Director Lee Grant explores one of Hollywood's most legendary families with her poignant, occasionally maudlin and ever so slightly too laudatory documentary A Father ... A Son ... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Kirk Douglas, the blue-eyed, cleft-chinned matinee idol of Hollywood's Golden Age and his son, Michael, a movie star and acclaimed producer in his own right, sit for candid joint and solo interviews that serve as sort of parallel biographies, charting the highs and lows of both men's careers.

In addition to Michael and Kirk, nearly every member of the extended Douglas family sits to reminisce, as well as the likes of former MPAA president Jack Valenti, Paramount CEO Sherry Lansing, "Rolling Stone" publisher Jann Wenner, "Rolling Stone" film critic Peter Travers, composer Jimmy Webb and Douglas' wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones - with a wealth of interview footage to draw from, Grant also utilizes a copious amount of skillfully edited clips from Kirk and Michael's prodigious film careers, from Spartacus to Wall Street.

While it would seem that A Father ... A Son ... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood would be a great opportunity for the Douglas clan to really explore and confront some of the more sordid and unfortunate episodes in their past, Grant's documentary feels more like a gooey, professionally made valentine to the Douglas family, as it tends to skim the surface of ugly truths and doesn't delve too deeply into painful past experiences.

The Video:

The biggest disappointment of A Father ... A Son ... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood arriving on disc is its abysmal 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Horribly smeary, possibly misframed (or at the very least, a poor job of converting fullscreen material to widescreen - there are dates, names and titles cut off at the bottom of the screen) and generally very soft, this is a very unsatisfying transfer of what should be fairly easy material.

A film built upon numerous interviews, A Father ... A Son ... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sounds just fine with its Dolby 2.0 stereo soundtrack. The considerable amount of archival footage varies in quality but there are no instances of distortion or drop-out. A Spanish Dolby 2.0 track is also included.

In lieu of a commentary track, director Lee Grant sits for a 15 minute interview about her film; also on board is a seven minute interview with longtime Douglas family friend Danny DeVito (curiously absent from the finished product); a four minute "Tribute to Eric Douglas"; four minutes of "Douglas Family Home Movies"; the two minute, 25 second featurette "Kirk In Hollywood"; three minutes, 18 seconds of "Kirk and Anne Douglas' Renewed Wedding Vows" and rounding out the disc, two minutes of footage from the HBO premiere party for Grant's documentary."

While it's enjoyable that both Douglas men sat for relatively candid interviews, Lee Grant's documentary A Father ... A Son ... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is fluffy and inconsequential, missing some opportunities to delve into some scandal. Fans of the Douglas clan will delight in the film, but everyone else would do well with a rental.