Mar 4, 2010

If Looks Could Kill Comes To DVD At Long Last

Thirsting for early 90s Richard Grieco spy action?  Thought so!  Good news, then.  If Looks Could Kill (known overseas as Teen Agent) is  at long last available on DVD via Warner Archives, just in time for its 19th Anniversary.  (I can't believe it's been so long.) The good news is that Warner has modified their Archive artwork to look like a regular DVD cover, losing the blue template.  The bad news is bad: the Warner Archives website list this as a 16x9 Fullscreen release.  I'm hoping that's an error, because the movie was originally released in 1.85:1 and I don't know of any other instance of Warner Archive putting out a movie in the wrong aspect ratio... then again I only have about ten of the hundreds and hundreds of titles they've put out so far, so maybe it happens a lot.  At any rate, If Looks Could Kill is one of my favorite spy guilty pleasures... maybe because it came out at just the right time for me, when I was a middle school James Bond fan.  Or maybe because it came during that interminable gap between Licence To Kill and GoldenEye when real spy movies were hard to come by.  Or maybe because Gabrielle Anwar was so hot (and still is, on Burn Notice).  Or maybe because of the French Teacher.  Whatever it was, I think this is a rare case where the studio's copy actually describes the movie best (remember, people, 1990 was still essentially the Eighties!):
Check it out! Who’s that tuxedoed dude in the awesome cherry-red machine? Make way, Bill and Ted: here comes Richard Grieco is his very own excellent adventure. Grieco (Mobsters, TV’s 21 Jump Street, Booker) plays “teen agent” Michael Corben in If Looks Could Kill, a bodaciously funny spy spoof also starring Linda Hunt, Roger Rees and Gabrielle Anwar. It’s an adventure that’s stylin’ from the start. Needing a class credit for graduation, Michael goes to Europe with the French Club for what he hopes will be a breezin’ babe safari. Instead, he’s mistaken for a top superspy, loaded up with lots of righteous espionage gear and given a totally cool car. He’s having the time of someone else’s life. Now all he has to do is save Europe and graduate from high school. No problem.
Is it weird that I've actualy been secretly longing to post exactly this news since I started this blog?  I honestly always hoped I'd be posting a news item about If Looks Could Kill coming to DVD...

4 comments:

Steve L said...

On the page you link to in your post, there is a link to preview the film quality and it appears to be in widescreen (maybe "full frame" is their way of saying it won't be anamorphic, or maybe they mean full frame... on a widescreen TV!).

Caine said...

My favorite line:
"Come on, double your pleasure, double your fun." from Corbin as he's trying to get a bad guy to step on a piece of explosive made to look like a stick of gum (or something to that effect).

Great movie.

Tanner said...

Ha! Yeah, I remember that. My favorite line was always, "You are... THE FRENCH TEACHER."

Thanks for the update, Steve! I should have checked that out. I'm really, REALLY glad to hear it appears to be widescreen. Maybe their listing is simply an error.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for letting me feel old. I was freakin' 30 when this movie came out. Nonetheless, thank God Warners is getting rid of those hideous
blue dvd archive covers.