My Favorite Flicks by Nick Zegarac

THE BEST OF BETTE

Often referred to as the 'fifth' Warner Brother, Bette Davis was a powerhouse to behold. She frequently defied studio edicts, demanded better scripts and costars (and received both - sometimes after walking out on her contractual obligations) and generally made a nuisance of herself with the big bosses. It is rumored that Jack Warner once hid in the men's room just to have a bit of peace and quiet when he saw Bette coming toward his office.

But oh, to what effect on celluloid. 'Force of nature' seems grossly inadequate to summarize her film legacy. The films contained in this review do, by no means, provide a complete summary of Bette's formidable body of work. But they do represent some of Davis' most sought after and fondly remembered performances, and perhaps, a few forgotten gems. In the final analysis we are left with Bette Davis - the actress, the woman, the legend.

For a complete history on Davis' career in films, download Nick Zegarac's 'All About Bette' here: Download stars_bette_davis_all_about_bette.pdf 

Based on Robert E. Sherwood's Broadway blockbuster, The Petrified Forest (1936) is basically two acts of melodrama with a crime thriller finish. It stars Leslie Howard as cockeyed idealist, Alan Squier. Alan arrives at the ramshackle oasis of Maple Service Station - a little bit of nothing presided over by Jason Maple (Porter Hall) and his drunken grandpa (Charles Grapewin). Fat Paula (Nina Campana) rounds out the motley crew in charge of eats and gas at this filling station in the middle of nowhere.

The one sparkling jewel amidst the dessert heat is waitress, Gabby Maple (Betty Davis). She's just as cockeyed as Alan, aspiring to study art in Paris. After much lamentation - most of it needless, Gabby persuades a visiting couple, the Chisholms (Paul Harvey and Genevieve Tobin) to give Alan a ride to California. However, plans take a turn for the worst when everyone is forced to spend the night captive at the hands of ruthless prison escapee, Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart in a breakout performance of immense intensity).

After some high stakes threats and more than a bit of action, Alan creates the circumstances by which Gabby's aspirations for a better life will flourish. What elevates this minor bit of tripe from its humble roots are the brilliant performances by Davis and Bogart. Bogart, in particular, is menacing in a reserved sort of restraint. Although he rarely is animated, he always seems capable of becoming completely unhinged.

Warner Home Video’s newly mastered DVD is a impressive. The gray scale has been impeccably rendered. Though blacks are soft and somewhat more deep gray than black, overall contrast levels are superb. Whites are clean. Occasionally there is a bit more film grain than one would like, but the image is a definite improvement. The audio is mono but nicely represented with minimal background distortion and hiss. A competent commentary by Eric Lax, newly produced featurette and audio only bonus of the original radio broadcast are nice extras worthy of this classy classic. Highly recommended!

In retrospect, William Wyler’s Jezebel (1936) is an implausible melodrama that manages to capture much of the fiery disposition of a Scarlett O’Hara without ever mentioning Gone With The Wind – a novel, then very much ingrained in the hearts and minds of a vast and growing readership, and very shortly destined to begin preproduction at Selznick International Studios.

Bette Davis took home her second Best Actress Oscar playing spoiled Southern belle, Julie Marsden. More than anything Julie wants to be loved. But her defiance against social conventions brands her a rather wanton free spirit. Julie’s Aunt Belle Massey (Fay Bainter) is constantly urging her niece towards prudence and restraint. But Julie will have none of it. After appearing at her own party in riding habit and with crop still in hand, Julie shops the New Orleans plaza for a suitable gown to wear to the Olympus Ball – the event of the social season.

Her arrival in a harlot-red gown amongst the virginal white ladies of the evening humiliates and alienates her rich lawyer beaux, Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda) who breaks their engagement and departs for a career in the North.

Emotionally shattered, Julie fills her days with superficial dalliances. Long suffering and self-professed gentleman with an air of petty larceny, Buck Cantrell (George Brent) seems the most promising prospect. Ah, but then Pres’ returns to the South with his bride, Amy (Margaret Lindsay). Determined to destroy Pres’ happiness, Julie sets up a series of conventions that will lead to dire consequences for all concerned.

The last act of Wyler’s velvety smooth melodrama is reserved for a deadly outbreak of yellow fever that extracts its pound of flesh from the principle cast. It’s a rather problematic conclusion to what is essentially a woman’s picture with more venom than guts. Still, the film holds together remarkably well under today’s scrutiny and that is to no small effect due to Davis’ towering central performance. As Julie, Davis is unrelenting; a demigod in angel’s harness whose final realization is both tragic and morally satisfying.

Warner Home Video’s Special Edition DVD at long last provides an adequate mastering effort for this Oscar-winning classic. The B&W image exhibits a refined gray scale with fine details evident throughout. Blacks are still a tad weak, more dark gray than black, but whites are much improved for an image that is more crisp and solid than ever before. Age related artifacts are still rather heavy in spots, despite an exhaustive digital restoration. The biggest plus is that there is a complete absence of digital anomalies that were quite prevalent on a previously released disc. The audio is mono but adequately represented. Extras include a brief featurette on the making of the film and an informative audio commentary. Recommended!

After losing the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, Warner Brother’s reigning diva, Bette Davis was given a glossy and sumptuously mounted historical epic of her own. With Michael Curtiz’s period melodrama The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex (1939), Warner Bros. proved they could carry off a grand stylish epic in the vein as rival studio MGM.

No expense was spared and every dollar shows up on the screen. The film charts a tumultuous affair between Queen Elizabeth I (Bette Davis) and the ravenous fortune hunter turned lover - who might be King - Robert Devereux (Errol Flynn), the Earl of Essex.

Devereux is the hero du jour of the English people. After decimating the Spanish armada at Cadiz, he returns to England to woo the Queen. Although the middle-aged Elizabeth’s honorable intentions are indeed stirred to smoldering embers of passion by this elegant rapscallion, she thwarts her chances at romance, seemingly as sacrifice for the good of all England.

This film is an astoundingly stoic and cloistered exercise in style triumphing over substance and greatly buttressed by marvelous supporting performances from Donald Crisp (Francis Bacon), Olivia De Havilland (Penelope Gray) and Vincent Price (Sir Walter Raleigh).

If artistic liberties have been taken in recanting history – and believe me, they have – it has all been at the service of providing Bette Davis with yet another opportunity to prove what a consummate actress she was. Shaving two inches into her hairline to give the illusion of baldness, Davis looks every bit the part of a stoic monarch.

But she and Flynn, like their clash of wills on camera, were neither the best of friends nor the most ideally matched pair in cinema history. For once, the glycerin façade of mutual attraction that Flynn usually projected on screen is strangely absent. As the haughty and exclusive Elizabeth, Davis excels. But her behind the scenes contempt for Flynn is painfully obvious in their on camera exchanges.

Warner Home Video’s DVD is better than average, but a tad disappointing for a Technicolor film of this magnitude. Some fading and flickering of colors is obvious during scene transitions. While blacks are generally deep and velvety, whites are quite often more pale blue than white. Flesh tones are somewhat pasty. Many of the scenes have retained their original vibrancy.  All these shortcomings might have been forgivable if it were not for the fact that the transfer also suffers from considerable shrinkage of the original three-strip elements, resulting in distracting halos of color throughout much of the action. The audio has been very nicely cleaned up and is presented at an adequate listening level.

In the final analysis, The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex is much more of a Bette Davis flick than an Errol Flynn swashbuckler – though he’s given ample purpose to don tights and do battle for the sake of queen and country. Recommended for plot – not recommended for quality.

Dark Victory (1939) is arguably the best of three films Bette Davis made in this single year. She plays Judy Traherne, a self-centered socialite stricken with an inoperable brain tumor. After learning of the tumor, though not of her hopeless outcome, Judy experiences a temporary renaissance of well being.

She embarks on a love affair with her doctor, Frederick Steele (George Brent) and resumes her life of privilege with a new respect for friends and family. Her closest friend and social secretary, Ann King (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is privy to the truth. She resigns to keep it to herself. But fate intervenes. While visiting Frederick’s office, Judy stumbles across her patient file and realizes that she is going to die.

By 1939, Davis had earned the right to choose her own projects at Warner Brothers. However, when she proposed Dark Victory to her boss, his curt reply was, “Who the hell wants to see a picture about some dame that dies?” Apparently a lot of people did. Director Edmund Goulding’s 4-handkercheif weepy moves effortlessly though its moneyed landscape of debutantes and their race horses without ever becoming maudlin.

The film was a smash success, earning Davis yet another Oscar nomination in a career already riddled with such accolades. In the final analysis, Davis lost the coveted statuette to Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara – forgivable, especially since it was Leigh’s first and Davis already had two to her name. Though no one could have known it at the time, Davis would never again take hope the Oscar, though nominations continued throughout her 40s film tenure.

Warner Home Video’s restored and remastered edition of Dark Victory is a welcomed edition for those who have had to contend with poorly contrasted and excessively grainy home video incarnations from the not-so-distant past. Though this latest version is head and shoulders above the rest, it is not pristine. The gray scale exhibits a much more refined patina with deep blacks and very clean whites. Contrast levels are much more detailed. Age related artifacts have greatly been reduced.

However, a rather concentrated amount of film grain persists throughout the image as well as a slight wobbling from side to side (presumably from sprocket damage) during several key scenes. The audio is mono and very nicely presented. Extras include a brief featurette on why the film is considered an ‘overlooked’ classic, as well as a very thorough and engaging audio commentary. Bottom line: highly recommended.

  Once seen, the opening moments of William Wyler’s superb melodrama, The Letter (1940) are seared into the memory forever. Bette Davis stars as the diabolically delicious Leslie Crosbie; unscrupulous wife of a Malaysian rubber plantation owner. After packing six slugs into a man exiting her boudoir…not her husband…Leslie embarks on a deeply disturbing odyssey to vindicate herself of his murder. To this end, Leslie is ably aided by the naiveté of her husband, Robert (Herbert Marshall) and by her popular following of fair weather friends. Ah, but Mrs. Hammond (Gale Sondergaard), the deceased’s Asian wife is witness to ‘the letter’ a tawdry ode to illicit romance penned by Leslie to her late husband on the night Leslie killed him in cold blood. Will Leslie beat the rap?

The play by Somerset Maugham on which the film is based must have seemed old hat to Davis – she had, by this time quite distinctively established herself playing a series of grand bitches. As Leslie, Davis is cleverly fiendish and stylishly sinister. Like its heroine, the film is superbly crafted with all the fine tuned animal instincts of a jungle cat. The Letter was nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture but won not a single statuette. Wyler's impeccable direction and Davis's mesmerizing and unsympathetic performance are what transform this standard melodrama into movie art!

Warner Brothers’ transfer is, for the most part, acceptable. Contrast levels seem slightly too dark on occasion, and there are several scenes that must have been sourced from print material rather than the original camera negative – for contrast and grain are more prevalent. There’s also an annoying hint of edge enhancement that wreaks havoc on the horizontal slats and bamboo blinds that figure into the mood of the piece throughout the film – making certain scenes seem harsh. Age related artifacts crop up now and then.

The audio is mono and overall nicely balanced. Extras include a fascinating alternative ending only recently discovered in the Warner vaults, as well as 2 audio bonuses and the film’s original theatrical trailer; aside: a pity that no audio commentary was provided for such a noteworthy film. The Letter comes highly recommended as melodrama par excellence from a studio, director and a star who definitely understood the subtly of their art. As a DVD you may find the presentation a tad disappointing though.

The Little Foxes (1941) marks the final collaboration between director William Wyler and grand dame Bette Davis. The two had become lovers on the set of Jezebel (1938) and had worked well together on The Letter (1940). But by the time Davis stood before the cameras to immortalize this play by Lillian Hellman, she and Wyler were quite simply at each other’s throats. Their behind the scenes confrontations augmented Davis’ unrelentingly bitter performance as Regina Giddens, the ruthless matriarch of a Southern family.

Once proud and prosperous, Regina’s determination to be flush with riches again drives her to financially destroy her two brothers; attempt to sell her only daughter, Alexandra (Teresa Wright) into a marriage to her first cousin, Leo Hubbard (Dan Duryea) and hasten the death of her ex-husband, Horace (Herbert Marshall) by inducing the fragile man into having a heart attack, then refusing him the medication that might save his life.

Alexandra is oblivious to all this seething treachery. She is a pure spirit, whose innocent love for telegram boy, David Hewitt (Richard Carlson) is nearly thwarted by her mother’s plotting. Her aunt, Birdie (Patricia Collinge) attempts to warn Alexandra of her pending fate, while living under the tyranny of her own abusive husband.

This is a brilliant and visceral film, full of sublime and understated performances. Wyler’s affinity for capturing the spirit of humanity in all its forms is working overtime, despite the fact that in later years he went on record with his disappointment over Davis’ performance, which Wyler felt lacked heart. To be certain, Davis’ reincarnation of Regina Giddens is a chilling spider woman of no redemption. She exists as demonic and self gratifying; yet that is precisely why her performance works. It is a frightening glimpse into a soulless godless vacuum.

MGM Home Video’s DVD is rather disappointing. Despite B&W print elements exhibiting a refined gray scale with solid deep blacks and very clean whites with minimal age related artifacts, the entire image is marred by a relatively high concentration of digital anomalies; edge enhancement, shimmering of fine details and pixelization - quite distracting. The audio has been rechanneled by Chace and exhibits all the limitations in fidelity one would expect. This is primarily a dialogue driven narrative. The audio is therefore sufficiently rendered. A Theatrical trailer that appears as though it were fed through a meat grinder is the only extra included.

In a caree r of so many highlights, Irving Rapper’s Now Voyager (1942) is one of Bette Davis’ crowning cinematic achievements. It is also a very frank – if sentimentalized – examination of psychoanalysis and the power derived from within to change one’s direction in life for the better.

Davis stars as Charlotte Vale – a reclusive uni-browed spinster pent up in her mother’s (Gladys Cooper) Bostonian mansion and seemingly doomed to a life of familial ridicule and humiliation. Enter the kindly Doctor Jacquith (Claude Rains), a physician with great compassion. Through his understanding, tutelage and expertise Charlotte emerges from the maelstrom of her inner demons, becoming a lady of culture and broadening experiences.

While on a cruise – part of Jacquith’s recovery therapy – Charlotte meets elegant gentleman, Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid). He is unaware of her past and falls madly in love with her. Unfortunately for both, Jerry is married with a child, Tina (Janet Wilson) who is unloved by her mother. Together with Dr. Jacquith’s help, Charlotte decides to right this wrong by opening up a world of possibilities for Tina.

Quite heavy on romance and schmaltz, the story is galvanic and irresistible. It’s shifting locales; stellar supporting cast and meticulous craftsmanship all take a backseat to Davis’ towering central performance. Never before or again would the actress be quite so delicate or vulnerable on the screen.

Warner Home Video’s DVD transfer is almost reference quality. The benefactor of a complete digital restoration, the gray scale is both sharp and perfectly contrasted. Whites are clean and vibrant. Blacks are deep and rich. Fine detail is evident throughout. The image is crisp as though the film had been shot yesterday. The image quality’s one failing is an obvious amount of shimmering in several key sequences – particularly on Charlotte’s plaid and spotted dresses. The audio has also been nicely cleaned up with one curious exception. The main title music appears to suffer from a slight muffled characteristic.

Extras include isolated musical cues (something Warner Home Video no longer does on its releases…a pity) and the original theatrical trailer. As the reissue tag line fitting proclaimed, “…for now, for always; Now Voyager!” Highly recommended.

