20th Century Fox's Cinema Archives brings us yet another long-unseen movie, Alan Arkin's Fire Sale from 1977. A dark comedy written by Robert Klane (who had previously given us Where's Poppa? and would later bring the world Weekend at Bernie's and its sequel), Arkin both directs and stars as Ezra Fikus, a high school basketball coach who isn't very well-liked as his teams have so far had "two wins and 147 losses." His coaching career is understandably on the rocks, and meanwhile his wife Marion (Anjanette Comer) is going nuts from their inability to have a child. Ezra's dad Benny (Vincent Gardenia) owns a department store in town- originally called "Fikus and Sons" but is now only "Fikus and Son" with the ending "S" on the store sign and everywhere else the name appears crossed out or erased, as Ezra left the business years ago. The only son still there is neurotic Russel (Rob Reiner) who mostly stays under his dad's control. Fikus and Son however is on the verge of going out of business, as it has been stocking outdated merchandise that nobody wants. Benny has a sure-fire way of retiring though- his only valuable asset at the store is the fire insurance policy, and he's enlisted his crazy brother-in-law Sherman (Sid Caesar) to literally burn the store down so he can collect on the insurance proceeds. Sherman is a long-term patient at a veterans' hospital and thinks that World War II is still going on- Benny tells him that the store is actually "German Headquarters" and he'll help win the war if he sets it on fire.

So far so good? Well, Russel ends up having to run the store on his own for a while, as his dad first heads out on a trip to Miami with his nagging wife Ruth (Kay Medford) only to pass out from a heart attack at a Howard Johnson's on the way there and ends up back home in bed incapacitated. Russel's friend Al (Alex Rocco) hooks the store up with some fresh new merchandise that brings in customers and picks up business, but he has to be paid right away in cash- and Russel decides that, since the store has never had a fire in several decades, he can just cash in the fire insurance policy to pay for it. Resulting is a true comedy of errors, with a hilarious sub-plot where Ezra tries to fulfill his wife's dream of having a child and get a winning player for his basketball team by adopting 16-year old street basketball dynamo "Captain" (Byron Stewart, who went on to a role on the TV series "The White Shadow" from his performance here).

Fire Sale was not too well-reviewed when it debuted in theaters, and wasn't seen much afterwards as it never had a home video release until now. Looking at it a few decades later though, it's pretty easy to forgive its faults and appreciate its sheer lunacy. How can you not love a movie that has TWO "wife from hell" characters- Kay Medford's Ruth, who constantly nags Benny and later plans for his burial and funeral while he's still alive, and Anjanette Comer's Marion who calls Ezra from inside their refrigerator announcing her suicide from being unable to have kids, and later treating their large (and black) adopted teenage son like an infant? It's fun to see Rob Reiner play such an insecure and largely incompetent character as well, an opposite from his usual roles. Many disliked this movie just for its rather unpleasant situations, but they're played out so well that you can't help but laugh at them if this is your type of humor. The 70s-era scenery (such as the Howard Johnson's restaurant, which was everywhere back then) and fashions are always fun too, with a funky musical score by Dave Gruisin.

Fox brings us Fire Sale with a very clean transfer at the proper 1.85 ratio. There were no obvious dirt or scratches, details were sharp with some film grain in darker scenes. If the movie had been locked up for so long, at least it was well taken care of.

The mono sound mix is in 2-channel Dolby Digital and also sounds very clean given that sound was not a big priority for movies of this type back then. Most of the dialogue is clear, which is good since there are no subtitles or captions included to help you out.

A 3-minute theatrical trailer is included (in 4x3 open-matte) which is rather unconventional- rather than include scenes from the movie, comic actor Roger Bowen wanders around the set during shooting asking the cast's opinions of the film and Alan Arkin. Vincent Gardenia comments that Arkin's directing is "more like fettuccini than Fellini." As with Fox's other DVD-R releases, the movie is automatically chaptered every ten minutes rather than organized by scene.

Fire Sale has been one of those movies that a few people remember and have been looking for, and although it would have been a natural early home video release it's been missing in action until now. At least the presentation quality here is far better than what you would have gotten back then. I especially enjoyed seeing this after recently watching Alan Arkin in Improper Channels, another comedy about unpleasant situations that is rather dated. In both he is the sanest person in a world of insanity. That one has never been on DVD, and since MGM owns the rights to that now it would also make a good candidate for a DVD-R release.

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.