Home Entertainment : Happy Look at the Fun in ‘Doubtfire’

If you want to see how a great comedic actor creates, inhabits and brings a new character to life, you won’t find a better example than the recently released Widescreen Collector’s Edition of “Mrs. Doubtfire” (Fox Video/Image Entertainment, $100).

Happily, director Chris Columbus is a laser-disc fanatic and inspired a three-disc set that captures Robin Williams’ free spirit and the seriousness that forms the basis of his freewheeling comedy. A big surprise is how intense Williams can be when discussing the art of his manic craftsmanship.

Not surprisingly, the highlight of this wide-screen THX sound and picture edition lies in watching Mrs. Doubtfire emerge from under the latex, girdles and sensible wardrobe that encase the actor.

Says Columbus, “That look took really one Saturday to perfect.” And the particular joy of this set lies in being there that Saturday. We see from a videotape test how the actor metamorphosed into the wise, witty “woman” who transformed himself and his family, including estranged wife Sally Field, in the process.

As Dustin Hoffman discovered playing “Tootsie,” Williams found everyone on the set accepting and relating to him as the redoubtable Mrs. Doubtfire and no longer as the actor Williams.

“The best part of it was to play someone completely unlike myself,” Williams confesses in some surprisingly serious moments of on-camera interviews. He loved playing the role because it allowed him “to be totally freed up, like playing the Genie in ‘Aladdin.’ ”

But there was a script that, Columbus explains, went through several drafts and ended up being the starting point in dealing with an actor of Williams’ improvisational brilliance.

Harvey Fierstein, who plays Williams’ gay brother, explains that Columbus told the actors they had to do a scene “once the way it’s written--then you have an hour to do what you want.” Columbus would then take the 12 to 15 takes he would end up with and pick the best parts for the final edit.

This laser edition also offers, beyond a pristine print of one of the most popular films of 1993, a delightful collection of 30 minutes of edited scenes deleted from the theatrical release. The running gag featuring Williams conning his busybody neighbor into watering her “babies,” her prize plants, with a mixture of urine and other sure-fire killers, is as funny as any of the scenes kept in the movie.

For anyone who’s bemoaned the time it takes a female to apply makeup, watching the three-to-four-hour process of applying eight overlapping layers of foam latex appliances to turn out milady Doubtfire, and the hour it takes to take her apart is something to behold with a mixture of amusement and fear.

Also included is an interview with legendary animator Chuck Jones, who created the cartoon characters to which Williams gives voice-over life at the beginning of the film, including many that never made it to the screen.

There are also storyboards, animation pencil tests, production stills, the shooting script, trailers and TV spots, plus Columbus’ informative running commentary on an analog soundtrack and a four-color brochure with brief bios of all the principal players and not much else. When will laser-disc producers remember to include more pertinent information in chapter stops and liner notes?