Vincent Sherman’s Old Acquaintance (1943) is the quintessential women’s picture, but with a twist. The film stars Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins as occasional friends, Kit Marlowe and Millie Drake. Kit is an author who is quite popular with the college set. She arrives for a visit with Millie and her husband, Preston (John Loder) but soon finds that Millie’s old girlfriend rivalry is alive and well.

Discontented as a wife and mother, Millie pens a book that becomes a best seller. But success goes to her head. Meanwhile Millie’s daughter, Deirdre (Dolores Moran) bonds with Kit. Eventually, Millie’s jealousy gets the better of Preston who divorces her and tries to seduce Kit. But she will have none of it, telling Pres’ “There are some things you just don’t do.” What is particularly sobering about the film today is that it does not rely on the prerequisite Hollywood happy ending, but rather presents a frank and refreshing view of ‘life-after-men’ for the fairer sex.

Eventually, Kit and Millie do have their showdown, but if you haven’t seen the film yet it behooves this critic to keep it a secret. At the time this film was made, Hopkins and Davis had already starred opposite one another in The Old Maid (1939) – during which Davis seduced Hopkins real life fiancée. Furthermore, Davis had infuriated Hopkins by winning an Oscar for the film version of Jezebel (1938), a part Hopkins had originated on stage. 

Warner Home Video delivers a DVD transfer that is, for the most part, fairly crisp and detailed. The B&W gray scale is adequately rendered, though in spots it appears rather softly focused. Roughly fifteen minutes into the film – in the bedroom scene where Millie confides in Kit that she has written a novel - there is some peculiar water damage to the camera negative that creates distracting speckled floaters. It would have been nice to see Warner restore this segment of the film. Though film restoration is costly, these floaters occur for less than three minutes of running time. Extras include an audio commentary by the late director, Vincent Sherman, some short subjects and the film’s original theatrical trailer. Recommended.

Vincent Sherman’s Mr. Skeffington (1944) is a tragic snapshot of Bostonian beauty, Fanny Trellis (Bette Davis), and how she allows vanity to dominate and destroy the one aspect that might have given her true happiness in life – her marriage to Jobe Skeffington (Claude Rains).

The Trellis’ are ‘old money’ – that is, they were until their two children, Fanny and Trippy (Richard Waring) ran through the entire family fortune. Largely living on credit, the Trellis’ are warned by their cousin George (Walter Abel) that no good can come of their wanton spending. Indeed, his concerns are justified when Trippy is caught by his employer, Jobe for stealing. To compensate for the theft, Fanny agrees to marry Jobe.

He truly loves his wife, but she is unconvinced that to be faithful to just one man is more noble than to simply be the belle of the ball. Fanny’s many suitors concur with her assessment and continue to court her even after her marriage to Jobe. Eventually, Jobe and age catch up to Fanny and she is forced to reconsider her destiny in life.

Sherman, a master director of this sort of soppy ‘woman’s picture’ is working from fine material, impeccably crafted by scenarists Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein. The script gives free reign to Davis’ formidable gifts as a tragic actress. Initially concerned that she was, indeed, not a raven beauty as the real Fanny Skeffington was, Davis is nevertheless quite winsome and engaging during the first two thirds of the picture. But her excessive make-up applications - used to age the actress for the last third of the story - seem to blunt her prowess and performance slightly. Interestingly enough, after the film’s premiere, Jack Warner pruned its running time to minimize the subtle anti-Semitic innuendo.

Warner Home Video has restored those excised scenes in their newly minted DVD – derived from the restored laserdisc, released in 1994. Image quality is quite acceptable, though at times the refined B&W image appears to suffer from an overly sharp characteristic that is a tad harsh on the eyes.
Varying quality – depending on the source elements available – make for an inconsistently rendered image overall, with certain portions containing a host of age related artifacts and slight edge enhancement, while other scenes are virtually free of both anomalies. The audio is mono but presented at an adequate listening level. Sherman provides a fascinating audio commentary. The film’s theatrical trailer is the only other extra. 

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950) is the quintessentially urbane and sophisticated melodrama that belongs on everyone’s top shelf. The film is a microcosm of seething insecurities, viperous social climbers and cutthroat sensationalists. To say nothing of what one discovers after leaving the theater behind. The film stars Bette Davis as aging Broadway diva, Margo Channing. Margo’s success is partly due to her long and enduring friendship with playwright Lloyd (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife, Karen Richards (Celeste Holm). Into this close knit community is thrust Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter)…or that is, she thrusts herself upon this unsuspecting troupe.

In no time, Eve has burned bridges, fractured personal alliances and ingratiated her way into Margo’s council of cohorts and her boudoir – all the while playing the part of a respectful personal secretary. Instead, and with her eye firmly on the prize, Eve has plans to usurp Margo’s professional and personal associations and knock her from her throne as the undisputed actress of her generation. Margo’s insecurities stem from one central concern – getting old. It’s a tragic inevitability and it leave Margo rather standoffish and insecure over her burgeoning romance with director, Bill Samson (Gary Merrill).

Mankeiwicz’s screenplay delivers a high octane and revealing look at the base soul of all that publicly glitters. His critique is bang on and with Davis in the driver’s seat he is guaranteed a star who completely understands the material. Davis was herself an actress of forty and largely considered a has-been when she agreed to play Margo Channing. Later, Davis thanked her director/writer profusely for the opportunity – “I owe it all to Joe. He resurrected me from the dead.” Behind the scenes it was a somewhat different story. Davis and Ann Baxter did not get on – a tension brought to the boiling point when both were nominated as Best Actress in the Oscar race. Neither won in the end.

Fox’s DVD transfer is a tad disappointing. All About Eve was previously released as a bare bones disc. On that occasion there were considerably more age related artifacts to contend with throughout the transfer, and, although these have been greatly tempered – if not entirely removed on this new ‘Studio Classics’ minting – the film’s contrast and gray scale have been slightly downgraded. There are no solid or deep blacks in this film – just varying tonalities of gray. Occasionally the image appears to be a tad too softly focused. Fine details can be nicely realized but they are rather inconsistently rendered. Certain scenes have retained their grainy patina on this reincarnation.

The audio is presented in both original mono and re-channeled stereo. For a dialogue driven film the latter inclusion is quite unnecessary. Extras include the AMC original: Backstory as well as two separate and extremely thorough audio commentary tracks. Although the back cover denotes interviews with Bette Davis and Anne Baxter as individual extras – no such content exists except in excerpted form from the AMC featurette.

Dead Ringer (1964) (not to be confused with Dead Ringers 1988) is a tale of rival twin sisters, Margaret DeLorca and Edith Philips, both played to perfection by Bette Davis. Years before, Margaret married Edith’s wealthy lover who has since passed away. Edith’s s udden appearance at his funeral sparks Margaret to invite her sister back to her mansion for drinks after the service. However, Margaret’s cavalier attitude toward life and her not so subtle snubs about Edith’s decidedly down to earth lifestyle (she owns a seedy bar on the east side in danger of foreclosure) drives Edith to distraction.

Edith concocts a diabolical revenge scenario. She murders Margaret in her apartment and makes it look like a suicide.  Assuming Margaret’s identity, Edith believes her new cushy life will be a breeze.  However, Edith’s cop boyfriend, Sergeant Mike Hobbson (Karl Malden) begins to suspect that something is afoot, though even he can not conceive that his one time girlfriend would impersonate her own sister. But the transition from frump to Trump is a difficult one, made all the more dangerous and revealing when Edith discovers that her sister has taken a lover, Tony Collins (Peter Lawford) who may or may not have plotted with Margaret to kill her husband.

Made at a junction in Davis’ career that began her slow decline into B-movie oblivion, Dead Ringer is something of a red herring. The film is directed by Davis’ Now Voyager (1942) costar, Paul Henreid with a stellar roster of talent amassed; George Macready (as Margaret’s solicitor, Paul Harrison), Jean Hagen (as loudmouth friend, DeDe Marshall) Estelle Winwood (as the snotty dowager, Donna Anna) and Cyril Delevanti (marvelous as the sympathetic butler who has Edith’s number but keeps it a secret)
What emerges is high octane suspense far above the schlock B-movie Lizzy Borden spin that began the plot. A very shrewd and savvy business woman besides, Davis held out long and hard before securing this dual role. She had previously played twins in A Stolen Life (1946) but in Dead Ringer the portrayal of each sister takes on a more detailed subtext. Neither is a saint or sinner but a multi-layered smattering of both evil and good – in short, believable. 

There is a lot to celebrate with Warner Home Video’s DVD transfer. The anamorphic image is remarkably clean, with a very solid and beautifully rendered gray scale, deep blacks and excellent contrast levels. Only during the split screen shots (that effectively show both sisters within the composition of a single frame) does the film grain become slightly more concentrated and noticeable. But that is to be expected from the process – not the transfer.

There are several fleeting hints of edge enhancement and some extremely minor pixelization, but neither will distract.  The audio is mono but with a considerable – if tacky punctuation.  Extras include a very brief featurette with Davis biographer, Boze Hadleigh who is exceptionally well spoken and versed on his subject matter; also a thorough audio commentary from Hadleigh and Davis female impersonator, Charles Busch; and a vintage featurette made during production that fills in gaps in the back story.  Bottom line: recommended.

For insightful looks behind the legends on classic and contemporary stars, films and all things Hollywood, visit Nick's other blog THE HOLLYWOOD ART at: http://thehollywoodart.blogspot.com/

AMERICA'S MERMAID MAKES HER SPLASH ON DVD

In providing a critique of 1952’s Million Dollar Mermaid, a film reviewer for Time Magazine wrote, “I’m really lost about Esther Williams work in the movies…but if nothing else they had to be extremely dangerous to film.” They were – as Williams herself has attested to in numerous interviews. At one point during the filming of her underwater sequences on this film, Williams succumbed to ‘the rapture’ – a diver’s worst nightmare whereby the lungs collapse from lack of oxygen. Director Mervyn LeRoy, who was overseeing Williams drifting unconscious to the bottom of the pool, but oblivious to her plight, was reported to have shouted in the underwater microphone – “Esther…what the hell are you doing? We can’t keep you in focus at the bottom of the pool, we’re not lit for that!”

Comedian Fanny Brice was even more glib in her snap analysis of Williams’ star power, saying “In the water she’s fabulous. On dry land she’s just a nice girl who should settle down and have children.” But perhaps Ms. Brice was a wee bit jealous of Esther’s formidable talents.

Besides having the face and figure of a goddess (both photogenic beyond compare to most contemporary starlets), Williams has proven, at least in retrospect, to have also been an adroit comedian, a competent singer and dancer and one hell of a dynamic swimmer. She’s also one of the most frankly honest raconteurs, capable of waxing affectionately about her days at MGM but with a razor sharp wit that cuts both ways.

Despite having her hopes for an Olympic medal dashed when the games were canceled because of WWII, Esther’s antics in the saucer pool at MGM directly led to the creation of synchronized swimming as an Olympic sport a decade later. One fact about Williams’ career is irrefutable: it remains resilient and popular with audiences to this day.

When the idea of building an entire film around a swimmer was pitched to L.B. Mayer in the fall of 1942, Mayer was reported to have said “How the hell do you make films in a pool?” He was told, “The same way Darryl F. Zanuck does with Sonja Henie and ice skates.” Much to Mayer’s fascination, finding ways of keeping Williams wet became a favorite past time in MGM’s writing department – the creation of 26 aquacade adventures making Williams one of the most iconic stars of the late forties and early fifties.

Now, TCM and Warner Home Video open the floodgates on Esther Williams Vol. One – a five film compendium that, unfortunately, isn’t as good at showcasing MGM’s underwater goldmine as one might expect. This compendium includes Esther’s entrée into the aquacade; Bathing Beauty (1944), a remake of Libeled Lady in which Esther remains pretty much on dry land - Easy to Wed (1946); the rather lack luster – but glossy enough, On An Island With You (1948), the abysmally garish Neptune’s Daughter (1949) and almost low key, Dangerous When Wet (1953).

In Bathing Beauty (1944), Esther is cast as Caroline Brooks, a professor at Victoria; an all girls’ college who marries her dreamboat - composer Steve Elliot (Red Skelton) while on a vacation in Sun Valley – then is erroneously led to believe that Elliot is already the husband of Spanish vixen, Maria Dorango (Jacqueline Dalya). The wrinkle; Elliot’s unscrupulous agent, George Adams (Basil Rathbone) has contracted Dorango to play the part so that Elliot will forget Caroline and continue writing the score for his new show.

The rest of the plot is threadbare at best, with Elliot trying to convince Caroline that he is innocent. To that end, he registers as a student at Victoria resulting in some spectacularly riotous vignettes that are a real comedic treat. The plot is also immeasurably fleshed out by its musical program that includes Latin tenor Carlos Ramirez, organist Ethel Smith, Harry James and his Music Makers and Xavier Cugat with Lina Romay. Musical highlights include Cugie’s Bim Bam Boom, Smith’s electrifying Tico Tico, Ramirez’s Te Quiero Dijiste and James’ Hora Staccato – all taking a backseat to the lush and lavish aquacade finale featuring James, Cugat and, of course, Esther doing her thing.

Easy to Wed (1946) is a rather lack luster remake of MGM’s Libeled Lady. Funny man Keenan Wynn is Warren Haggerty – an editor whose newspaper is about to be sued for slander by trite (and on this occasion, rather boorish) Connie Allenbury (Esther Williams). Complicating matters is the fact that Haggerty has broken his engagement to fiancée, Gladys Benton (Lucille Ball) for the umpteenth time. To resolve his issues with Allenbury, Haggerty employs lady’s man Bill Chandler (Van Johnson) to pursue the ice princess. But first comes the wrinkle: Bill must marry Gladys to make a real charge of alienation of affection stick against Connie – thereby getting his paper off the hook for false accusations.  The script is fairly faithful to the original, but with songs and dances inexplicably inserted. The best number by far is Johnson and William’s Bona Pixie – a Latin rumba that both are quite competent at. For the rest, Easy to Wed is a standard musical with less than average musical offerings.

On An Island with You (1948) is fluff to the ‘enth degree, immeasurably aided from its succumbing treacle by some truly glorious Florida everglade location footage (subbing in for Honolulu). The film stars Williams as a Rosalind Reynolds, a film star in love with costar Ricardo Montez (Ricardo Montalban) – much to the great sadness of both supporting player, Yvonne Torro (Cyd Charisse) and Lt. Lawrence Kingslee (Peter Lawford), who has been hired as technical advisor on the film. To get Rosalind away from Ricardo, Lawrence decides to fly her to a remote isle – supposedly as part of the film shoot. But his plan goes awry when their plane is damaged and grounded on the island. Once again, MGM packs the background with a lot of color to make us forget how contrived the plot is: Xavier Cugat is on hand, as is comedian Jimmy Durante, providing one of the best highlights from the film ‘I Can Live Without Broadway.’

The next film in this set; Neptune’s Daughter (1949) is an abysmally second rate offering from MGM – it’s one claim to fame being that it includes the Oscar winning song ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ sung by all the principles to rather riotous and/or romantic effect. For the rest, the film stars Williams as Eve Barrett, the manufacturer of a trendy line of swim wear who finds herself staving off romantic advances from Latin playboy, Jose O’Rourke (Ricardo Montalbaun). In the meantime, love struck Jack Spratt (Red Skelton) finds himself in similar territory – beating off the ravenous libido of Eve’s sister, Betty (Betty Garrett). Short on its musical program, the film is remembered today for the aforementioned Oscar-winning tune and its garish and obtuse water-logged finale in which gals and guys dive off a stylized riverboat façade.

