Fletch (The “Jane Doe” Edition)

Posted by Danny Gallagher (danny@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 19, 2007

I’ve been looking for a copy of “Fletch” on DVD for months. Every time I went to my friendly neighborhood Best Buy to blow what little money I have left over from my bills, my car payment, my Netflix subscription and my bar tab on DVDs, I’d never find it. Like one of God’s cruel pranks, all I could find wedged in between a copy of “50 First Dates” and “Garbage Pail Kids: The Movie” is the weak and uneven “Fletch Lives.”

I know it sound pathetic to pine for a Chevy Chase movie, especially since the former Not Ready for Prime Player’s name has become almost a punchline for bad movies. But dogs like “Caddyshack II,” “Man of the House” and “Cops and Robbersons” can cast a tall shadow over the good ones like “Caddyshack,” “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and “Fletch.” It’s a film noir/comedy that’s got a good story with good characters from a good script that lets Chevy run loose and be Chevy, even though he’s playing someone else.

So finally Universal has released a new special edition of the Michael Ritchie mystery comedy dubbed “The ‘Jane Doe’ Edition,” a reference to the pen name of the titular hero, Irwin M. Fletcher, that pisses me off more than a family friendly version of “Scarface.” I know it’s only a small pet peeve, but poorly named special edition DVDs make me want to pull my poorly combed hair out. They make no sense and serve no purpose. I’ll stop complaining when they re-re-release “Se7en” as “The “Head in a Box’ Edition” or “Full Metal Jacket” as “The ‘Get the Fuck Off of My Obstacle’ Edition.”

This re-release is presumably a way to test the waters of the fledging “Fletch Won” project, and even though I’m glad I’ve been able to buy a copy, it’s special features are anything but.

In addition to the digitally remastered movie, it includes three special features including a short feature of interviews with the supporting cast also stupidly dubbed “Just Charge It to the Underhills: Making and Remembering ‘Fletch,” a shorter feature on Fletch’s aliases like Dr. Rosenpenis, Gordon Liddy and the roller skating guru and a clip reel of Fletch’s funnier lines.

The makers of the main feature couldn’t get Chevy to sit down for an interview with the likes of Tim Matheson, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson and M. Emmett Walsh, so they put themselves in it. The interviewer says for this feature, he needs to find his “inner-Fletch” and has a friend follow him around with a boom box that blares the movies’ cheesy synthesizer action theme, which is funny for about 30 seconds. I would have preferred they just splice together to the interviews, which are far more interesting and funny, especially when Wheeler-Nicholson asks if Fletch disguised himself as a character named Mr. “Spoon.”

Still, the movie is worth buying since the DVD release has been out of print for so long, but if you scour eBay, you can get the same thing for cheaper. Call it the “For Less Dough” edition.

| | Read more articles by Danny Gallagher