Review of For the Love of Ivy

Introduction

Ivy Moore (Abbey Lincoln) is a housemaid for the Austin family, having been working for them for the past 9 years. She’s almost part of the family so when she announces that she wants to leave for the big city the family want to do whatever it takes to make Ivy stay. Realising that Ivy wants more of a life for herself the son, Tim Austin (a young Beau Bridges), decides to try and set her up with Jack Parks (Sydney Poitier), an eligible bachelor whom he thinks would be perfect for Ivy.

Billed as a Comedy this 1968 movie is best described as a vehicle for Sidney Poitier and is packed full of opportunities for Mr.Poitier to pose and look cool.

Video

This non-anamorphic letterbox transfer might have got a favourable few comments as the colours and sharpness are pretty good. I say might because it’s all totally ruined by some of the worst print damage I’ve ever seen on a disc. With little white flecks popping up all over the screen throughout the movie this really is awful stuff.

Audio

A mono soundtrack is unimpressive enough but with the constant background hiss and generally muffled audio this accompanies the appalling picture perfectly.

Features

The extras consist of some biographies and trivia presented as text on the screen. I personally never bother with these sorts of extras, if I wanted to read a book I wouldn’t be watching a DVD.

Conclusion

So this is what movie making was about in the sixties? Makes me damn glad I wasn’t born until the seventies to be perfectly frank. Being billed as a comedy I expected at least some sort of amusement but alas I didn’t even raise a smile. The concept of humour can’t have altered that radically in the past 30 years so this leaves me to surmise that this is simply not a funny movie.

The cultural setting flew way over my head and the dialogue, whilst relevant and probably ‘hip’ at the time, is hackneyed and clichéd by today’s standards. I suppose I shouldn’t complain about the cultural setting as times change but the music was suitable awful as well.

The characters appear stiff and lifeless and the dialogue stifled. In a movie centred around the relationship between two people you need some sort of chemistry and this is sadly absent here, along with pretty much everything else. The character of Ivy just comes across as impossible to read and empathise with whilst Poitier seems incredibly insincere and also impossible to read. There seem to be far too many close-up opportunities for Mr.Poitier as well, yes he’s the star of the movie but it’s totally overdone.

With a 101 minute running time it’s a very slow and drawn out affair that failed to entertain me on any level whatsoever. Add to that possibly the poorest quality disc I’ve ever watched and this is one to avoid like the plague.