And finally, there’s Dangerous When Wet (1953) a sort of road show Million Dollar Mermaid in which Esther is Katie Higgins – an all-around athlete in a health nut family, whose father (William Demarest) has gambled his family’s entire life savings on the prospect of Katie being able to swim the English Channel. To this end, Katie is taken under the wing of Liquopep agent, Windy Weebe (Jack Carson), who wants to be more than Katie’s sponsor – only she seems to be developing grand amour for Parisian millionaire, Andre Lanet (Fernando Lamas) instead. The film, charming enough, is not on par with Williams’ acquacade spectacles. In fact, apart from a rather dull animated sequence – in which Williams appears with MGM’s Tom & Jerry – the film does not contain her trademark acquacade.

So much for the films…what about the transfers? Well, those expecting quality will be disappointed. Though On An Island with You and Dangerous When Wet both appear to have been the benefactors of a digital clean up and restoration somewhere along the way, the rest of the films in this boxed collection vary greatly in overall visual integrity. The two aforementioned titles exhibit a sharp and nicely contrasted Technicolor image with deep solid blacks, clean whites and smooth elements overall. Age related artifacts are kept to a bare minimum. Flesh tones appear a bit too heavy on the orange side, but this is a negligible oversight. These transfers will NOT disappoint.

The worst of the bunch is Easy to Wed – it’s faded Technicolor with pasty orange flesh tones, a considerable amount of film grain and softly focused, slightly blurry image make the overall experience of watching this film a real chore to get through. There is a considerable amount of age related artifacts and a hint of edge enhancement. Not at all up to the caliber one has come to expect from Warner Home Video.

Working back in terms of quality improvement is Neptune’s Daughter. All the previous critique apply to a somewhat lesser degree on this title. Now, for the real slap in the face: Esther’s best film in this box – Bathing Beauty – has not been given a restoration of any kind since MGM/UA Home Video did a chemical Technicolor restoration back in 1995 to reissue the film on laserdisc. Unfortunately, someone was asleep at the controls then. Many scenes in Bathing Beauty continue to suffer from misregistration of the original 3-strip elements with an overall blurry image quality and disturbing haloing effects on at least one third of all scenes in this film. Colors, on the whole, are slightly faded. Occasionally, certain scenes appear to have been sourced from less than the original camera negative with a considerable amount of grain, dirt and scratches evident. For shame!

The only extra of merit in this set is the inclusion of Private Screenings with TCM host, Robert Osbourne – a very concise but enjoyable interview with Esther Williams. The image quality on this interview is just fair – slightly faded and with a few choice film clips inserted. The rest of the extras boil down to several deleted songs, short subjects and cartoons and theatrical trailers for all the films in this box, as well as some that are presumably to be included as part of Esther Williams Vol. 2. None of these extras have been given consideration, clean up or restoration and all reflect a general state of disrepair. Overall, this is NOT the way I would have expected Warner Home Video to honor one of MGM’s biggest box office draws and one long overdue for her debut on DVD. It’s certainly NOT the way I choose to remember Ms. Williams work.

To read about the extensive film career of America's Mermaid, read Nick Zegarac's biographical article, Esther Williams: In The Swim of Things at: Download esther_williams_in_the_swim_of_things.pdf

...and remember - for great reviews, bios and film history you can log on to The Hollywood Art at: http://thehollywoodart.blogspot.com/

@ Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

TAYLOR-MADE: Recommended Classics featuring Elizabeth Taylor

Director Robert Stevenson’s Jane Eyre (1944) is perhaps the screen’s bleakest, darkest gothic romance ever filmed. Bronte’s novel has rather equal portions of nightmarish thrills and gushing love at first sight. The film, however, jettisons much of the latter, relying on a pervasive mood of tragic ennui that is strangely becoming to both the Bronte’s characters and the film itself.

Forced by the advent of WWII to ration expenditures on sets, Stevenson instead raided the backlots of 20th Century-Fox for old acquisitions of Victorian/Georgian architecture that were eventually patched together into Thornfield Hall, the terrifically foreboding home of Mr. Rochester. Originally, producer David O. Selznick had conceived the project for his own studio to make. However, after the release of Rebecca (1940) (virtually Jane Eyre made contemporary) Selznick balked, instead selling off all his preliminary work to Fox and Stevenson, who went forth from Selznick’s blueprint into the finished product.

The film’s plot stays close to Bronte’s original, following orphan, Jane Eyre (played to perfection as a child by Peggy Ann Gardner) from her misfortunate upbringing at the hands of a bitter and wicked aunt, Mrs. Reed (Agnes Moorehead), onto her days at Lowwood School, run by the malicious head master, Henry Brockelhurst (Henry Daniell). Mr. Brockelhurst’s quest to destroy Jane’s determination is thwarted by Jane’s burgeoning friendship with fellow schoolmate, Helen Burnes (Elizabeth Taylor). Unfortunately, Helen dies of pneumonia.

Upon graduation, Jane (now played with poignant restraint by Joan Fontaine) sends out word for employment as a governess. She is hired by the kindly, Mrs. Fairfax (Edith Barrett) to tutor Adele Varnes (Margaret O’Brien), the illegitimate child of Edward Rochester (Orson Welles). At Thornfield, an awkward emotional attachment develops between Edward and Jane, but not before their affection is nearly destroyed by Edward’s insane wife – a prisoner locked in the home’s turreted attic.

There is much to admire in Stevenson’s handling of Bronte’s maudlin and episodic elements, infusing the entire production with a spirited sense of immediacy and cohesion. As much as we, the audience find it unlikely that any lasting romance could be sustained amidst the craggy moors, we are captivated by the central performances of Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles – the former a portrait of sublime restraint; the latter, another gregarious and flamboyant characterization in Welles’ illustrious canon.
Fox’s DVD begins with the disclaimer that every attempt has been made to present the film in its best possible condition from less than stellar surviving filmic elements. Indeed, after 168 hours of restoration work, Jane Eyre looks far better than it ever has in previous home video incarnations. However, various sequences continue to suffer from an overly soft and slightly faded characteristic with an inherent loss of fine detail.

Clarence Brown’s National Velvet (1945) is the film that made Elizabeth Taylor a major child star. Produced by Pandro S. Berman, the story of precocious English lass, Velvet Brown (Taylor) whose love of horses leads her to the impossible circumstance of racing her self-professed champion, the Pi in the Grand National derby, this is the sort of luxurious and enchanting melodrama that proved so irresistible to audiences during the war.

Velvet is living her idyllic childhood in a small English village with mother (Ann Revere), father (Donald Crisp) and siblings, Edwina (Angela Lansbury), Malvonia (Juanita Quigley) and Donald (Jackie Jenkins). Into this close knit family arrives the wanderer, Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney). A traveling con artist, Mi relies on the friendship his late father had with Mrs. Brown to ingratiate himself into the fold. He is given room and board and entrusted with duties at the family owned butcher shop.

When Velvet wins a wild stallion in a local draw, she is determined to wean him into a great racing champion. But the plan goes slightly awry when the jockey enlisted for the race proves to be a pompous ass. Cropping her hair and disguised as a male jockey, Velvet mounts her horse for the experience of a lifetime.

Director Clarence Brown unfolds his picturesque tale of heroism against the backdrop of merry ol’ England before the war (actually sets constructed on the MGM backlot with location shooting off the California coast). A wonderful vitality permeates this timeless story that is fresh and engaging. Elizabeth Taylor is a stunning child actress – as headstrong and formidable as any of the great heroines of old and quite a sheer delight to behold. Upon completion of the film, MGM made her a present of the horse.

Warner Home Video’s reissued DVD of National Velvet exhibits the same characteristics of its predecessor released through MGM Home Entertainment. While colors are generally rich and vibrant, the image has not been progressively mastered. Occasionally, misregistration of the Technicolor negative creates disturbing halos. Pixelization and shimmering of fine details is present for an image that is not very smooth at times. Overall, the fidelity of this masterpiece is middle of the road. The audio is mono but nicely balanced. There are NO extras. Recommended for content. The transfer is less than stellar.

Little Women (1949) is the vibrant coming-of-age story following the exploits of the March sisters, Jo (June Allyson), Beth (Margaret O’Brien), Amy (Elizabeth Taylor) and Meg (Janet Leigh) as they mature from adolescence into unsuspecting futures as women of merit and substance. Jo is the tomboy, defying all convention and propriety in her quest to live a life of enchantment and excitement.
That quest for excitement leads Jo first into the arms of the very wealthy, Theodore ‘Laurie’ Lawrence (Peter Lawford) - whom she rejects, then to the penniless, but infinitely better-suited, Professor Bhaer (Rossano Brazzi) - who eventually wins her heart. Meanwhile Amy has grown to love ‘Laurie,’ Meg – a more restrained and cordial affiliation with John Brooke (Richard Wyler) and Beth – the youngest and most fragile of them all has become ill.

This is the second filmic outing for Louisa May Alcott's celebrated novel - the first shot in glorious Technicolor. As Jo, June Allyson’s performance holds up quite well against Katherine Hepburn’s indelible original. Allyson is properly pert, plucky and disdainful all at once. She makes the part her own. Mary Astor is tender as Mrs. March. Also in the cast is C. Aubrey Smith, making his final screen appearance as the stoic but loveable Mr. James Lawrence and veteran curmudgeon, Lucille Watson as Aunt March. A timeless tale with wonderful performances, Little Women is a film to be cherished again and again.

Warner Home Video gives us an absolutely gorgeous DVD transfer. Owing to a Technicolor restoration, colors are rich, bold and vibrant. Flesh tones are quite natural. Blacks are velvety and deep. Whites are pristine. Fine detail is fully realized throughout/ The audio is mono but presented at an adequate listening level. There are no extras.

George Steven’s Giant (1956) is a colossal soap opera set against the changing social landscape of Texas. Sure, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson are far too young to be believably cast as tempestuous generational – though ultimately simpatico couple; Bick and Leslie Benedict. But in the versatile and visceral mutations of James Deans’ all-too-brief filmic legacy; the character of Jett Rink emerges as ruthlessly charming, so palpably engaged that his character easily eclipses his scant 24 years morphed into 60 through brilliant make-up and performance.

The story begins when Leslie (Taylor) – a sultry gal from Maryland - falls in love with strapping cattle rancher, Bick Benedict (Hudson). She marries him without realizing the great cultural divide that separate their sensibilities and is shortly thereafter put upon by Bick’s possessive sister, Luz (Mercedes McCambridge).

But Luz is unprepared for Leslie’s resilience, a miscalculation that literally kills her when she is thrown from Leslie’s horse after brutalizing it with her spurs.  The rest of the film, based on Edna Ferber’s controversial best seller degenerates along the lines of a perverse lover’s triangle as Jett tries to win Leslie’s affections away from Bick, then years later pursues Bick and Leslie’s daughter, Luz Jr. (Carroll Baker) along these same intensions.

In between these hot-blooded scenes there are great moments of subtle reflection about Texas being a state of mind; such as the confrontation sequence in which Leslie is politely asked, then commanded by her husband to retreat upstairs while the men talk politics; or the taut and angst driven turn of revenge, whereupon Jett assaults Bick on his front porch after only moments before having discovered oil on his meager property.

Ferber based Jett on Texas oilman Glenn McCarthy, an Irish immigrant and proprietor of the opulent Shamrock Hotel. Stevens and company were left reeling when they were telegrammed in Marfa that Dean had met with his untimely end in traffic accident only days after completing his scenes. When the film was released it burst forth with all the fanfare of a raging stampede, easily becoming the biggest grossing film in Warner Brother’s history – a top spot it maintained until the release of Superman: The Movie in 1978.

Warner Home Video unleashes Giant in a 2-disc edition that is below average. Shot on the uncompromisingly bad WarnerColor, the filmic image is inconsistent at best. Color fidelity, sharpness and contrast levels fluctuate from barely adequate to quite refined – sometimes within the same scene. Flesh tones are not natural but rather overly pink or ruddy orange. Film grain is quite excessive at times, then remarkably absent. This is a problematic transfer at best.

The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital remastering effort with inherent limitations. Music cues have a very flat sonic characteristic. Extras include two very thorough, though uniquely different, documentaries on the film, a rather leaden introduction by George Stevens Jr., audio commentaries, theatrical trailer and outtakes. Overall, the flaws exhibited in this transfer are those derived from the shoddy original color film stock and not the transfer itself. A complete restoration effort should be made to bring Giant back to life.   

Richard Brook’s adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958) is perhaps the cinema’s finest translation of the great playwright’s work. Yet the morphing from stage to screen is not without its sacrifices.

The story concerns drunken ex-football hero, Brick Pollitt (Paul Newman) and his mysterious inability to find even the remotest interest to make love to his overtly sexual wife, Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor). Unlike the play, the issue of Brick’s homosexuality and ‘love’ for fellow football player, Skipper is adeptly avoided. What is offered in its place is a suspected affair that Skipper and Maggie may have had – one that has indirectly leads to Brick’s sexual frigidity.

In the meantime, Brick’s overbearing father, Big Daddy (Burl Ives) has returned from a treatment clinic for what he believes to be a spastic colon. The truth, that he is actually dying of cancer, is kept from him and Big Mama (Judith Anderson) by Brick’s elder brother, Gooper (Jack Carson) and his insanely jealous wife, Mae Flynn (Madeleine Sherwood).

As with all of Tennessee Williams’ great masterworks, the devil is in the details of construction. Each character is a finely wrought study in contempt, greed and repressive sexuality. The narrative is secondary to these character studies. In this respect, director Brooks has been handed the cream of the crop in Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor who are fairly at the top of their respective careers.

Taylor’s tragic loss of husband, Michael Todd in a plane crash just prior to commencement lent a powerful emotional back story to her interpretation of Maggie – a creature driven by libidinous desires thwarted at every turn by her aloof, remote and bizarrely sexless husband. Jack Carson excels as the embittered tragic son who lives by his father’s edicts, yet can never truly win his affections. In the end, this ‘Cat’ sizzles like few dynamic familial sagas of its vintage. Raw, powerful and standing in stark contrasted to MGM’s usual take on the American family, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof endures as a cornerstone in great film making. It is a ‘must see’ cinematic experience.

Warner Home Video’s Special Edition DVD exhibits exemplary image quality; anamorphic with pronounced and refined colors, nicely balanced contrast levels and a minimal amount of film grain. Previous versions of this film have suffered from extreme color fading and slight discoloration with pasty and yellowish flesh tones. This newly remastered DVD corrects all of the aforementioned shortcomings. The audio is mono but, for a dialogue driven movie, sufficiently rendered. Extras include an informative audio commentary and short featurette on the making of the film. Highly recommended!

By far, the most bizarrely unsettling gothic melodrama that Hollywood has ever produced during its golden age, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Suddenly Last Summer (1959) is a diabolical adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ chilling stage play.

The story concerns Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor); a woman institutionalized by her wealthy aunt, Violet Venable (Katherine Hepburn) after a summer holiday turns tragic. It is Violet’s suggestion – moreover her will - that Doctor Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift), the physician treating Catherine, should lobotomize her niece with all speed to alleviate her nightmares.

But does Violet really have Catherine’s best interests at heart? Catherine’s mother, Grace (Mercedes McCambridge) seems to think so. Then again, she is dependent on Violet’s good graces and charity for her own livelihood. Violet has promised Dr. Cukrowicz that compliance with her request will result in a very large endowment for the county hospital where he practices. But should money be the deciding factor in forever altering a young woman’s mental state?

Cukrowicz doesn’t think so, and his opposition on the matter leads to an intense investigation of Catherine’s crumbling mental health – one in which hidden family secrets will be brought into the light of day with dire consequences. Given that the final act in Williams’ play openly deals with cannibalism and homosexuality – taboo subjects under the production code - it is remarkable how much of the original venom of his play remains in tact. Katherine Hepburn delivers a seminal performance as the aging spider woman who will stop at nothing to keep her late son’s secrets buried. In the end, Suddenly Last Summer is a daring, provocative – sometimes wordy – emotional powerhouse. It’s definitely worth a second look on DVD.

