1982's Partners is another one of those movies that I always saw on video store shelves but knew very little else about- this had Ryan O'Neal on the front cover pointing a gun at his head, and it's only now looking at this Blu-Ray cover that I see John Hurt is holding a hairdryer and not another gun. Finally watching the movie, my first impression was that it was a sort of comedic take on Cruising, and looking up reviews afterwards it seems many others also thought so. A gay model in Los Angeles has been murdered with others being threatened, and the police department is being accused of "sexism" since the killer hasn't been caught, so Chief Wilkins (Kenneth McMillan) enlists Sgt. Benson (O'Neal) and Officer Fred Kerwin (John Hurt) to conduct an investigation. The movie starts with the two of them waiting outside the Chief's office, and we know right away that there's something different about Kerwin because the female secretary bends over right next to him to look in some files and he doesn't check her out at all. Isn't everyone supposed to do that?

Chief Wilkins wants the two of them to live together as a gay couple and "infiltrate the gay community" and picks Benson because he has the right looks and Kerwin because he obviously really is gay even though he's tried to hide it from everyone. They even get the perfect car for the job- a pink Volkswagen Beetle. They proceed to move into a fancy apartment where the previous victim had lived, managed and populated entirely by other gay men. Kerwin gets a little too much into his "role" as he immediately becomes obsessed with housekeeping, ironing his partner's underwear and cooking food, while Benson initially just keeps thinking "I can't believe I'm doing this!" Benson seems to do the most work of the two also, being forced to pick up friends of the victim in hopes of finding info (one of whom leads him to a naked swim in the ocean at night) and in the ultimate humiliation, modeling nude for "Man's Man" magazine where the victim had appeared right before being murdered (hoping that this will attract the killer to him.)

There's more gay stereotypes than anyone could possibly count here, most obviously the color pink. Directed by TV sitcom veteran James Burrows (his only theatrical film to date) and written by Francis Veber (whose credits include the two La Cage Aux Folles movies which inspired the American comedy The Birdcage), the goings-on get quite silly (mostly with Benson's cringing at having to wear, say or do things but going through with them anyway) but the two leads pull it off with plenty of laughs which could have easily fallen flat if played differently. Of course the passage of more than 30 years has helped the movie also, as it focuses on a lifestyle that's largely accepted now but mostly ridiculed by the mainstream back then (I'm suddenly reminded of the running gag in the first Police Academy with characters accidentally ending up in a gay bar, as if it were a fate worse than death.)

I don't know how many people were clamoring for this movie on Blu-Ray (it was previously released on DVD from Legend Films), but it gets a great presentation here, framed at full-screen 16x9 with film grain intact and no digital tampering, looking just how a new 35mm print would properly focused- nothing more and nothing less. While the photography itself isn't really anything special, plenty of detail shows through that would have been blurred in standard-def and presents a great case for upgrading just about any movie to Blu-Ray that hasn't already been.

The mono sound mix is encoded here in 2-channel DTS Master Audio (with the disc authored to output as PCM) and itself is unremarkable as most comedies of this era were, but aside from some very slight distortion in early scenes it's clean and noise-free.

Partners wasn't too well-received upon its release, but it holds up well now as a look back to fairly recent but different times. My only real criticism seeing it now is that Kerwin wasn't really given his share of police work to do, with Benson getting most of the laughs just because he's forced to act gay so much but ultimately gains compassion as a result. The presentation of the movie on this Blu-Ray disc is beyond what would have been expected, and with Paramount not showing much interest in releasing their catalog titles at all these days it's great to see Olive taking charge and putting them out. If you're a fan of Partners you owe it to yourself to buy this Blu-Ray release as you've likely never seen it look this great.

Jesse Skeen is a life-long obsessive media collector (with an unhealthy preoccupation with obsolete and failed formats) and former theater film projectionist. He enjoys watching movies and strives for presenting them perfectly, but lacks the talent to make his own.