TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS [1988 / 2018] [30th Anniversary Edition] [Blu-ray] [UK Release] Francis Ford Coppola Film Masterpiece!
According to New York Magazine, ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS’ is fast, sleek and streamlined as the car – the “Tucker Torpedo” that Preston Thomas Tucker built in 1948. Filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas celebrate Preston Thomas Tucker as the ultimate believer in the American Dream!
Oscar winner Jeff Bridges gives a dazzling portrayal as Preston Thomas Tucker, a dynamic engineer and an enthusiastic showman to create the car of the future. Against mighty odds he manages to build a fleet of them – only to have his factory shut down by Detroit's Big Three automobile manufacturers. They took away his car – but nobody could take away his dream! Narrated by Bob Safford.
FILM FACT: 1988 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards: Nomination: Best Supporting Actor for Martin Landau. 1988 New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Nomination: Best Supporting Actor for Martin Landau. 1989 Academy Awards®: Nomination: Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Martin Landau. Nomination: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration for Armin Ganz and Dean Tavoularis. Nomination: Best Costume Design for Milena Canonero. 1989 Golden Globes: Win: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for Martin Landau. 1989 BAFTA Awards: Win: Best Production Design for Dean Tavoularis. 1989 Casting Society of America: Nomination: Best Casting for a Drama Feature Film for Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson. 1989 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards: Win: Best Supporting Actor for Martin Landau. 1989 Grammy Awards: Nomination: Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television for Joe Jackson. 1989 National Society of Film Critics’ Awards, USA: Nomination: Best Cinematography for Vittorio Storaro.
Cast: Bob Safford [Narrator], Jeff Bridges, Joan Allen, Martin Landau, Frederic Forrest, Mako, Elias Koteas, Christian Slater, Nina Siemaszko, Anders Johnson, Corin Nemec, Marshall Bell, Jay O. Sanders, Peter Donat, Dean Goodman, John X. Heart, Don Novello, Patti Austin, Sandy Bull, Joe Miksak, Scott Beach, Roland Scrivner, Dean Stockwell, Lawrence Menkin, Ron Close, Joe Flood, Leonard Gardner, Bill Bonham, Abigail Van Alyn, Taylor Gilbert, David Booth, Jessie Nelson, Al Hart, Cab Covay, James Cranna, Bill Reddick, Ed Loerke, Jay Jacobus, Anne Lawder, Jeanette Lana Sartain, Mary Buffett, Annie Stocking, Michael McShane, Hope Alexander-Willis, Taylor Young, Jim Giovanni, Joe Lerer, Morgan Upton, Ken Grantham, Mark Anger, Al Nalbandian, Karen Beacock, Nordeen Beacock, Brian Beacock (uncredited), Lloyd Bridges (uncredited), Sofia Coppola (uncredited), David Kester (uncredited), Joe Murkijanian (uncredited), Neil O'Neill (uncredited), Arthur Scappaticci (uncredited), Theodore Carl Soderberg (uncredited) and Michael E. Stone (uncredited)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Producers: Fred Fuchs, Fred Roos, George Lucas and Teri Fettis-D'Ovidio
Screenplay: Arnold Schulman and David Seidler
Composer: Joe Jackson
Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro, A.I.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 (Technovision)
Audio: English: 5.1 Dolby TrueHD Audio
French: 2.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
Spanish: 2.0 Dolby Digital Mono Audio
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English, English SDH and Spanish
Running Time: 110 minutes
Region: Region B/2
Number of discs: 1
Studio: American Zoetrope / Lucasfilm Ltd / LIONSGATE Home Entertainment
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM’ film chronicles the struggles of ahead-of-his-time Preston Thomas Tucker [Jeff Bridges], who finds inspiration from a poll stating that 87 percent of people coming back from World War II want a new car. Behold the “Tucker Torpedo” car: an automobile with all kinds of bells and whistles that didn't exist at that time, including fuel injection, seatbelts, disc brakes, and roll bars, and Preston Thomas Tucker will even make it look like a jet and put the engine in the rear. He could make a bundle! Preston Thomas Tucker's dream has a chance to become a reality when Preston Thomas Tucker gets a friend to write an article extolling the virtues of a car he has not yet manufactured, and when he gains the business sense of Abe Karatz [Martin Landau]. But when faced with the corruption of elected officials and a board of directors bent on tabling all his innovative ideas, what will happen to Preston Thomas Tucker’s invention? The answer may surprise you.