Sony Home Entertainment’s DVD is remarkably clean. The B&W image exhibits a refined gray scale with deep solid blacks and very clean whites. There are several sequences, particularly those employing split screen dissolves and fades, that are heavier on film grain and age related artifacts than one would like. The audio is mono but adequately represented. There are NO extras.

1963’s The V.I.P.’s is a thoroughly misguided attempt to rekindle the majesty and grandeur of MGM’s Grand Hotel (1932) – recast and reset in a posh airport lounge. It is also a rather obvious stab at capitalizing on the illicit love affair between two of Hollywood’s biggest stars of the period – Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

The two are cast as married couple Frances and Paul Andros. He’s a successful industrialist who is exceedingly in love with his wife – she’s an empty hearted gal diddling the sublime romantic trappings of lover, Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan). Paul deposits Frances at the airport, quite unaware that his wife has left him a note explaining that she will not be returning from her ‘vacation.’ Paul lovingly says goodbye, goes home, reads the note, then returns – first to attempt to murder his wife and lover in a jealous rage – then, to try and buy off Champselle – and finally to destroy himself in a wallow of self pity that eventually leads Frances to realize that she actually does love her husband…go figure.

In the meantime, tractor manufacturer Les Mangrum (Rod Taylor) and his dutiful secretary Miss Mead (Maggie Smith) are also occupying space in the VIP lounge and patiently waiting for the fog to lift so that he can solidify a deal in New York. Unfortunately, all appears to be lost when a key stock holder sells Les out. While Mangrum is hold up in his hotel suite with a ditzy blonde plaything, Miss Mead digs in her heels – orchestrating a hostile corporate takeover by appealing to Paul Andros (currently going through his distraught phase) to loan her boss the money he needs to re-launch his company.

In another corner is Max Buda (Orson Welles) and Miriam Marshall (Linda Christian). He’s a British film actor/producer who is planning to evade paying taxes. She’s a gold digger actress of spurious talent who is destined to become his wife and partner in crime. Finally, there’s Margaret Rutherford, cast in her Oscar-winning role as The Duchess of Brighton. She has absolutely nothing to do with the plot but appears here and there as comic relief – the last of a dying breed of British aristocracy who eventually accrues a windfall that will help sustain her living conditions for the time being.

Director Anthony Asquith does his best to balance the dramatics but the whole darn mess falls apart about midway through. The Frances/Paul/Marc love triangle is supposed to be the focus of the tale. But it is repeatedly interrupted by the Les/Mead financial problems and further diluted by the pathetic comic dithering of both the Buda/Marshall scandal and blithering duchess who can’t seem to find her passport, hotel room or anything else.

Warner Home Video’s DVD transfer is a tad thick. Colors tend to be muddy, faded and inconsistently balanced. Black levels are too intense during certain scenes, causing a general lack of fine details throughout the presentation. There is a generally dull, flat and grainy characteristic to the visual elements. Flesh tones are very unnatural – either appearing garishly orange or grossly pink. There’s really not much to recommend the visual presentation which is one of the poorest of this vintage this reviewer has seen. The audio is mono and quite dull also. There are no extras.

Cleopatra (1963) is not so much the film that changed Hollywood as it is the saga that nearly buried a studio. In retrospect, it is a project begun in blind hope and even blinder ambition which came to symbolize great excess and personal tragedy. As the doomed Egyptian queen, Elizabeth Taylor nearly died before filming had even begun. Relocating the project from England to Rome, the star next launched into a very public affair with co-star Richard Burton. Numerous delays plagued the filming almost from day one. Peter Finch was eventually replaced by Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar as the shooting schedule dragged on for months.

Originally, Cleopatra was a project begun by producer Walter Wanger. But mid-way through, writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz assumed all responsibilities for this elephantine epic and quite simply, found himself losing ground almost daily while the bottom line slipped 20th Century Fox’s balance sheet further into the red. Mankiewicz had initially conceived the story as two separate films; ‘Caesar and Cleopatra’ and ‘Anthony and Cleopatra.’ However, the Burton/Taylor affair prompted Fox executives to quash that design and combine the footage into one lengthy – often leaden – filmic excursion. When all was said and done, Mankiewicz lost nearly 3 hours of footage on the cutting room floor and Cleopatra debuted to pompous fanfare, but decidedly mediocre box office returns.

Plot wise: Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) arrives in Egypt to resolve a familial feud between Queen Cleopatra (Taylor) and King Ptolemy (Richard O’Sullivan). While Ptolemy and his advisors, Theodotos (Herbert Bergof) and Pothinus (Gregorie Aslin) plot a palace coup, Cleopatra smuggles herself into Caesar’s quarters inside a rug carried by her loyal servant, Apollodorus (Cesare Danova).

Caesar and Cleopatra become lovers, a romance that threatens Caesar’s stature in the Roman senate and directly leads to his murder. Distraught, Cleopatra sails for Egypt. But Marc Anthony (Richard Burton) vows to avenge Caesar. Hailed a conqueror, Anthony and Cleopatra become lovers. Rome beckons Anthony into a marriage of convenience. In the final reels, Anthony’s legions are defeated and Octavian (Roddy McDowell) assumes control. Cleopatra locks herself inside her tomb and commits suicide.

Fox Home Video delivers a hi-resolution DVD transfer that is nearly pristine but sadly, marred by edge enhancement and shimmering of fine details. The anamorphic film is separated across two discs at the intermission. If you purchase the Five Star Collector’s Edition you also get the extensive and engrossing 2 ½ hr. documentary, Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood – hosted by Robert Culp.

Colors are rich, bold and vibrant. Blacks are deep, rich and velvety. Whites are nearly pristine. The audio has been remastered with a bombastic sonic characteristic that brings to life Alex North’s superb scoring. Other extras include a vintage featurette, some stills, an audio commentary and theatrical trailers. This is definitely one for your film library!

Heavily criticized upon its release, Vincente Minnelli’s The Sandpiper (1965) is quite a minor dramatic flick. It stars Elizabeth Taylor as beatnik unwed mother, Laura Reynolds who lives with her young son, Danny (Morgan Mason) amidst the craggy splendor of California’s Big Sur. Laura believes that her son’s interests will be best served by a life removed from the calamities and hardships inflicted by mankind. The courts do not agree.

Enter Dr. Edward Hewitt (Richard Burton); an Episcopalian cleric who runs a private and progressive boy’s school. Hewitt starts out seeking Danny’s best interests and despising Laura for her free thinking. But he eventually falls in love with her for precisely that reason and increasingly begins to feel stifled by his own chosen path. Under the rouse that he would like Laura (who is also an artist/painter) to design the new stained glass windows for his chapel, Hewitt begins making regular visits to her hideaway in the cliff tops where their torrid sexual affair begins.

In the passionate mish-mosh that follows, Hewitt forsakes his calling and his wife, straight laced but devoted Claire (Eva Marie Saint) for a romp in free love desperation with Laura. He is discovered in his infidelities by Ward Hendricks (Robert Webber), the man who made Danny. Ward arrives at Laura’s one afternoon, tries to rape her, then exposes Hewitt’s affair to his wife and the board of directors during a dinner party. The bond between husband and wife is shattered. The affair with Laura ends when her current love interest, sculptor Cos Erickson (Charles Bronson) engages in some fisticuffs with the man of the cloth...and wins.

The Sandpiper is not a great film, but it is a good one and it does take a very frank hard look at marital infidelity and its fall out. The title song, ‘Shadow of Your Smile’ won the Best Song Oscar. In the end, Milton Krasner’s atmospheric cinematography that captures all the resplendent beauty of Big Sur is the real star of the show.

Warner Home Video’s transfer is admirable. Colors are subtle but refined. Blacks are black. Whites are clean. Fine details are realized throughout. Very few age related artifacts exist. There are no digital anomalies for an image that is quite smooth and consistently rendered. The audio is stereo and adequate though dialogue does tend to be quite frontal and unnatural sounding at times. There are two short subjects as extras.

For a complete biography of Elizabeth Taylor download 'THE INDESTRUCTIBLE ELIZABETH TAYLOR by Nick Zegarac here: Download the_indestructible_elizabeth_taylor.pdf

For more great Hollywood history visit Nick Zegarac's THE HOLLYWOOD ART at: http://thehollywoodart.blogspot.com

And get instant access to over 500 DVD reviews at Nix Pix at: http://nixpixdvdmoviereviewsandmore.blogspot.com/

@Nick Zegarac 2007 (all rights reserved).

HOOKED ON HITCH'

Alfred Hitchcock is undeniably the master of suspense. His films titillate and thrill long after the cameras stopped rolling on his last feature – Family Plot (1976), arguably the weakest filmic outing in Hitch’s canon. In between that film and all the rest, there have been other great thrillers, other copycat directors, and certainly, more than a handful of vane attempts to recreate or (as in the case of Gus Van Sant’s abysmal shot-for-shot regurgitation of Psycho) merely re-shoot the masterworks – but undeniably each of these lesser attempts has failed to adequately paid homage to Hitchcock’s legacy by example; a sort of ‘how to thrill, chill and terrorize with aplomb and nonchalance’ that, in all likelihood, will never be surpassed. 

What has remained standard for Hitchcock aficionados over the years is how efficient and resilient the master’s hand is at mounting nail biting tension, much in the way a virtuoso violinist plucks his Stradivarius for heightened emotional responses.

So let us begin our sonata of Hitchcock with a brief plot summary of Universal’s lavishly produced Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (1942-1976); a 15 disc compendium that promises excitement and danger at every turn…well, almost.

We begin our tour with Saboteur (1942) a wildly thrilling espionage yarn about Nazi spies in the U.S. (think poor cousin to Hitch’s ‘Notorious’ – not included in this box). Robert Cummings is Barry Kane, a man wrongfully accused of being complicit in his best friend’s death when an air craft company goes up in flames. Pat Martin (Pricilla Lane) doubts Barry’s innocence, but more and more begins to suspect a frame-up leading to the film’s climax atop the Statue of Liberty. Lane and Cummings are particularly good together, but the plot suffers by comparison to both the aforementioned ‘Notorious’ and ‘Foreign Correspondent’ – each far superior in tone pacing and storytelling than this film.

Next up in this gift set is Shadow of a Doubt (1943), a film Hitch’ made independently under his own production company, Skirball Productions. Reportedly, it is the director’s favorite; an odd tale that begins to unravel in the mind of young Charlie (Teresa Wright) who more and more begins to suspect that the uncle she’s been named after and adores, Charlie Sr. (Joseph Cotten) is the Merry Widow Strangler. Of course, she’s right.

But there’s something diabolical and unsettling about the way Hitchcock broods over Cotton’s character. Hitch’ loved the idea of bringing evil into an unassuming small town – a sort of corruption of the innocent at the hands of the worldly – a theme first played out in reverse in his masterful gothic romance – Rebecca (1940, also not included in this box set.) As young Charlie’s suspicions grow from modest paranoia to outright disbelief, her uncle becomes acutely aware that the time for his visit may be growing short and perhaps, young Charlie’s too. Can it be true? Can a murderer expand his roster of victims to include his own flesh and blood?

Hitchcock is particularly magnificent in the staging of the early scenes, when young Charlie begins to suspect that her uncle is a killer. What is particularly deflating for the audience is that we already know as much. There’s no suspense to this exercise. Rather, the suspense is derived from our fear that young Charlie’s days may be numbered. Cotten’s dinner table speech, where he equates ‘greedy fat and arrogant rich woman’ to barn animals only fit for the slaughter is about as gruesome and unsettling a reflection as any – particularly the way in which Cotten seems to be able to disassociate himself from both the rest of the family and revel in a cold contempt for the rest of humanity, barely containable beneath his courtly polished manner. In the end, Shadow of a Doubt is compelling entertainment for its performances. But it tends to lack something in the anticipated Hitchcock touch that comes later in the master’s filmic tenure.

Rope (1948) represents Hitchcock at his most technically proficient. Working from a true story, this one act film is shot in long takes to give the illusion of a continuous stage play. It stars Farley Granger and John Dall as Philip Morgan and Brandon Shaw – a couple of homo-erotic mama’s boys who murder college colleague, David Kentley (Dick Hogan) just for kicks, then host a going away party for his family on the credenza housing his corpse. What ought to have been a deliciously macabre tale of terror is slightly unbalanced by the choice of James Stewart as Prof. Rupert Cadell.

The real life character on which Rupert is based was to have had a sexual liaison with one or both of the murderers – something that could not be suggested under the rigid censorship standards of the production code, but particularly problematic when one considers that ‘boy scout’ James Stewart is the prospective Jim Dandy in professor’s garb. Hitchcock had first wanted Cary Grant for the part of Rupert, but the actor was quite unavailable by the time shooting began. Shortly after assuming the role, James Stewart began to grumble about his association with the project, confiding to a reporter one afternoon that “the only thing around here that’s been rehearsed is the camera!”

The plot, though intriguing, is equally hampered by the fact that only ten minutes of film could be shot at once, hence when Hitchcock needs to break and reload his camera, he awkwardly zooms in to a close-up on someone’s back, a door, or some such nonsense before splicing in the next reel. Thus, we see what he is trying desperately to hide: the illusion of a continuous stage is not maintained.

Screen scenarist, Arthur Laurence was assigned the task of ‘cleaning up’ the homosexual aspects of the original stage play, which generally equated to removing all randy references to ‘my dear boy…’ Laurence had wanted Hitchcock to not show the actual murder – believing that the suspense of the piece would be derived from the audience’s contemplation of whether or not there actually was a body stuffed inside the credenza.  In the final analysis, all the perceived apprehensions in telling a story about homosexual murderers was quelled by a compelling story, expertly played, but sadly, to minor effect.

Rear Window (1954) marks a sublime return to Hitchcock’s consummate storytelling prowess. James Stewart is L.B. Jeffries, a photographer laid up in his one room apartment with a broken leg, when suddenly he begins to suspect that one of his neighbors, Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) has killed his wife. Naturally, Jeffries’ girlfriend Lisa Freemont (Grace Kelly) has her doubts. But when the pieces slowly begin to fall into place, Lisa, L.B. and Jeffrie’s therapist, Stella (the irrepressible Thelma Ritter) become amateur sleuths on a rendezvous with danger.

Like Rope, the action in Rear Window takes place on one enormous set, constructed on a Paramount soundstage with its false floor removed. Viewed today, the film is perhaps too theatrical to be believable, yet there are many marvelous touches that Hitchcock infuses into the production. His pacing is taut and excruciatingly drawn out – such as in the scene where Lisa, having scaled the fire escape outside Lar’s apartment and made her way into the bedroom where the murder has taken place, is then apprehended by Lars as a helpless L.B. and Stella look on. Raymond Burr is miscast as Lars Thorwald, but thankfully doesn’t have too much to do except try and look menacing at every turn.

The Trouble With Harry (1955) is that he’s dead. Hitchcock populates a small New England town with a body and a bunch of crazies headed by Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe) and Jennifer Rogers (Shirley MacLaine) as a romantic couple who can’t seem to stop Harry from getting around town even though he’s not in control of his own destiny. Hitchcock is at his blackest dark humor with this tongue-in-cheek comedy/thriller that truthfully, ranks among his weakest endeavors. Once you’ve figured out that the Harry is dead it doesn’t take you long to tire of the fact that someone else is moving him up hill and yonder dale like a rag doll.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) is a remake of Hitchcock’s own British movie from the early 30s. On this occasion Jo (Doris Day) and Ben McKenna (James Stewart) are a doctor and his retired London stage wife, on vacation in Cairo with their son, Hank (Christopher Olsen). The McKennas are introduced to the Draytons; Lucy (Brenda de Banzie) and Eduard (Bernard Miles); a seemingly harmless couple who turn out to be Jo and Ben’s worst nightmare. There’s much to admire in this film, but it does have its stumbling blocks – some easily overcome, others, glaring misfires that slow the pace of the story and its mounting tension.

