Martin Short Double Feature: Cross My Heart / Pure Luck Blu-ray review

Jun 14, 2022- Permalink

Mill Creek Entertainment has released another actor-focused double feature. This time around the subject is Martin Short, so if you want to see him as a leading man this set will do just fine. It features Cross My Heart from 1987 and 1991’s Pure Luck. I had a chance to review the Martin Short Double Feature: Cross My Heart / Pure Luck Blu-ray early so let’s take a look.

1987’s Cross My Heart stars Short and Annette O’Toole as David and Kathy, a pair that is stressing over the “all-important” third date. The budding romance seems to be going well, except maybe they’ve told some white lies along the way. She doesn’t know he’s been recently fired and he’s unaware that she smokes and has a 7-year-old. Things start to go bad on the date and when they head back to David’s apartment – another lie, it’s his friend’s (Paul Reiser) – they have to decide if they can share the truth with each other.

In Pure Luck, a remake of the 1981 French film Le Chevre, an accident prone women, Valerie (Sheila Kelley), disappears in Mexico without a trace. Her wealthy father (Sam Wanamaker) hires investigator Raymond Campanella (Danny Glover) to track her down but the trail is cold. The company shrink (Harry Shearer) has an unorthodox solution: have someone as unlucky as Valerie work with the private eye and they might just stumble on her location. That’s where Short comes in and the slapstick begins.

On the video side of things, the two movies share a single Blu-ray disc. The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfers are presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Both films appear to come from older scans of their source material. They’re not the sharpest looking Blu-rays out there, with fine details in facial features and textiles missing. Of the two, Cross My Heart seems to have the better transfer, with slightly more detail and a more realistic colour palette.

On the audio side of things, both discs come with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 soundtrack with subtitles available for English SDH. The stereo tracks present the dialogue in both with good clarity and prioritization in the mix. The scores sound good as do the atmospheric effects.

As for extras, this double feature does not come with digital code nor any bonus materials.

The Martin Short Double Feature: Cross My Heart / Pure Luck Blu-ray may not be the prettiest Blu-ray on the block, but it does give a glimpse of the period of Short’s career where he was considered to be a leading man. I commend Mill Creek Entertainment for finding films like these, that may otherwise have been passed over for Blu-ray releases, and giving them a home in the format. These are two enjoyable Short films, with the chemistry of Short and O’Toole giving Cross My Heart a slight edge. If you’re a fan of Short, I think you’ll enjoy this release.