Director Francis Ford Coppola and producer George Lucas both saw a bit of themselves in Preston Thomas Tucker, the visionary post-war inventor who built a revolutionary modern car and took on the big Detroit automakers. Jeff Bridges is totally perfect as this brilliant, aggressively confident man, who is a total whirlwind inventor in wanting to bring out a very advanced automobile for the majority of Americans.
Thanks to Vittorio Storaro's golden-hued cinematography, Dean Tavoularis's elaborate production design and Milena Canonero's handsome costumes, ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM’ film is extravagantly really good looking film and Francis Ford Coppola gives us a very clear and moving sense of purpose with a man and his dreams. The film has a brilliant glistening look to it and the brilliant Jeff Bridges glistens more than anything else when presenting himself off as the brilliant futuristic car designer Preston Thomas Tucker.
Set in the late 1940s world lets director Francis Ford Coppola has put together for Preston Thomas Tucker is an extremely stylized one and especially Vittorio Storaro's cinematography has the bright, hard, almost lacquered look of old Technicolor. Dean Tavoularis's brilliant designed sets, built with slanting floors and surfaces, create an imaginary, compacted space in which the actors and objects seem to be thrusting out toward the camera; and the transitions between scenes, based on visual rhymes and elaborate wipes, effectively remove the orderly flow of normal film time. So making the film totally stylistic, to making the film a total magical dream, and of course in every case, the brilliant style has a reason and Preston Thomas Tucker in 1945 nearly set the auto industry on its ear and you will see how this futurist car designer was glad-handing, gregarious, passionately dedicated to his work, who was fired by the beauty of a new automobile ideas.
Jeff Bridges is just the right actor for the title role, capturing both Preston Thomas Tucker's relentless snappiness and the hints of disbelief that begin to show through his smile. Jeff Bridges gives Preston Thomas Tucker's optimism gives great charm, and then turns it into something genuinely heroic once it crashes head-on into the exigencies of American business. Preston Thomas Tucker shows us a man with boundless energy and exhilarating new design ideas and sadly became a casualty of the various corporate practices that interfered with his dream.
At one point in the film, we see Preston Thomas Tucker begins putting his futuristic design plans into effect and discovering the difficulty of actually putting his car into mass production. At a key point in this process, the film introduces him to a ghostly Howard Hughes [Dean Stockwell], whose Spruce Goose airplane hovers in the background, offering a hint of Preston Thomas Tucker's own future, that sadly is thwarted by the main evil American Automobile Companies. So without question, the ebullient, imaginative, brilliant, individualistic, hardworking Preston Thomas Tucker is more deserving of the quintessential “American Hero” designation, who at the time had it all: a “joie de vivre” that made everyone around him want to sing for joy, a similarly eccentric loving family with hearts as big as Texas, the imagination of a precocious child, and the hard driving intelligence of a man who wills himself to be the best.
Although one of Preston Thomas Tucker's many famous mottos is ''Don't let the future pass you by'' and the film suggests that this is exactly what happened to this American entrepreneur hero. The “Tucker Torpedo” automobile, looks so spectacular in the jubilant sequence that has Preston Thomas Tucker and several singing assistants unveiling a prototype to the press and media, later on becomes its most stirring image of Preston Thomas Tucker defeat from the big nasty American motor manufacturers and Preston Thomas Tucker and his men sadly must come to terms with their failure. But with director Francis Ford Coppola, he makes us see Preston Thomas Tucker very stirringly and honourable man. Who is always looking towards the future, and we finally celebrate his limited accomplishment and at the end of the film, we see the wonderful Preston Thomas Tucker “Tucker Torpedo” parade. And as to the actual “Tucker Torpedo” cars, and according to the film, kept their shine throughput the years and some of them are still around today. In fact, it states almost that all the “Tucker Torpedo” cars were still drivable nearly 40 years after production stop, calling to mind Preston Thomas Tucker's motto, "Buy a Tucker. Don't let the future pass you by!"
‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS' is the best thing that director Francis Ford Coppola has done in years. The film's cockeyed optimism, manifested by a visual style that makes everything look as brand spanking new and packed with so much promise as the “Tucker Torpedo” automobile itself, becomes something of a secret weapon. Just beneath that sunny, stylized exterior, to which Francis Ford Coppola characteristically gives much more emphasis than is really necessary, lies a story of disappointment and failure. And the film's compulsive jauntiness, instead of generating easy irony, gives the film a wistful, bittersweet edge. The old photographs of the real Preston Thomas Tucker that accompany the film's closing credits, seem especially moving tribute and homage to a man of futuristic automobile dreams. Although only fifty “Tucker Torpedo” automobiles were ever produced, forty-six of them are still on the road today. Preston Thomas Tucker’s innovations of aerodynamic styling, with padded dash, pop-out windows, seat belts, fuel injection and disc brakes; they were slowly adopted by Detroit and are found in cars you are driving now. Preston Thomas Tucker sadly dies six years after the trial from cancer of the lungs, due to his long term excessive cigarette smoking, but luckily his ideas will live forever.
TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS MUSIC TRACK LIST
RHYTHM DELIVERY (Written by Joe Jackson) [Performed by Joe Jackson]
TUCKER JINGLE (Music by Carmine Coppola) (Lyrics by Arnold Schulman)
WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME (Written by Louis Lambert) (Band arrangement by Mark Adler)
TIGER RAG (Written by Harry DeCosta, Edwin B. Edwards, D. James LaRocca, Anthony Sbarbaro and Larry Shields) [Performed by Joe Jackson]
TIGER RAG (Written by Harry DeCosta, Edwin B. Edwards, D. James LaRocca, Anthony Sbarbaro and Larry Shields) [Recorded by The Mills Brothers]
SONG OF INDIA (Written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov) (Arrangement by Bob Wilber)
THE MUSIC GOES ‘ROUND AND ‘ROUND (Music by Edward Farley and Mike Riley) (Lyrics by “Red” Hodgson)
LET THE REST OF THE WORLD GO BY (Written by Ernest R. Ball and J.K. Brennan)
Blu-ray Image Quality – LIONSGATE Home Entertainment brings us this brilliant Blu-ray disc with an outstanding 1080p Technicolor image presentation and again it is equally enhanced with a wonderful 2.40:1 aspect ratio, especially with this Blu-ray disc in a "new 4K restoration,” and this new transfer offers a really sumptuous filmic look, and the contrast is absolutely bang-on, with clean whites, pristine blacks and an astonishing level of fine detail revealed throughout the film, in fact it is a mind blowing experience. The film grain looks really good and there are no hints of edge enhancement and definitely no undue DNR [Digital Noise Reduction] applied and so in short, a totally reference quality Blu-ray disc, which is enhanced by the legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Although in certain scene sequences in the film are virtually dripping in a kind of honeyed amber colour, but with other scenes they are presented towards more cool blue tone colours. But overall, the detail level of image presentation is totally highest quality throughout the film. This Blu-ray disc presentation is very colourful and well detailed throughout the film, and my inclination is that fans of this film, and I am one of them ever since I saw it at the cinema, will be more than pleased with the look of this spectacular image transfer. Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – LIONSGATE Home Entertainment presents us with a wonderful 5.1 Dolby TrueHD Audio experience and features a very nice immersive sound presentation and one that produces a considerable amount of surround activity, especially from the sequences of scenes in the film that includes the racetrack scene where a “Tucker Torpedo” automobile is put through its paces, which is enhanced with the tunesmith Joe Jackson song. While I detected no dropouts, there are on several occasions where the dialogue is presented at such a low whispered hush I could barely discern it at regular listening levels. Also, there are a few instances where music and SFX seem to be competing against each other, and rather than augmenting the dialogue. For most part the 5.1 Dolby TrueHD Audio sounds is really, the only slightly negative aspect is when the actors talk very quiet, I had a job to hear what they were saying. Despite this, Francis Ford Coppola proves once again what an amazing perfectionist he is.
Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Audio Commentary with Director Francis Ford Coppola: Here Francis Ford Coppola introduces himself and to talk about his film ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS’ and in loving homage to Preston Thomas Tucker. Francis Ford Coppola also explains what he wanted to achieve by directing this film to give it the style and period of 1948. Despite people outside of the USA had never heard of Preston Thomas Tucker, but people in the USA had of the famous car maker, and the photos in the photo album actually shows you the young boy of Preston Thomas Tucker, but as the photos show a more adult man, they of course have the photo doctored with the head of Jeff Bridges in them. Francis Ford Coppola says that Preston Thomas Tucker was a very popular man, always had a smile, liked girls, and children, and most of all was liked by all who came into contact with him a lot, and the Director thought Jeff bridges was so ideal for the character he portrayed in the film, because he showed what Preston Thomas Tucker was like in real life. It is a true story that Preston Thomas Tucker saw a magazine and the advert for pre-fabricated houses, and thought this was the only way to advert in America for his “Tucker Torpedo” automobile of the future, and after that, he got hundreds of letters from people wanting his car of the future to be sold to the public. When you see the meeting with lots of executives and were made to eat very rare meat and watch the slides of the car crashed victims of people very badly injured and possibly dead, so Preston Thomas Tucker tells that that ordinary American cars were unsafe, whereas his “Tucker Torpedo” would have lots of innovative safety features and at that point we see the men throwing up, and again this really happened, and of course the big American car corporations were very unhappy in hearing all about this meeting with Preston Thomas Tucker, which of course without realising it, was the start of Preston Thomas Tucker’s downfall and not allowing him to mass produce his “Torpedo Tucker” automobile. When everyone is listening to the radio in the Tucker household and they hear the radio announcer talking about the “Tucker Torpedo,” well this is actually the actor Martin Landau. Francis Ford Coppola informs us that the 40 surviving “Tucker Torpedo” automobiles are said to be worth roughly $500,000, but in August 2010 Tucker #1045 sold for $1.127 million while Tucker #1043 went for $2.915 million at auction in 2012. Francis Ford Coppola gives great praise to cinematographer Vittorio Storaro on how he was able to make each scene look so beautiful and natural, especially in evoking the look of the period of 1948. Francis Ford Coppola contacted the director Frank Capra to hopefully help to make the ‘TUCKER’ film, and so Francis Ford Coppola sent him the screenplay and sent it back in saying he did not like the synopsis and no way wants to help make the film, so Francis Ford Coppola asked hi the reason why, and Frank Capra replied back in saying that Preston Thomas Tucker in the end loses and in the end was not able to make any more automobiles, and despite the fact that Frank Capra liked the screenplay. Through lots of trials and tribulations, Francis Ford Coppola nearly gave up in total frustration, but when his son Gian-Carlo Coppola (1963 – 1986) was washing their own “Tucker Torpedo,” it suddenly galvanized Francis Ford Coppola to pursue his dream of making the film when the musical was abandoned and to the recuse was George Lucas when he heard about all the frustrations that Francis Ford Coppola was up against, on top of all that, in the process the surviving Tucker family were contacted and were very keen to have the film made and gave all the relevant information so that Francis Ford Coppola could make the film and was totally grateful and on top of that the Tucker family was keen to have the film made, so people could hear about the American unsung hero who had a dream. So ends a really great and informative audio commentary from Francis Ford Coppola and you really get to feel the love from the director for Preston Thomas Tucker and the reason he wanted to make the film and is totally proud to have had the privilege to make the film.
Special Feature: Francis Ford Coppola Introduction [2018] [1080p] [1.78:1] [3:39] Here we are presented to a really nice introduction by the legendary director Francis Ford Coppola discussing his long history with this project for his film ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS.’ We also find out that when he was a young man growing up and talks about his Father who was so excited about the “Tucker Torpedo” automobile and was keen to purchase one, even though his Father had to put an upfront payment of $5,000 to secure the first one, and that was a very lot of money for the Coppola family, but because of the court case and the TUCKER Organisation was wound up, the Coppola family did not secure a car and even lost his $5,000. Francis Ford Coppola was interested in making a film musical about the TUCKER Organisation and invited Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Leonard Bernstein to his Napper Valley home, but had to abandon the project because of problems, so George Lucas heard about the project and said he would help him to make a non-musical film and finally Francis Ford Coppola made his dream come true. We also see Francis Ford Coppola does this introduction in front of a vintage “Tucker Torpedo” and we also get to see some brief looks at the car and it’s interior. As this short introduction comes to an end, Francis Ford Coppola says, “So this is ‘TUCKER’ the movie very much from my heart, where people have said you are sort of like Tucker, because you are always bucking the system and trying to reach for innovation and sometimes failing. Failure, really, is just as valuable an experience, as success, and even though the “Tucker Torpedo” failed, it still lives on in many ideas that did come true. This is ‘TUCKER,’ a film that I really love and that many people who love the “Tucker Torpedo,” love as well, thank you.