Hitchcock had his early misgivings about hiring Doris Day that were quickly quelled when he realized what a fine actress she was. Unfortunately, the public appetite, and Day’s own stellar foray into Hollywood musicals, dictated that a song was in order – hence, the Oscar-winning Que Sera Sera. Though the song is pleasant enough, it is also diverting from the suspense, even though it serves as a pivotal plot device in the final moments of the film. When it was all over, Hitchcock was to have commented, “The original was made by an amateur, the remake – by a professional!”

Vertigo (1958) effectively rounds out Hitchcock’s 1950s tenure as far as this box set is concerned. In point of fact, Hitchcock had one more film up his sleeve before closing out the decade; the quintessential wrong man thrill ride – North By Northwest (1959, available as part of Alfred Hitchcock: The Signature Collection from Warner Bros.)

In Vertigo, James Stewart is cast as retired police detective turned P.I. Scottie Ferguson. Suffering from bouts of dizziness in high places, Ferguson is brought out of retirement by college buddy, Gavin Elstor (Tom Helmore). Seems Elstor’s wife, the cool Madeleine (Kim Novak) is suffering from blackouts and schizophrenia. Actually, the whole premise is just a rouse concocted by Elstor to make Stewart a complicit witness in his own wife’s murder.

A fond postcard to San Francisco, a city much beloved by Hitchcock, the story is problematic on a number of levels. First, there is the character of Madeleine herself, actually a woman named Judy who is paid to pretend to be Elstor’s wife. Is she having an affair with Elstor? Not according to the film, because quickly she begins to develop an emotional attachment with Scottie. What is her motivation for partaking in a murder?

This is never made clear, and is even murkier when, in a scene after Madeleine’s faux suicide, Scottie discovers Judy living in a seedy apartment. Clearly money was not her motive either. But the most troubling aspect of the film is Elstor’s involving Scottie as his witness, because it just doesn’t seem to make much sense to go through all this trouble to fake a suicide/commit a murder. Honestly, doesn’t anybody use guns and a shovel anymore?!?

What elevates Vertigo from convivial tripe is its’ eerie mood and unsettling use of locations. By his own definition, Hitchcock detested location shooting in general – citing that the lighting and weather conditions were never entirely suitable for filmic work. All evidence to the contrary in Vertigo – a film blessed with sumptuously photographed exteriors on a multitude of locations in and around the Frisco Bay area. From beginning to end, these locations sparkle with a haunted, often foreboding beauty that is complimentary to Hitchcock’s vision of obsessive love.

Often sited as the film that matured American cinema into its present state of sublime cynicism, Psycho (1960) is the story of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh); or is it? Poor Marion; hot and bothered by her lover, Sam Loomis’ (John Gavin) inability to commit to marriage because he has to pay his ex wife’s alimony. Marion decides to steal fifty grand from her boss before getting whacked in a shower at the Bate’s Motel; an unassuming rest stop along the old highway.

This, not terribly presupposing, establishment is run by the all-American clean cut Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) – a congenial mama’s boy who very quickly develops into something much more sinister. Shot on a shoestring budget with the same crew responsible for his weekly television series, Hitchcock’s departure from the glamorous flicks of the 50s is stark, spooky and unsettling. In fact, Psycho is arguably Hitchcock’s greatest filmic work.

The justly celebrated ‘shower scene’ in which Marion is slaughtered by ‘mother’ remains a superb example of editing used to create a brutal stain of the public consciousness. In reality, we never see the knife cut into flesh, but Hitchcock’s quick cut editing, coupled with sounds of a blade being plunged into a melon and Bernard Hermann’s shrill violins shrieking doom from the score, the scene remains one of the most violent and unsettling moments in American cinema. Reportedly, after the film was in the can, star Janet Leigh never took another shower as long as she lived – cheap publicity or genuine realization that when we are naked with soap in our eyes we are at our most vulnerable for the Ginsu?

The Birds (1963) is Hitchcock’s last truly inspired bit of freakish storytelling. Working from a short story by Daphne Du Maurier, the tale concerns the quaint hamlet of Bodega Bay: weekend getaway for attorney Mitchell Brenner (Rod Taylor). While in Frisco, Mitch tweaked the nose of Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a spoiled rich girl and practical joker with nothing to lose.

The two quickly escalate their mutual interest in one another from tempestuous rivalry to smoldering romance. Ah, but then there are the birds – those fine feathery foul, running amuck, attacking school children, pecking a neighbor’s eyes out and blowing up the town’s gas station. Technologically speaking, The Birds is Hitchcock’s most meticulous production, brimming with matte shots and trick photography that only occasionally don’t hold up under today’s closer scrutiny of special effects.
Hitchcock employed a sodium matte process to photograph hundreds of birds against a blank screen and then added his live participants into the mix later. The effect is quite shocking. But the most terrorizing moment of all occurs almost at the end of the story, when Melanie accidentally discovers that the birds have eaten through the thatch of an upstairs bedroom roof. She is violently attacked by a litany of angry seagulls and black birds.

Reportedly, Hedren was so repulsed by the make-up job that made her bloody and scratched that she threw up in a garbage bin after catching sight of herself in a mirror. Hedren also reportedly wound up a catatonic mess after the scene was shot, requiring hospitalization for several days. The remainder of her work in that scene was performed by a stunt double.

Smitten with Hedren’s performance in The Birds – and arguably, Hedren herself - Hitchcock miscast his new star in the Freudian psychological sex mystery yarn, Marnie (1964). But in Marnie Edgar’s case, the shock wears thin. Mismatched with Sean Connery (as Mark Rutland, a publisher who catches kleptomaniac, Marnie with her hand in the cookie jar), Mark becomes fascinated with cleansing his wife of her childhood phobias. The film attempts to revisit Hitchcock during his more glamorous 50s period but is painfully out of step with contemporary tastes. Worse, its’ use of matte shots is more obvious than in most Hitchcock films. The chemistry between Connery and Hedren is strangely awkward and dis-engaged; though apart they’re quite palpable as cat and mouse, destined to discover one another’s fatalist flaws before the final fade out.

Torn Curtain (1966) is probably Hitch’s most miscast thriller. The film improbably stars clean faced Julie Andrews as Dr. Sarah Louise Sherman, fiancée to a brilliant lecturer, Professor Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman). The two are in Copenhagen for a conference where Sarah begins to suspect that Mike is a communist defector.

Like Hitchcock’s Suspicion, made nearly two decades before, the assumption turns out to be false and misleading. If the on screen chemistry between Hedren and Connery in Marnie was problematic, the chemistry between Newman and Andrews is just not there. Throughout, the film seems to be struggling for something intelligent to say, but more often than not, says nothing but what the stars themselves utter in awkward syllables for all to hear.

Hitchcock reluctantly cast Andrews at the behest of the studio because she was the hottest female star of the moment. However, as Hitch’ suspected, the audience kept waiting for Andrews (the star of Mary Poppins 1964 and The Sound of Music 1965) to sing – something that, unlike Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much, she never does. Hitchcock and Paul Newman did not get on. Newman’s method acting was in direct conflict with Hitch’s demands for complete compliance to the movement of his camera. In the end, Torn Curtain was badly maligned by the critics, and rightfully so. It is, at best, a clap-trap of vignettes Hitchcock already used to better effect in other films.

Following Torn Curtain’s failure, Hitchcock departed making movies for nearly three years to bring Topaz (1969) to the screen. He could have easily taken off a fourth. The story is about a highly ranked Russian official, Boris Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius) who defects to America. However, the defection may have been a rouse.

Enter Agent Nordstrom (John Forsythe) a clueless sort who enlists the aid of French agent, Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) to do a bit of homegrown spying. André accepts, but his wife Nicole (Dany Robin) is worried; smart gal. For, a short time late the plot thickens as Michèle Picard (Claude Jade) uncovers a murder.

Clearly with the success of the James Bond film franchise in the back of his mind, Hitchcock delves into espionage of the most convoluted and quirky sort, coming up with his own brand of cloak and dagger that doesn’t quite get off the ground. Hitch’ seems uneasy with the more laissez faire ‘60s. Unable to find a suitable ending, Hitchcock shot three – none satisfactory for this dull and uninspired clunker.

 
Frenzy (1972) represents Hitchcock at his most undesirably gruesome. Barry Foster plays Covent Garden fruit merchant/cum serial killer, Bob Rusk who gets his kicks by strangling women with neckties. One victim is Brenda Blaney (Barbara Leigh-Hunt), the ex-wife of his best friend, Richard (Joe Finch). Hitchcock revises his ‘wrong man’ scenario so that the police initially suspect Richard of the crime.

It doesn’t help that Richard had a girlfriend on the side. To further divert suspicion from himself, Rusk murders Blaney's girlfriend, Babs’ (Anna Massey). Ah, but then comes the twist…there’s always one in a Hitchcock thriller. Richard realizes Bob is the killer, escapes his own jail sentence, and, goes headhunting for revenge.

Family Plot (1976) brings down the curtain on Hitchcock’s film career with a preposterously lumbering bit of inane nonsense. This one’s about a fake medium, Madam Blanche (Barbara Harris) and her taxi driver boyfriend George (Bruce Dern) who cleverly scams naïve rich people out of their savings. The two cross paths with a pair of spurious diamond merchants Arthur Adamson (William Devine) and his attractive girlfriend Fran (Karen Black) – actually behind a series of VIP kidnappings in the Bay area.
When Blanche is hired by an aging widow, Julia Rainbird (Cathleen Nesbit), to channel her nephew, this foursome concoct a scheme to lighten the dowager of her considerable bank load. The plot is inconsequential, tired and meandering. Everyone seems to be going through the motions – particularly Harris, who plays it more like Freak Friday part two, than a Hitchcock thriller.

In 1995 Universal Studios, the custodians of all Hitchcock’s Paramount product (save To Catch A Thief) undertook complete remastering efforts on Rear Window and Vertigo. Then, in 1997 came Universal’s first DVD offerings of Psycho, Vertigo and The Birds. Shortly thereafter the rest of the catalogue followed. Unfortunately, the efforts from Universal then were rather lackluster. Vertigo and Psycho were NOT enhanced for 16:9 widescreen displays, The Birds suffered from a muddy and heavily tiled digitally harsh image, and all the hard efforts in restoring the original negative of Rear Window had fallen by the waste side in a DVD that was excessively grainy with pasty colors.

Universal seems to have made recompense for their previously uninspired offering with ‘Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Edition’ – a lavish 15 disc compendium of everything previously available but not in the way it was previously offered…well, almost. The most significant improvement to this box set is the newly minted Saboteur (1942). The B&W image marks a stunning improvement over the previously issued disc. Contrast levels are superb. Grain and age related artifacts have practically been eliminated. The gray scale is bright and balanced.

Vertigo and Psycho have received anamorphic transfers. Vertigo’s color palette is slightly less intense than on the previously issued disc. While flesh tones appear to have been corrected significantly, a huge error in dye transfer has been made during the opening credit sequence in which the image of a woman’s face (supposed to be B&W) is now a hazy orange.  On Psycho, excessive film grain persists. At times it is distracting. Otherwise the gray scale is accurately balanced with no digital artifacts.
The Trouble With Harry also exhibits considerable color and contrast improvement, albeit, with sharper image quality. Image quality on Topaz, Marnie and Frenzy appears slightly more refined. Edge enhancement on Marnie is still a problem. Film grain is heavier on Topaz than one might expect.
The Birds looks almost identical to the previously issued disc – slightly sharper and with colors a shade brighter than before – but with the same tiling of background information – particularly during matte shots, and a soft haze and dull colors overall. The Man Who Knew Too Much contains a strange shimmering in fine details that was NOT present in the original DVD transfer. The colors on Rear Window continue to be dull and pasty.

The much touted bonus disc in this collection is actually NOT a bonus for anyone who already owns Psycho and The Birds. The extensive documentaries on the making of both these films has merely been imported to this separate disc (presumably to save space for the enhanced transfers of the films themselves). A 15 min. poorly contrasted snippet from the AFI’s salute to Alfred Hitchcock and a rather superfluous mid-70s interview with Pia Lindstrom are the only added extras. The good news is that The Masterpiece Collection is being offered at under $100 – a steal by any measure. Recommended!

BONUS - read about Alfred Hitchcock's complete American tenure in films by downloading Nick Zegarac's article 'American Hitchcock' here:

Download american_hitchcock.pdf 

@Nick Zegarac (all rights reserved).

10 FILMS THAT DEFY CONVENTION

There are two schools of thought where Hollywood films are concerned; one suggests that the industry does not have a single original thought in their collective creative canon. Once clever marketing creates a sleeper hit, the other studios follow the leader with like-minded fare destined for the $1.99 DVD ‘blue light special’ bin at your local video retailer.

Still, there’s no denying that over the decades, Hollywood has managed minor coups along the way – films that defy both convention and labeling; unusual, trend-setting and counter to the fray of expectation and clever marketing. While many may ponder the future of originality within the industry (particularly as the summer of 2007 is gearing up to be a season of sequels and remakes), there is no denying that a good idea is where you find it – occasionally…even on the big screen. Here are ten Hollywood films that defy conventional marketing wisdom.

10) Orson Welles was just twenty-three when he decided to challenge media publishing leviathan, William Randolph Hearst with this thinly disguised and thoroughly wicked biography of Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941).

And while many critics have been quick to slide this film into their number one slot as the greatest movie of all time, by this reviewer’s thoughts and critique, Citizen Kane has always been perhaps, just a little too ahead of its time to hold that position.

To be sure, the film is a remarkable achievement; an absolute triumph for both Greg Tolland’s stark cinematography and Welles’ inimitable staging; its non-linear plot, decades advanced from the way Hollywood perceived storytelling. And furthermore, there isn’t one false step in any of its brilliant performances.

Welles was a creative genius. He is positively superb, exercising a prowess both in front of and behind the camera that should have made him the greatest actor/director/producer that ever lived. But what the film seems to lack, even today, is heart behind all that meticulous attention to detail – that intangible ability to generate pathos or sympathy from an audience for this portrait of a vital man reduced to a greedy shell.

Warner Home Video’s DVD exhibits a beautifully restored picture element. The B&W image is quite refined with deep solid blacks and very clean whites. Process and matte shots still contain traces of age related artifacts and heavier than usual film grain (as is to be expected), but their intrusion is minimal. The image is sharp without appearing harsh or gritty. The audio is mono and very nicely restored. Extras are limited to two audio commentary tracks and The American Experience feature length documentary – The Battle Over Citizen Kane. Highly recommended!

9) A really big rubber fish and some cleverly edited underwater footage of actual great whites shot off the coast of Australia proved effective fodder for the fertile imagination of director Steven Spielberg in Jaws (1975); Hollywood’s first certifiable blockbuster. Based on a novel by Peter Bencheley (much more graphically written than visually realized) the film departs considerably from the book – a bone of contention that had the author fuming and eventually quietly banned from the set.

Realizing that what is unseen is far more frightening – and more to the point, because Spielberg was encountering numerous setbacks with his mechanical shark, the director zeroed in on telling the story from Chief Martin Brody’s (Roy Scheider) perspective instead. Brody is concerned that the unexplained disappearance of several members of the quiet intimate community of Amity might suggest more than drowning incidents.

