Pat Kramer (Lily Tomlin) is just your average suburban housewife. She has a great relationship with her husband Vance (Charles Grodin), and helping her out with the household chores is Spanish-speaking maid Concepcion (Maria Smith). When Pat is not dealing with her sometimes unruly children, she’s hanging out with best friend/neighbor Judith Beasley (also played by Tomlin).

One evening, when Vance returns from a business trip, he brings home a sample of a new perfume he’s been working on in the lab. Pat accidentally spills a large amount on her self and it starts to sting a bit. She cleans it off and forgets about it. However, the next morning when she wakes up, she’s inexplicably a few inches shorter. As the days go by, she continues to slowly shrink. The doctors examine her, but the can’t explain what’s going on. Pat tries to make the best of her situation, and continues on with life as usual, but as her story spreads she starts to become a celebrity, and keeping an intimate relationship with her husband is becoming increasingly more difficult. Meanwhile, some scientists and greedy capitalists (Ned Beatty, Henry Gibson, John Glover) plot to kidnap Pat to study her condition and use her blood to create shrinking potion of their own.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman is part comedy/part social commentary on the ideas of pollution, consumerism and corporate greed. Lily Tomlin gives an entertaining performance as the constantly upbeat Pat, who tries to make the best of her bad situation. Tomlin not only has perfect timing while delivering her comedic lines, but she’s also great with the moments of physical humor. I initially found her character of Mrs. Beasley to be a little confusing. She looks almost identical to Pat, so I assumed there was some relation between these two characters. But, apparently, Judith Beasley was a character Lily Tomlin played in her one-woman Broadway show. Some of Tomlin’s other characters, like the Telephone Operator and Edith Ann also appear in the film, though the lattaboer ended up on the cutting room floor and can only be seen in the included deleted scene. Charles Grodin also gives a delightful, performance, playing well off of Tomlin, and providing some really fun moments as the exasperated husband who is also trying to make the best of this bad situation.

Despite the film being over 36 years old, the special effects are actually still quite impressive and hold up well. Whether they are utilizing oversized sets/props or camera effects, you really believe that Pat is actually shrinking and in her own tiny little world. Special effects wizard Rick Baker also appears in the film, playing gorilla Sidney, who feels both real, but also quite human with his expressions. There wasn’t any green screen use, instead the effects were primarily done using process photography. With this technique, the background is filmed first, and then the actor performs in front of a screen where this footage is being projected. While this method is effective, the one downside is that you are in effect making a copy of a copy of that background footage, which can lead to some picture degradation.

Shout! Factory has created a brand new high-definition transfer for this Blu-ray release, but before the film begins there is a bit of a disclaimer stating that they have utilized the best elements provided to them. The overall picture quality is a mixed bag, ranging from pretty awful to quite good. As the film opens, there is a heavy amount of film grain and the picture looks all washed out. Once the credits are finished, things clean up a bit, but this hazy picture and heavy grain returns occasionally throughout the film. Other times, the picture looks almost immaculate, with a much more pleasant amount of film grain. The Blu-ray’s mono audio track provides clear dialogue, and the Galaxy Glue jingle will easily get stuck in your head for days, but the track doesn’t provide the immersive movie experience of more modern film soundtracks.

Where Shout! Factory’s new Collector’s Edition Shout Select Blu-ray really shines is with its solid selection of bonus material. There is over 90 minutes of brand new retrospective interviews with star Lily Tomlin, writer/executive producer Jane Wagner, director Joel Schumacher, cinematographer/visual effects supervisor Bruce Logan, and composer Suzanne Ciani. Plus there’s a quick look at the filming locations then and now, a deleted scene, the theatrical trailer, and a still photo gallery. It’s excellent to see all this brand new supplemental material for an older film—this is sure to please any fan of the movie, and easily makes up for the sometimes lackluster visual presentation.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman is spine #34 in Shout! Factory’s Shout Select line of Blu-rays. The disc comes packed in a standard HD keepcase.

What’s Included:
Film: (1:29:16)

• 1080p / Widescreen 1.85:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
• Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

• A Conversation with Actress Lily Tomlin and Writer/Executive Producer Jane Wagner (26:29)
  In this brand new featurette, the women discuss the film’s premise, how the project came about, the political layer of the film that was cut out after the first draft (which was originally planned for director John Landis), bringing in some of Lily Tomlin’s other characters such as Ernestine & Judith Beasley, working with Rick Baker and Sydney the ape, working with Charles Grodin, Ned Beatty and director Joel Schumacher, the effects/props, the music and more.
  
• Interview with Director Joel Schumacher (28:17)
  In this brand new featurette, the director talks about his early career in fashion and how he got into the movies, working with Lily Tomlin, his changes to the script, the production design, the visual effects, bringing in some of Lily’s Broadway characters, Sydney the gorilla, working with composer Suzanne Ciani, and more.
• Interview with Cinematographer and Visual Effects Supervisor Bruce Logan (23:23)
  In this brand new featurette, the cinematographer/visual effects supervisor discusses how he prepared/researched for taking on both roles, and get into the technical aspects of how specific scenes/effects were done and some of the challenges he faced. He describes the heavily-utilized technique of process photography process and how this re-filming process can degrade and lower the overall picture quality. He also talks about filming the scenes with both Pat and Mrs. Beasley, and what it was like working with director Joel Schumacher. The featurette also includes some behind-the-scenes photos.
• Audio interview with Composer Suzanne Ciani (24:53)
  In this brand new audio featurette, the composer talks about how she got the job of scoring the film, and what the process was like composing and recording the score and jingles.
• On Location: Now and Then Featurette (3:06)
  This brand new featurette includes a montage of scenes from the film along with footage of what the same locations look like today. Takes a look at Tasty Meadows, the Kleinman Institute and the supermarket, all set to the Galaxy Glue jingle.
• “Edith Ann” Deleted Scene (1:04)
  In this humorous deleted scene, Lily Tomlin’s character of Edith Ann is interviewed by an increasingly frustrated Doctor Ruth.
• Theatrical Trailer (2:30)
• Still Gallery (5:13)
  Behind-the-scenes/production photo slideshow that auto-advances every 5 seconds.

Final Thoughts:

The Incredible Shrinking Woman is a fun piece of cinematic history that still holds up quite well today. The film showcases Lily Tomlin’s talents, and features a great supporting cast. Shout! Factory’s Blu-ray release contains an inconsistent video presentation, but this was due to the limitations of the source elements. The excellent assortment of brand new bonus material included on the disc easily makes up for this, and I’m happy they released this title. The bonus features alone are sure to please any fan of the film, and so this is definitely recommended.