Special Feature: Deleted Scene [Scene 142 Store Sequence] [1998] [480i] [2.40:1] [4:11] Here we are presented with some fairly atrocious shoddy looking videotape presentation and also some really bad audio tracking problems. As usual, you have a choice of just viewing the deleted scene or alternative viewing it with an audio commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola, who informs us that he loved this scene and cannot remember why this scene did not appear in the film, but overall he explains in detail what you are viewing and what is going on.
Special Feature: Under The Hood: Making ‘TUCKER’ [1998] [1080p] [1.78:1] [10:02] This is a fairly newly-created American Zoetrope special feature documentary and we are informed that when putting together the ‘TUCKER’ DVD, they discovered interviews with the filmmakers and cast shot in 1998. They assembled the following short program from these “lost tapes.” But with these interviews, we also get to view some nice black-and-white images of the TUCKER Organisation, as well as some very rare 8mm film footage, especially relating to the “Tucker Torpedo” car and the family, as well as other clips from that period in which the film was portrayed. We are accompanied by some well-chosen behind-the-scene shots taken during the production of the film; and I especially enjoyed being able to see the friendly interaction between Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas apparently shot during the editing of the film as well as a plethora of clips from the film. Despite its brief length, the documentary offers a really nice look at the film and its creation and was a really enjoyable experience. Contributors include: Francis Ford Coppola [Director], Joan Allen [Vera Tucker], Jeff Bridges [Preston Thomas Tucker], Francis Ford Coppola [Director] and Martin Landau [Abe Karatz].
Special Feature: Tucker: The man and the car [1948] [1080i] [1.33:1] [14:54] This special promotional film was made by the Public Relations Department from that era as it touts the innovative product of the “Tucker Torpedo” made by Preston Thomas Tucker and it also provides a modest look at his life in 1948 and also shows off his mobile Tucker 'Tiger' Tank with a gun turret and air conditioning that could travel at 120 mph, but sadly it did not sell, as the U.S. Army considered it "too fast" in 1940 and preferred much slower tanks. This promotional film documentary can also be viewed with the audio commentary from Francis Ford Coppola and his remarks make the cool historical feature even more interesting. Francis Ford Coppola also relates additional details about Preston Thomas Tucker and the era plus Francis Ford Coppola talks about how "Tucker: The Man and The Car" influenced parts of the ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS’ film. This special feature documentary has an optional audio commentary by director Francis Ford Coppola who touches on some of his thoughts about what the director of the promotional film originally wanted to promote the “Tucker Torpedo” automobile. This is a very nice and welcome addition to this brilliant Blu-ray disc.
Special Feature: Bookmarks: With this feature, you can bookmark your favourite scenes in the film for future viewing. When eventually you do not require these bookmarks, you can eventually delete them.
Finally, ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS' shows us that Oscar winner Jeff Bridges is the perfect actor to bring Preston Thomas Tucker to life via the silver screen, and Joan Allen is also totally perfect companion as his sparky wife Vera Tucker. It is also very interesting in giving the actor Christian Slater’s first big break into the world of cinema, which plays Preston Tucker, Jr. as Preston Thomas Tucker’s son. The other exceptional performance is delivered by the brilliant Martin Landau, who was nominated for an Oscar as best supporting actor and won the Golden Globe and Chicago Film Critics award in that category and plays Abe Karatz, who was the earliest investor in Preston Thomas Tucker’s venture and who single minded in time goes by becomes his best friend and confidant to Preston Thomas Tucker and his whole family. I consider ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS' to be the ultimate magical film you will ever experience and provides a solid entertaining and compelling look at a largely-forgotten automotive pioneer. Despite some flaws in its story-telling, the film works due to a terrific sense of visual energy and some excellent and professional acting. This Blu-ray disc offers a terrific picture, surprisingly bold audio, and some fine extras. The film ‘TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAMS' definitely merits your attention. Very Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