Of course, his worst fears are realized during the popular July weekend when Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees) is swallowed by a great white while a packed beach of tourists look on. Enter Quint (Robert Shaw), a slightly unhinged fisherman who vows revenge against the man eater, and, Matt Hooper, an oceanic expert who, like Brody, meets with resistance from Amity’s town hall at the prospect of shutting the beach down during the tourist season. 

Given that the film is a veritable patchwork of failed first attempts and slipshod second tries at getting that darn mechanical fin and flippers to take a bite out of anything, there was little in Spielberg’s mind at the time to suggest that what he had photographed was about to become a cultural phenomenon.

Universal’s new 2 disc special edition exhibits the same DVD transfer as their single disc. Color fidelity is refined, though slightly dated. Contrast levels are nicely balanced. A hint of digital grit and some minor edge enhancement and pixelization is detected though not distracting. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital. John William’s haunting score is the benefactor. Extras on the 2 disc edition include the full documentary on the making of the film. The single disc presented a truncated version of the same documentary. An audio commentary and the film’s theatrical trailer are also featured.

8) Robert Altman’s satirical ‘war is hell so let’s call it a garden party’ black comedy, M*A*S*H (1970) has since entered the collective public consciousness as a cinematic rebuttal to corrupt politics and, more to the point, its’ casualties of war. Set at the height of the Korean conflict, the film is not so much a critique of political injustices as an exposé on human superficiality; treating everything - from the misogynist exercise of looking up a lieutenant’s skirt to performing crash surgery on a diplomat’s son - with equal portions of laconic comedy and centralized disdain.

Altman’s overlapping narratives and dialogue help to augment the chaos and immediacy of life in 4077’s medical unit. Helming this fiasco are Captains Benjamin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Augustus ‘Duke’ Forrest (Tom Skerritt) – a pair of skilled surgeons with malice for conquest and bloodshed. They are joined by Trapper John McIntyre (Elliot Gould), a kindred spirit who enjoys raising his own bit of hell. There’s plenty to keep this motley troupe busy, from plotting against the idiotic Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) to concocting elaborate fantasy scenarios about Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan (Sally Kellerman).

Altman’s original intention was to have the film stand in as a nondescript rebuttal against Vietnam, but that premise was thwarted by nervous Fox executives who insisted that a subtitle identifying the location as Korea be inserted to clarify any mix up that an audience might have. After viewing rough cuts, Fox didn’t really expect much to come of the film. In fact they were not even sure it would turn a profit.

A discrepancy in artistic license cost Altman his ‘points’ or percentage of the gross he would have otherwise recouped once the film proved its cynics wrong. Instead, Altman later mused that the film did not receive a general release but was allowed to “escape” into the public domain.

Mike Altman, the 14 year old son of the director, penned the lyrics to the film’s theme song ‘Suicide is Painless’ and, as per Altman’s ongoing feud with Fox, out-grossed his father’s returns. When the dust had settled and claws were drawn back, the resulting work emerged as a devious and deliciously pointed anti-establishment stab that found renewed life as one of the most celebrated television serials of the 70s and 80s. War may be hell, but Altman’s take on it remains a sublime perversion.

Fox has released M*A*S*H twice on DVD in identical transfers with the same extras. The only difference seems to be in repackaging. The image quality is quite astounding, considering how awful the film has looked for so many years. The anamorphic widescreen image exhibits refined details and solid blacks. Whites still register as a dull pasty gray and flesh tones are more orange or pink than natural looking, but overall the quality on these discs will not disappoint.

Digital anomalies are a non-issue for a visual presentation that is quite smooth. Film grain is obvious but non-obtrusive. The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital remastering effort from original mono stems with inherent limitations in fidelity and clarity. Extras include an extensive ‘look back’ retrospective, vintage featurettes, audio commentaries and the film’s original theatrical trailer. Highly recommended.

7) Oliver Stone sought to poke hot needles in an open wound of the American psyche when he undertook a re-investigation of the Kennedy assassination in J.F.K. (1991) an opus magnum in conspiracy theories. Critics who were particularly outraged dismissed the film as pure hokum wrapped inside Stone’s own enigma for self-delusion.

Audiences thought better of that quick dismissal and flocked to see what all the fuss was about. What they discovered was a finely crafted, meticulously woven chain link of possible and plausible alternatives to the Warren Commission Report in which any number of spurious characters involved could have been more than likely responsible for the President’s death other than Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman in the film).

Stone’s critique is based on several books, as well as the real life pursuit for justice launched by Louisiana D.A. Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), the only man to ever levy formal charges of murder against perceived culprits. It was the defining moment in both Costner and Stone’s careers; the former delivering his final summation, “Do not forget your dying king…” with such conviction and raw emotional depth that it was difficult to sit through and not find tears welling up inside.

Choked full of stellar performances; outstanding was the word for performances from Gary Oldman as Oswald; Tommy Lee Jones (Clay Shaw/Bertrand); Michael Rooker (Bill Broussard); Laurie Metcalfe (Suzie Cox); Joe Pesci (David Ferrie); John Candy (Dean Andrews); Donald Sutherland (X); all taking a backseat to Costner’s central tour de force.

On every level, director Stone debunked what the Warren Commission has presented to the American public as fact. He shoots so many holes in their malignant simplicity that even if one chose to discard the film’s alternate theories as far fetched or implausible, there is little to dissuade from their considerable impact.

Warner Home Video’s 2 disc special edition is a tad disappointing. Though the original theatrical presentation does indeed begin with a desaturated color palette, the overall visual characteristic of roughly the first twenty minutes of this DVD is almost monochromatic. As the narrative progresses, color fidelity grows more strong and natural in appearance. Contrast levels are quite nicely rendered. The film’s brilliant use of vintage footage, coupled with Stone’s incorporation of newly shot inserts meant to recapture that ‘newsreel’ look and feel, are accurately rendered.

What is absent from this visual presentation is ‘the kick’ – the de-saturated sequences are more dull in appearance than stylized. Even when color levels bounce back to ‘normal’ levels – the resulting impact is more middle-of-the-road than eye popping. Overall then, the image quality is just above average. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital and quite effective at recreating a sonic experience full of subtly nuanced surprises.

Disc Two contains a mesmerizing documentary that goes further behind the film and the conspiracy than anything seen before or since. It’s a fascinating, compelling glimpse into the flip side of ‘the truth.’ Owing to stock footage and documentary inserts, image quality on this presentation is average as well. Recommended.

6) John Sturges’ Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) is a filmic milestone for several reasons. First, it features one of the greatest American actors, Spencer Tracy, in a seminal role that proved to be his last for alma mater, MGM. Second, it was the studio’s first foray into the grandeur of widescreen with Cinemascope. Third, the film’s plot is what must be considered one of the most gritty, hard edged and hard hitting examinations of racism ever put on film.

The plot concerns war veteran, John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy), who lost his arm in battle. Macreedy journeys to the desolate and isolated little bit of nothing known as Black Rock where he hopes to deliver a fellow soldier’s war medal to his Japanese father.  But from the moment he steps off the train, Macreedy finds himself the repository of stored tensions, fear and hatred from the town’s folk.

The chief conspirator of the plot to get Macreedy out of town is Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), the guy who has the most to lose if Macreedy learns the truth. He’s aided by brute thug, Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine), calculated shifty-eye, Hector David (Lee Marvin) and Liz Wirth (Anne Francis, quite effect working against her goody-goody type). There’s even a bit of sadism, when some of the town’s men plot Macreedy’s demise. The only two holdouts to this appalling murder scenario are the ineffectual law enforcer, Sheriff Tim Horn (Dean Jagger) and meager, Doc Velie (Walter Brennan).  The town’s dirty little secret is best left uncovered for those who have yet to see the film.

Director, Sturges packs a lot into 81 minutes – raising the bar for bare-knuckled thrills. Rumor has it, Sturges didn’t think an actor of Tracy’s caliber would be interested in playing the part of the returning war veteran, so he gave the character a one-arm handicap to sweeten the deal. No actor can refuse the challenge of hamming it up. Tracy obviously didn’t and he delivers one of his two or three finest performances ever committed to film.

The DVD transfer for Bad Day at Black Rock is fairly good considering the limitations of both Cinemascope and Ansco color film stock. Though the picture is softly focused at times and colors are decided dated with pasty or orangy flesh tones, colors are adequately balanced and with a minimal amount of film grain present.  The dark brown, beige and black palette of this isolated town is well served by Ansco/Eastman stock. The audio is stereo from the original 4-track magnetic master and, with decided limitations in fidelity factored in, is quite aggressive and pleasing to contemporary expectations.

Dana Polan’s audio commentary is informative but suffers from long portions of silence.  Bottom line: Bad Day At Black Rock is a seminal work on  a subject most film makers of this vintage rather chose to ignore. It is extremely well staged and performed and comes highly recommended to add to your collection.

5) Mike Nichols' directorial debut, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) is a bold departure in American cinema. The film – as the play before it - is a psychological microcosm captured in one night behind the flickering embers of a pathological and highly toxic marriage. Artistically, it’s the best work either Richard Burton or Elizabeth Taylor ever committed to celluloid as a couple. Burton and Taylor are cast (perhaps self reflexively) as middle-aged university professor George and his carping wife, the unrelenting foul mouthed Martha.

Based on Edward Albee’s controversial play, George was a once brilliant mind corrupted by life. He’s since turned to alcohol to cope with Martha’s bombardment of malicious barbs – a vice that is slowly rotting his soul as much as his wife’s constant humiliations have dismantled his heart.

For her part, Martha is a grotesque shrew - pure acid and one of the all time great female characterizations in American movies. She lacerates her husband’s reputation, brutalizing and emasculating him as a man and as a human being. The adage ‘if words could kill’ fairly accurately describes Martha’s malevolent relationship with George. Her bitterness pivots on a thin veneer of polished decadence – an almost lampoon of Taylor’s own on screen persona during the forties and fifties.

The plot thickens – or perhaps curdles is a better word - when new professor, Nick (George Segal) and his naïve wife, Honey (Sandy Dennis) arrive for late night drinks at George and Martha’s. What they are treated to is a chaotic destructive portrait of what marriage may hold in store for them in twenty years or so.

While there was nothing new about this sort of frank and detailed critique of American life turned upside down on the stage, on screen Mike Nichol’s bold handling of the ‘objectionable’ situations and language literally broke new ground in American movies. Never before, in the history of cinema had there been such a toxic exposition. There’s no happy ending here. No resolution, no coming to terms. Just a vindictive backlash of angry, mutual hatred and untiring disgust that permeates, envelopes and dissolves lives to a shattering mess.

What was shocking then seems perhaps a bit tame by today’s standards – but the dramatic irony that saturates the story has lost none of its vim or vicious vigor. Quite simply, this is one hell of a good show and a veritable showcase for private hostilities between two thespians/lovers played out in a very public venue.

Warner Home Video’s Special 2 disc edition of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? offers a fairly impressive DVD transfer that accurately captures the stark black and white photography. Shadow and contrast levels are nicely realized. Whites are generally clean. Blacks are overall solid and deep. Occasionally the picture seems just a tad soft but these moments are sporadic and forgivable. There's an incredible amount of edge enhancement in several key sequences that is quite distracting. The audio is mono which is also adequate since the film is largely an exercise in dialogue with limited musical scoring or sound effects.

Extras include two documentaries; one on the making of the film, the other a very dated overview of Elizabeth Taylor’s acting career. Honestly, with all that Taylor has done both on and off the screen it’s a considerable wonder that her life hasn’t been immortalized in a comprehensive 2 hr. biography with restored vintage film clips. That’s what a great actress of Taylor’s enduring legacy and reputation needs and deserves. Other extras include the film’s original trailer and a fairly involving audio commentary; great stuff all around.

4) So colossal in its scope and scale that it proved to be the first joint venture between two major Hollywood Studios (Fox and Warner Bros.), upon its initial release one critic described The Towering Inferno (1974) as “grand hotel in flames.” A fitting tag, since nearly every major talent (and a few minor ones) of their day were jam packed into the Promenade Room atop the world’s tallest skyscraper that just happens to catch fire during its inaugural dinner celebration. Headlining the cast are Paul Newman, as architect Doug Roberts and Steve McQueen as Fire Chief Michael O’Hallorhan. Tired of the hectic fast pace life in San Francisco, Roberts is on the verge of retirement. He is persuaded to stick around for the inaugural by contractor and friend, James Duncan (William Holden) and by his sultry love interest, Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway) who does not share Doug’s desire to rough it away from the city.

In the meantime, promotions expert Dan Bigolow (Robert Wagner) is planning a minor inner office tryst with his personal secretary, Lorrie (Susan Flannery). Unfortunately their passion proves not quite as hot as the raging firestorm rapidly advancing from the floors below. In the ballroom high atop this grand stick of glass and mortar stick of kindling is a veritable who’s who of celebrities, including Fred Astaire as the very engaging and sympathetic as Harlee Claiborne. Harlee is a con artist out to seduce the wealthy Mrs. Muir (Jennifer Jones), but his heart just isn’t in the rouse. Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) is also in attendance with wife Patty (Susan Blakely), though his unrequited dishonorable intentions and eyes have roved over to Susan. The cast is rounded out by Robert Vaughn (as a Senator), character actors Norman Burton and Jack Collins and even, O.J. Simpson as a security guard who rescues a cat.

Of course the real star of this film is the blaze – credibly ignited and made palpably frightening by very engaging special effects that even under today’s scrutiny hold up. What emerges is a harrowing saga of lives hanging in the balance and the very real possibility that not everyone (regardless of their famous standing) will survive.

Initially, Fox and Warner Bros. had acquired two rival novels; Richard Martin Stern’s The Tower and Thomas N. Scortia’s The Glass Inferno with similar themes of a building going up in flames. However, when the cost of mounting such a production proved exorbitantly high (and with returns split by the prospect of having two like-themed films hitting the box office at the same time) the powers that be ultimately decided to pool their resources and talents together and come up with one super production.
On all levels, The Towering Inferno lives up to that moniker. John Guillermin and Irwin Allen split the directorial responsibilities with Allen encouraging screenwriter Stirling Silliphant to come down hard on both the building code and moral ethics involved in cutting corners on the construction of skyscrapers that ultimately are unsafe for their inhabitants. The film is also noteworthy for one of composer John Williams’ early scores and the Oscar winning ‘We May Never Love Like This Again’ sung by Maureen McGovern; both the song and score perfectly encapsulates the immediacy, excitement and danger of the film.

Fox Home Video has at last done a fitting job of bringing one of the greatest disaster epics in recent history to DVD. Originally released as a bare bones non-anamorphic transfer, the quality of that first outing was marred by excessive edge enhancement and considerable pixelization. In comparison to that debacle, this newly enhanced widescreen transfer is feast for the eyes and ears. The rich sumptuous color palette has been finely rendered with fine details present throughout.

The image is so crisp and clean that it belies the fact that the film was made over thirty years ago. Age related artifacts are practically nonexistent and digital artifacts simply do not exist. Extras include an amazingly comprehensive audio commentary that fills up all of the films 170 min. running time by F.X. Feeney and Special Effects Director Mike Venzina and Stunt Coordinator, Branko Racki. Disc Two includes several all too brief featurettes that cumulatively would have made for one very nice documentary.

These include a retrospective look at the film, a brief bio on Irwin Allen, and shorts on the stunts and special effects. There’s also the AMC original documentary: Backstory – The Towering Inferno, plus a litany of extended scenes, outtakes and alternatives that present the film as it might have been. The original theatrical trailer is also included. Bottom line: The Towering Inferno is exceptional entertainment – a colossal achievement that continues to excite, frighten and above all else entertain. Word of caution: don’t expect to get a night’s sleep after you’ve seen it – particularly if you live in a high rise.

