will work out. Of course he hired the ex-con, Harry (Ian Hastings), whom everyone believes made off with the tapes; of course he thinks Harry is a good bloke who's simply lost his way. Fine and dandy, but given that McCartney's chosen to be so relaxed in his super-rich environment makes him seem more condescending than benevolent–especially as the other characters have been conceived as harried stereotypes or, in the case of Ringo, lovable comic foils. As the writer-star drives yet another expensive classic car with Wings selections playing on the soundtrack, we get the impression that the main message if the film is that it's good to be Paul McCartney–and what's more, it's good to be in his beatific presence.

Admittedly, Give My Regards to Broad Street is genial enough that it passes by without serious harm to your sensibilities. Such is not the case with Paul McCartney: The Music and Animation Collection, which shows just how dim McCartney's creative spark is these days in the act of mating some wheel-spinning songs with tragically mediocre animation by Geoff Dunbar. One can hardly fault McCartney for wanting to stretch himself, but the collaboration withers on the vine, combining all of the gee-whiz carnival sensibility of his original band with none of its formal virtuosity. The three shorts that comprise the collection rate as follows:

Tropic Island Hum (1997) – William Squirrel is saved from hunters by a ballooning frog named Froggo; the two land on a tropical island where animals live in peace and harmony and sing a song to the glory of their new home. Sort of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" as filtered through the sensibility of Jimmy Buffett, the film is unimaginatively cute (young Mr. Squirrel gets a grass-skirted cutie-pie girlfriend, etc.), stops dead once the song ends, and never builds to a theme or purpose. C-

Tuesday (2001) – Based on an award-winning children's book, Tuesday deals with the fateful Tuesday when frogs on their lily pads suddenly begin to fly and wreak benevolent havoc. Acceptable, I suppose, due to the lack of flatulent lyrics and the amusing incursion of Dustin Hoffman's voice-over at the end–but again it lacks vision and is way too harmless. C

Rupert and the Frog Song (1984) – British comics icon Rupert Bear wanders into the forest and catches a once-in-200-years musical performance by and for frogs (what is it with Paul McCartney and frogs?). The build-up is for something magical and spectacular, so it's all the more frustrating when the song turns out to be an up-with-people number called "We All Stand Together." Especially painful: the live-action intro featuring McCartney blowing fairy dust off a Rupert annual. C-

THE DVDs
Fox presents Give My Regards to Broad Street on DVD in a flipper fullscreen/1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen edition. Picture quality is pretty mediocre: not only are the colours dull and washed-out, but there's also a persistent grain problem like nothing I've seen from a major-label disc. The Dolby Digital 4.0 soundtrack, meanwhile, is oddly schizoid, soft and indistinct when rendering the dialogue yet obscenely well-mixed when it comes to the music. Just as you're straining to hear the lines through a glass darkly, a song will come out and surround you with four-channel harmony, making for a strange listening experience, to say the least. The only extra is a pair of trailers for the film's domestic and international releases.

Miramax's Paul McCartney: The Music and Animation Collection is merely adequate. The full-frame image is acceptable, if a little soft in definition and a little undersaturated in the colour department. The Dolby 5.1 soundmix is potent but lacking in nuance, pounding out through the subwoofer and making even use of the front and surround channels without offering much detail. Supplements include:

"Interview with Paul McCartney" (7 mins.)
McCartney briefly discusses the origins of the films in the collection, from the page in the "Rupert" annual that inspired the Frog Song short and the children's book that was the basis for Tuesday. Though too brief to have too much meat, it's an interesting piece nonetheless.

"The Making of Tropic Island Hum" (12 mins.)
Paul McCartney writes a song and decides it needs some pictures. This featurette reveals the painstaking process by which animators flesh out characters, draw cels, the whole process. Some interesting bits here for animation neophytes.

"The Making of Tuesday" (12 mins.)
Some years later after Tropic Island Hum, Tuesday is produced, and different techniques are employed to bring it to life. A little too cutesy (and a little Paul goes a long way), but the new tricks (including models and computer imaging) are mildly intriguing.

"Rupert and the Frog Song Line Tests" (10 mins.)
Practically the entire film of the Rupert short, only with crude test animation replacing the finished product. Perhaps of interest to animation buffs, it lost me after a couple of minutes.

"Tropic Island Hum Layouts, Storyboards and Line Tests" (10 mins.)
An amalgam of various preliminary materials used to make Tropic Island Hum, laid end to end over the soundtrack. Again a buffs-only experience.

"Tuesday Line Tests and Storyboard" (20 mins.)
First a lengthy line test for the flying-frogs film, then a riffle through the storyboards. What was that I was saying about buffs?

A 16-page insert booklet completes the package.

• Give My Regards to Broad Street
  108 minutes; PG; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced), 1.33:1; English DD 4.0, French DD 2.0 (Mono), Spanish DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-10; Region One; Fox
• Paul McCartney: The Music and Animation Collection
  43 minutes; NR; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1; CC; Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; Miramax