3) In a decade of civil rights marches, race relations became the subject of tempered dinner table discussions across the country. While no one in polite society would deny that the times – they were a changin’ – such false modesty took center stage in Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967); a critical – if somewhat lighthearted - investigation of apprehensions much closer to the truth.

Joanna (Katharine Houghton) is the daughter of liberal parents, Christina (Katharine Hepburn) and Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy). She’s always been taught to love thy neighbor, regardless of skin color. But the lesson hits a little too close to home when Joanna arrives on the arm of charming doctor, John Wade Prentice (Sidney Poitier). It seems that Joanna is determined to marry John before the weekend.

It never crosses Joanna’s mind that her parents might not be ready to offer her their blessing. Christina, though shaken, is willing to concede the interracial marriage. But Matt is dead set against it – though he’s struggling within himself to find a logical reason to back the objection. A further wrinkle develops when John invites his parents to meet Joanna’s family. John confides in Matt that he will not marry Joanna unless the marriage is embraced by both sides of the family, something John’s father (Roy Glenn) is more than a little reluctant to do.

Kramer went out of his way to invest Poitier’s character with every vestige of good, clean and honest living so that if the match was rejected outright by either Matt or Christina the audience would have to conclude that their decision was made solely on the basis of race. What emerged from the screenplay thereafter was a subtle, but poignant, critique of values, beliefs and platitudes that, once put to the test, either emerge more galvanic than ever, or are forced to change.

Playing husband and wife, Tracy and Hepburn have never better on screen. Tracy’s failing health added an undertone of mortality to his revelation wherein he concludes that his daughter has made not only the ideal match, but the best choices in life. Poitier excels in the role of the doctor, who meets with and is forced to confront race related resistance from his own parents. Remade in 2005 as Guess Who? with the situation reversed and race politics distilled into near slapstick comedy, the formula proved a quiet little nothing that passed unnoticed in the night.

Sony Home Video’s DVD is just average. The credit sequence is marred by an excess of film grain and age related artifacts that are greatly tempered – though still noticeable - once the film actually begins. On the whole colors are vital and bright. Contrast levels are accurately rendered. Black levels appear a tad weak. The audio is featured in 2-channel stereo but is quite strident, particularly sound effects of cars and airplanes. The sonic characteristic is almost completely lacking in bass tonalities. Extras are limited the film’s theatrical trailer.

2) The film that made us, “mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore;” Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976) is a scathing, brilliant and ominously accurate depiction of what television circa 2007 (in particular, the news division) has become. When stalwart television news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) suffers an on air mental breakdown he is encouraged by the powers that be to continue his on camera ranting as “the angry prophet, denouncing the hypocrisies of our time” to boost the network's Nielson ratings.

Shifting the focus from hard news to factoid entertainment, the new Howard Beale Show is the brain child of Dianne Christensen (Faye Dunaway, marvelously on point as a neurotic programmer). Dianne is an oversexed cutthroat and will stop at nothing to exploit Beale for her thirty share rating. She usurps Max Schumacher's (William Holden) position as head of the news division and later destroys his marriage with the broken promise of a torrid affair.

The cast also includes Robert Duvall as maniacal Frank Hackett, a corporate executive whose ‘sell out’ mentality and overriding greed are successful at transforming the art of journalism into its lowest common denominator – sensationalism. In an all too brief though nevertheless poignant performance, the late and very great Beatrice Straight delivers a masterful performance as Max’s betrayed wife, Louise. The film’s eerie clairvoyance at predicting the sad demise of our pop culture makes it one of the truly outstanding American films of the 1970s.

However, Warner Home Video's latest 2 disc edition of this award winning classic is a tad disappointing. Previously, MGM DVD released Network as one of the worst looking transfers this reviewer had ever seen, complete with horribly muted, dull and incredibly faded colors; pasty flesh tones and weak contrast levels marred by excessive film grain.

These problematic anomalies have only been partly rectified on Warner’s 2 disc remastering effort. Colors are still muddy on occasion, though overall they are far more refined than on any version previously issued. Night scenes continue to suffer from excessive film grain. There’s also a considerable amount of pixelization in many scenes that breaks apart background fine detail.

One other note of disappointment – the audio during several key sequences is strident to the point where it crackles and drops out. Not the way I would prefer to relish this great movie.
Extras include screenwriter, Paddy Chayefsky’s fascinating interview on The Dinah Shore Show, as well as several featurettes about the film’s success.

1) In the opinion of this reviewer, director Quentin Tarantino is a one hit wonder. That hit is undeniably Pulp Fiction (1994) an eclecticism of four genres; crime, the thriller, black comedy and action. An enthralling patchwork of stories, only at the end of which one becomes aware as to how it all fits together, the film is a potpourri for cameo star appearances, made pointedly raw by screenwriters, Tarantino and Roger Avery’s decided disregard for the niceties.

In totem, the plot concerned two hit men, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson). They have been assigned by their crime boss, Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) to liquidate several former associates. On their journey they come in contact with Ringo (Tim Roth) and Yolanda (Amanda Plummer); a pair of amateurs involved in a restaurant hold-up.

The narrative wildly and unconventionally jumps about; there’s Vincent’s brief encounter with Marcellus’s wife, Mia (Uma Thurman) that almost ends in her death from an accidental drug overdose; the introduction of a washed up prize fighter, Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) who refuses to take a pay off for throwing a match; an intentionally hilarious ‘rape’ sequence with rednecks, Zed (Peter Greene) and Maynard (Duane Whitaker) and Vincent’s accidental shooting of Marvin (Phil LaMarr) – a one time associate of Marcellus whose head is blown off after Jules hits a speed bump while driving.

What remains paramount in one’s recollections is not how the parts come together in the end, but how each vignette functions independently as its own mini-movie. If the film does have one stand out sequence, it is probably Mia’s drug overdose. Vincent thrusts a syringe full of adrenaline directly into her heart. After that, everyone’s adrenaline levels are elevated.

New Line’s remastered 2-disc edition of Pulp Fiction provides everything – and then some – you could possibly expect or want from an immersive DVD experience. The image quality on this anamorphically enhanced disc is reference quality with bold, rich and vibrant colors, deep crisp blacks, pristine whites and a minimal amount of film grain. Digital anomalies are a non-issue. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital and exhibits an exhilarating spread across all five channels. Extras include extensive back story material, Tarentino’s own ramblings on an audio commentary and interviews, storyboards, script pages, and a ton of other press and promotional junkets that are sure to please. Highly recommended.

BONUS: Be sure and check out Nick's text enriched overview and analysis on Hollywood film making - STATE OF THE ART by downloading the link below.

Download state_of_the_art_then_now_and_tomorrow.pdf 

OSCAR DEAREST - 10 BEST PICTURES REVISITED

Okay. Okay. Enough has been written about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in scathing tell-all books to acknowledge and document the fact that the coveted little gold bald guy known to the world as ‘Oscar’ is really no barometer of genuine greatness – just disputable proof that you’ve won the inbred Hollywood community’s most rabid popularity contest.

Occasionally, despite all the back-stabbing and expensively mounted shameless self-promotion campaigns, the right Hollywood film justly deserves and receives the title of ‘Best Picture’ of its year. I have chosen 10 Oscar winning classics that belong on everyone’s top shelf as ‘must have’ DVDs. These are films not only worthy of the ‘Best Picture’ accolade, but of our renewed, revised and revisited respect. So…let’s begin.

10) Ad campaigns of its day prematurely proclaimed The Great Ziegfeld (1936) “the sensatio n of the century.” Perhaps not, but this mind-boggling spectacle is sumptuous and elephantine; a super-production that quite easily puts most others to shame. The film stars William Powell as Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., the man who ‘glorified the American girl.’ At present, Flo’ wants to Americanize formidable European talent Anna Held (Luise Rainer). Held has agreed to sign a contract with rival producer Jack Billings (Frank Morgan).

However, she finds Flo’ irresistible, as do most of the ladies, and goes to America with him instead. The two marry and Anna becomes a star. But the king of the ‘great white way’ with his world famous follies packing them in the isles is prone to dalliances with his bevy of beauties. He settles too long on impatient social climbing chorus girl, Audrey Dane (Virginia Bruce).

Their affair leads to Flo’s breakup with Anna, and although she believes that the separation will result in reconciliation, Anna’s heart is broken when Flo’ marries the already established stage lovely, Billie Burke (Myrna Loy) instead. The stock market crashes and Flo’ is penniless. But Billie will not let her love for this great man die.

What sets the film apart from most soppy melodrama of its vintage are the endless layering in enormous production numbers; the most lavish and stunning; ‘A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody’ on a gargantuan revolving art deco platform with its sachet of glittering cat girls and dapper tuxedoed men. Director Robert Z. Leonard is working with stellar material and a formidable cast that includes such stage luminaries as Produced with every last ounce of panache that MGM could muster, The Great Ziegfeld is ambitious star-studded film making at its best. It’s more an experience than a movie and ever so much more than that.

Warner Home Video’s DVD is a mixed blessing. The film’s lengthy running time is compressed onto one side of a single disc. While compression artifacts in the digital mastering process have been well concealed, the overall image is inconsistently rendered. Many scenes appear with an impeccably mastered gray scale and a minimal amount of age related damage. But there are several key sequences that suffer greatly from horizontal tears and weak contrast levels. The audio is mono and presented at an adequate listening level. Hiss and pop is noticeably present during quiescent moments.

For the first time ever, the film’s original overture, intermission and exit music are included. We also get a very brief fearuette: Ziegfeld on Film that glosses over importance of the man and his memory, as well as theatrical trailers for this film and the two subsequent follow-ups that bear his name; Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946). Overall, recommended.

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: Anthony Adverse, Libeled Lady, Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, San Francisco, A Tale of Two Cities, Three Smart Girls, Dodsworth.

9) V iewing Gone With The Wind (1939) today is like sharing reminiscences about an old friend; historically flawed, overly sentimental perhaps, but ultimately engrossing and fulfilling - an excursion worthy of its gallant recanting the land of cavaliers and cotton fields.

If you don’t already know the story – it’s a pip; a southern tapestry full of glamorous trappings befitting that golden age of affectation in Hollywood. Those who continue to lament the film’s racial stereotypes, its tinny ring of spectacle over substance and relegating anti-feminist performance in Scarlett O’Hara (she does after all wakes up with a post-rape smile on her face) are missing the film’s fundamental point, and it is this; that despite what we today may perceive as the film’s shortcomings, GWTW is on hell of a good show!

Thanks to producer David O. Selznick’s meticulous planning and execution, the film has remained a vibrant flower from an age in story telling when cinema equated to spectacle and nowhere did that suspension in make believe evolve with more ripened flair than in Hollywood.

Plot in totem; melodrama of the highest order as spoiled southern belle, Scarlett O’Hara (Leigh) traipses through four hours of gallantry, demise and reconstruction in Atlanta, while pining for her romantic ideal, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard). Unfortunately, like most royals, Ashley marries his first cousin, Melanie Hamilton (Olivia DeHavilland) and this sets up what is essentially an awkward lover’s triangle with a fourth spoke; Northern scallywag Rhett Butler (Clark Gable).

Just too sexy for his ascot, Rhett remains unconvinced of Scarlett’s piety or her romanticized longing for ‘the elegant Mr. Wilkes’, though he finds her sinfulness a genuine turn on. After enduring three hours of romantic manipulation to no avail, Rhett decides to blow with a “frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!” I’m being glib here, but the impact of GWTW on American folklore, like the film itself, is epic. For it has been said that in the history of American cinema “there are only ‘two’ movies; Gone With The Wind and everything else.”

After scouring the country side for an actress to play Scarlett, Selznick settled on fiery English lass – Vivien Leigh; the result - an inspired bit of casting that continues to garner praise and accolades for both Ms. Leigh and the film. Some other facts to consider; GWTW’s author, Margaret Mitchell only wrote the novel to keep her mind nibble while recovering from a horse riding accident. She never intended that the book should be published and steadfastly refused to entertain offers of a sequel.

No less that six screen writers lent their craft to the finished film, though only Sidney Howard is given credit. Howard died in a tractor accident on his farm before filming was completed and never saw the fruit of his labors transcend into Hollywood legend. Leslie Howard, who played Ashley Wilkes was killed in a plane crash shortly after the film was released while flying spy missions for Britain over Germany. 

There is indeed something new in the wind and it’s Warner Bros. ultra resolution transfer in a brand new 4-disc reissue. Gone With The Wind was originally released under the MGM/DVD banner in the late 1990s, following its theatrical reissue. However, the muddiness of the theatrical print was transferred over to the DVD then, along with a barrage of digital artifacts that quite frankly, my dear, made everyone give a damn! When Warner reissued the film under its own banner those anomalies were imported directly.

Now, for the good news: Warner’s new 4-disc collector’s edition rivals what audiences saw in 1939. The Technicolor is truly glorious - vibrant, bold, rich and beautifully rendered. Contrast levels and blacks are solid and deep. There is a hint of edge enhancement remaining in several brief scenes but nothing that will distract. The aforementioned digital anomalies (pixelization, shimmering of fine details) are absent on this outing.

Extras include the masterful and compelling 2 hr. documentary The Making of A Legend narrated by Christopher Plummer as well as individual documentaries on the major stars. Olivia DeHavilland also participates a brief featurette – Melanie Remembers, providing insightful commentary with theatrical aplomb. The rest of the extras boil down to theatrical trailers and screen test footage. This is an outstanding gift set from the good people at Warner and it comes highly recommended.

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: Dark Victory, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights.

8) Alfred Hitchcock’s entrée into American films, Rebecca (1940) is a contemporary Jane Eyre; complete with winsome trapped heroine (Joan Fontaine), brooding man about  town, Maxim (Lawrence Olivier) and a housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) that is to die for; that is, unless she kills you first.

Based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier, the film slinks along the route of a conventional romantic melodrama – at first. But then the happy couple returns to Manderly, that strong silent gothic estate sitting precariously close to the edge of those craggy moors, proudly clinging to its’ dark little secret just long enough to unravel all those daydreams for domesticity by the sea.

Hitchcock was original lured to America by Selznick to make a film of the Titanic disaster. However, upon arriving in Hollywood, Hitch’ soon discovered that Selznick was completely engrossed in the completion of Gone With The Wind (1939). The Titanic project – postponed repeatedly – was eventually scrapped, allowing Hitch’ to latch on to Du Maurier’s novel and transform it into a true cinematic work of art.

In the book, Maxim DeWinter has indeed killed his first wife, the haughty and exclusive Rebecca. But of course, Hollywood’s prevailing censorship would not permit such a scenario on screen. Although Hitchcock and producer, David O. Selznick eventually worked out an ingenious little twist that kept audiences happy, Selznick – a stickler for the purity of any literary adaptation – was not particularly pleased. In the end he really had nothing to complain about. The film one the Best Picture Oscar, making Selznick International Studios two for two; having won the previous year for Gone With The Wind.

Rebecca has been made available as a bare bones disc from Anchor Bay and as a much more costly 2-disc Special Edition from Criterion. But do not let price fool you.

The Anchor Bay single is the preferred disc for several reasons. Both discs exhibit an exemplary gray scale with deep velvety blacks and almost clean whites. Age related artifacts are just a smidgeon more obvious on the Anchor Bay version. However, the Criterion has some rather obvious shimmering of fine detail, edge enhancement and pixelization that is distracting. The Anchor Bay single is virtually free of such flaws.

Also, the Criterion edition has a few mysterious substitutions that must be mentioned. The title credit is an alternative on the Criterion (different lettering and with a heavy black matting) – not on the original.The Anchor Bay copy is the original title sequence. True, there are no extras on the Anchor Bay version, but the extras on the Criterion are suspect.

Although the Criterion edition advertises an isolated musical score as one of its extras, a key musical cue played under Maxim and the second Mrs. DeWinter’s first meal at Manderly has been substituted with an alternative isolated musical cue from much later in the film. Finally, Criterion’s only other extras are an audio commentary and radio version of Rebecca; hardly worth their considerable asking price!

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: All This and Heaven Too, Foregin Correspondent, The Grapes of Wrath, Kitty Foyle, The Letter, The long Votage Home, Our Town, The Philadelphia Story.

7) F or this reviewer, it is quite simply impossible to watch John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley (1941) without shedding a few tears. Based on Richard Llewellyn’s best seller, the story concerned the Morgan clan helmed by a benevolent, if outwardly stern patriarch Gwilym Morgan (Donald Crisp). A quiet character study of small town small-mindedness, the film charts an unrequited romance that develops between the Morgan’s only daughter, Angharad (Maureen O’Hara) and the town’s minister, Mr. Gruffyd (Walter Pigeon).

However, when the son of the town’s only factory proposes, Angharad is quietly forced into a loveless marriage – one that ends in rumors, scandal and divorce. For the rest of this unusually plot-rich family saga, there is also the loss of eldest son, Ivor (Patric Knowles) in a fatal mining accident and the near death of its’ feisty matriarch, Beth (Sarah Allgood) and youngest son, Huw (Roddy McDowell) when both fall through the ice.

Ultimately, Ford imbues his masterpiece with a sense of decline in solidarity that, while tragic, ideally paralleled the contemporary crisis, then, in Europe. Years later, when asked by the American Film Institute to chose the work for which he would most like to be remembered, Ford – primarily known for his westerns - chose How Green Was My Valley instead; a most fitting and lofty departure in his remarkable career.

This is Fox Home Video’s second DVD outing. The first was a bare bones disc with minimal digital anomalies; edge enhancement, pixelization and shimmering of fine details. These have been directly imported to this re-issue. The B&W image is remarkably clean with a nicely contrasted gray scale, deep solid blacks and generally clean whites. Occasionally, film grain is heavier than one would like and age related artifacts intervene. But these are minor distractions. The audio has been re-channeled to stereo. The original mono is also included. Extras include the AMC Backstory special on the making of the film, as well as a thorough audio commentary and theatrical trailer.

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: Blossoms in the Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, Sergeant York, One Foot in Heaven, Suspicion.

6) No o ne film will ever satisfy everyone’s opinion as being the greatest of all time. But if a decision has to be made, Michael Curtiz’s penultimate wartime melodrama Casablanca (1943) is a worthy contender for the top spot. At the time, nobody associated with the film had any idea of the cultural impact it would eventually have. Truth be told, there were more than a few sweaty palms in the front office when the script continued to change almost daily throughout the shoot.

It seems nobody could decide which man Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) ran off with in the final reel; suave saloon keeper with a past, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) or handsome hubby, Victor Lazlo (Paul Henreid). Yet under Curtiz’s unerring direction, and with a script eventually patched together by Howard Koch and peppered throughout with the indelibly witty dialogue of the Epstein brothers, Casablanca emerged as the most clever, most romantic and ultimately, most memorable film of the 1940s.

The story opens with German Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) arriving in Casablanca to oversee the capture of the man who murdered two of his couriers in the unoccupied dessert. Strasser is greeted by French Prefect of Police, Louie Renault (Claude Rains), whose roving eye is frequently focused on the desperate but attractive refugee girls seeking letter of transit to escape to America.

Louie and Rick (Bogart) are fair-weather friends. But a wrinkle in their relationship materializes with the arrival of Ilsa (Bergman) and her freedom fighter husband, Victor (Henreid). Ilsa – who shared a passionate rendezvous in Paris with Rick during the war when she believed Victor had been murdered in a concentration camp – now begs her former lover for letters of transit so that they can both escape to the new world and continue the good fight. But Rick is heart sore and Ilsa’s arrival only serves to stir all of those bad memories from the past.

Basically a melodrama/romance – there is nothing conventional about Casablanca. It frequently hovers in the top five of most critics’ ‘best’ lists but that isn’t why I have chosen it as my number one movie pick of all time. Rather, it is for the film’s ability to generate perennial freshness each time I sit down to watch. After 100 plus viewings, Casablanca continues to hold me spellbound in the dark – a rarity amongst film favorites. Sam, play it again.

With Warner’s 2 disc special edition one will want to play and replay this classic for many years to come. The beneficiary of a complete digital restoration, the image is reference quality with a superbly rendered B&W grayscale. Fine details are fully realized. Blacks are deep and solid. Whites are pristine. Age related artifacts are merely glimpsed. The audio is mono but very nicely repurposed – exhibiting exceptional clarity and depth.

Extras include “You Must Remember This” – the making of the film; Bacall on Bogart – a marvelous retrospective of Bogie’s career, Carrotblanca – the Bug’s Bunny spoof; and the original pilot for the 1950s television series which was a colossal flop. There are also outtakes, interviews, audio commentaries and much much more to delve into. Bottom line: highly recommended.

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Human Comedy, Heaven Can Wait, In Which We Serve, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Song of Bernadette, Watch on the Rhine.

5) Jos eph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950) is the quintessentially urbane and sophisticated melodrama that belongs on everyone’s top shelf. The film is a microcosm of seething insecurities, viperous social climbers and cutthroat sensationalists. To say nothing of what one discovers after leaving the theater behind. The film stars Bette Davis as aging Broadway diva, Margo Channing. Margo’s success is partly due to her long and enduring friendship with playwright Lloyd (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife, Karen Richards (Celeste Holm). Into this close knit community is thrust Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter)…or that is, she thrusts herself upon this unsuspecting troupe.

In no time, Eve has burned bridges, fractured personal alliances and ingratiated her way into Margo’s council of cohorts and her boudoir – all the while playing the part of a respectful personal secretary. Instead, and with her eye firmly on the prize, Eve has plans to usurp Margo’s professional and personal associations and knock her from her throne as the undisputed actress of her generation. Margo’s insecurities stem from one central concern – getting old. It’s a tragic inevitability and it leave Margo rather standoffish and insecure over her burgeoning romance with director, Bill Samson (Gary Merrill).

Mankeiwicz’s screenplay delivers a high octane and revealing look at the base soul of all that publicly glitters. His critique is bang on and with Davis in the driver’s seat he is guaranteed a star who completely understands the material. Davis was herself an actress of forty and largely considered a has-been when she agreed to play Margo Channing. Later, Davis thanked her director/writer profusely for the opportunity – “I owe it all to Joe. He resurrected me from the dead.” Behind the scenes it was a somewhat different story. Davis and Ann Baxter did not get on – a tension brought to the boiling point when both were nominated as Best Actress in the Oscar race. Neither won in the end.

Fox’s DVD transfer is a tad disappointing. All About Eve was previously released as a bare bones disc. On that occasion there were considerably more age related artifacts to contend with throughout the transfer, and, although these have been greatly tempered – if not entirely removed on this new ‘Studio Classics’ minting – the film’s contrast and gray scale have been slightly downgraded. There are no solid or deep blacks in this film – just varying tonalities of gray. Occasionally the image appears to be a tad too softly focused. Fine details can be nicely realized but they are rather inconsistently rendered. Certain scenes have retained their grainy patina on this reincarnation.

The audio is presented in both original mono and re-channeled stereo. For a dialogue driven film the latter inclusion is quite unnecessary. Extras include the AMC original: Backstory as well as two separate and extremely thorough audio commentary tracks. Although the back cover denotes interviews with Bette Davis and Anne Baxter as individual extras – no such content exists except in excerpted form from the AMC featurette.

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: Born Yesterday, Father of the Bride, King Solomon’s Mines, Sunset Boulevard.

4) The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is quite possibly the most satisfying of all David Lean epics; a thinking man’s military drama - one that asks and answers the question whether it is best to be on the side or might or right. The story of a captured British Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) who acts as structural engineer for the enemy to prove his point on the model of British efficiency, the film presents messages of misguided honor and misplaced integrity that are well suited for the cold war period.

William Holden is top billed as American POW, Cmdr. Shears who, after a daring escape and threadbare survival in the jungles of Celon is ‘convinced’ by Maj. Warden (Jack Hawkins) to return and blow up the bridge. In humanizing the character of Col Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), the process of delineating between good and evil became anything but an exercise in clear-cutting. In the end the film’s overriding message rings loud, true and clear; that in the annals of war there are no winners.

Sony Home Entertainment has advertised that it intends to revisit this title with a re-issue in March. Will the subsequent disc be an improvement on the 2 disc special edition currently available?

One can hope. The image quality on the currently available DVD is quite inconsistently rendered. Colors appear natural in certain scenes, but quite faded and dated in others. Jungle foliage is green and vibrant in one scene, dull and muddy brown in the next. Flesh tones can be fairly accurate, then fluctuate between a harsh pink or garish orange. There’s just no consistency to the image.

Certain scenes are sharp and almost grain free. Others are slightly out of focus and heavily marred by the intrusion of grain and age related artifacts. It’s appalling how miserable this DVD looks on the whole. The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital remix of the original 6 track masters and is fairly engaging. Extras include a ‘making of’ documentary, audio commentary and vintage outtakes, interviews and featurettes.

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: Peyton Place, 12 Angry Men, Sayonara, Witness for the Prosecution.

3) A  sparkling champagne cocktail of a musical, and oh so deserving recipient of 9 Academy Awards including Best Picture – Vincent Minnelli’s Gigi (1958) caps off producer Arthur Freed’s illustrious tenure at MGM with style, grace and elegance – truly, a landmark amongst great film musicals.

The story by French author Colette concerns a young waif-like child, Gigi who lives in a tiny apartment on the left bank with her grandmother, Madame Alverez (Hermione Gingold). After much consternation about the future of their tomboyish granddaughter, Alverez and her sister, Alicia (Isobel Jeans) decide to fashion a career for her as a courtesan for the wealthy Gaston LaChailles (Louis Jourdan). Gaston’s passing fancy in Gigi has grown considerably since his breakup with Liane d'Exelmans (Ava Gabor). Gaston’s uncle, the wily boulevardier, Honore (the sublime, Maurice Chevalier) was once Madame Alverez’s lover. Apparently, the old gent really got around. But Alverez still admires him from afar, proving that when it comes to love – a classic never dies.

Fresh from their Broadway smash of My Fair Lady, composers Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe basically rewrote the premise of that show for Gigi with a French flair and utterly charming music and lyrics including the spirited, ‘The Night They Invented Champagne’, comedic ‘It’s a Bore’, melodic ‘Say a Prayer for Me Tonight’ and three grand odes of fresh insight into the affairs of the heart; ‘I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore’, ‘I Remember It Well’ and ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls.’ 

The summer that Minnelli shot in Paris was the hottest on record. Inside the Palace du Glace, ice melted, fake trees along the boulevard wilted and extras passed out from heat exhaustion. Despite, or perhaps, because of these obstacles, the project emerged as a colossal collaboration. In a weak moment, MGM pulled the purse strings on the director midway through, forcing Minnelli to film the poignant ‘I Remember It Well’ against a manufactured sunset on an obvious soundstage. 

Warner Home Video’s DVD is a direct import of the transfer from MGM DVD. Though colors are rich and vibrant, there are chips, scratches and dirt inherent in the anamorphically enhanced image. Contrast levels have been accurately rendered. Occasionally, the image exhibits some minor fading. Flesh tones too appear somewhat less refined. The 5.1 Dolby Digital mix does justice to the dated audio. Tragically, there are NO extras!

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: Auntie Mame, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones, Separate Tables.

2) When it was released in 1959, the New York Times declared William Wyler’s Ben-Hur (!959), “by far, the most stirring of the Bible-fiction epics!” It was an accolade well deserved. The film is a rich familial tapestry set against thought-numbing tragedies, personal discovery and an epic chariot race.

The story, written by Gen. Lew Wallace, focused heavily on Judah Ben-Hur’s (Charlton Heston) conversion to Christianity. Wyler instead concentrated on the interpersonal relationships. After all, that was the Wyler touch; drawing poignancy from the intimate rather than the awe-inspiring.
Obviously, Ben-Hur has plenty of both, from its opening ‘star of Bethlehem’ sequence to the thrilling sea battle, and finally, exhilarating chariot race, Wyler’s remake (the original was also made by MGM in 1929) went on to win a record 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture; an undisputed champion until Titanic (1997) tied its’ tally.

The story concerns a Jewish Prince, Judah who is master of the prosperous house of Hur. Judah’s boyhood friend, Messala has just been made Roman Tribune of the province. Judah assumes that the strength of their youthful ties has remained in tact. But Messala expects him to betray his people – this, Judah emphatically refuses to do. When a tile from the Hur house accidentally falls, injuring the Roman governor, Messala seizes the opportunity to seek his revenge and set an example. He imprisons Judah’s mother, Miriam (Martha Scott) and sister, Tierza (Cathy O’Donnell) in the Citidel where they contract leprocy, and, sentences Judah to a life of servitude as a slave rower on a Roman galley.

The rest of the film’s lengthy narrative is basically the fulfillment of this revenge scenario. Judah vows to return and destroy Messala. But twice will his path crosses with that of Jesus Christ, forever altering the course of his embittered heart. Though the jewel of the film is undoubtedly its spectacular fifteen minute chariot race, what is recalled best on closer reflection is the superbly crafted melodrama. Stellar performances all around; particularly from Heston and Boyd who, thanks to a narrative device concocted by screenwriter Gore Vidal, treat their crumbling relationship as a lover’s quarrel gone south.
Hugh Griffith is magnificent as the lusty Shiek Ilderim – the man who loans Judah his prize white stallions to race against Messala in the Circus Maximus. Ditto for Jack Hawkins stirring turn as Quintis Arrius, a Roman General who begins by despising Judah, then adopts him as his son. Sam Jaffe is both poignant and soulful as the Hur’s trusted advisor, Simonides. Frank Thring provides commanding presence to his brief cameo as ruthless governor, Pontius Pilate.

This is the second DVD outing for Ben-Hur. Warner Home Video’s previously released flipper disc left much to be desired in that it cropped the expansive MGM Camera 65 negative on all sides and exhibited discoloration and fading throughout. These shortcomings have all been corrected on Warner’s deluxe four disc box – a DVD presentation that belongs on everyone’s top shelf.

Anamorphic and reframed, the image exhibits a color palette that is both rich and vibrant. Age related artifacts are practically nonexistent. Fine details are evident throughout. Flesh tones appear quite natural. Blacks are deep and velvety. Whites are pristine. Edge enhancement is minor. The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital remastering of the original magnetic stereo and is profoundingly moving in its sonic spread. Extras include the original documentary previously made available on the aforementioned DVD and laserdisc from MGM/UA Home Entertainment.

This disc also includes, a new ‘making-of’ reflection; an interesting ‘music video-styled journey using the film’s original score and still images that have been enhanced to provide a 3-D effect; audio commentaries and a theatrical trailer. The final extra is the original 1929 Ben-Hur. Though the benefactor of considerable restoration, this silent version has not been progressively mastered and exhibits a less than stellar visual quality. Highly recommended!

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: Anatomy of a Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Nun’s Story, Room at the Top.

1) David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) ranks among a handful of truly timeless Academy Award winning classics. The film has an epic sweep that is grand, if fictional in its account of the life of T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole). The plot begins with Lawrence’s modest beginnings as a somewhat socially backward and generally bored British officer working in a map room in Cairo. He is plucked from obscurity and thrust at the forefront of the Arab revolt by Mr. Dryden (Claude Rains) a wily politico, much to the strenuous objection of General Lord Edmund Allenby (Jack Hawkins).

Given the opportunity of a lifetime, as special envoy to Arab Prince Fisel (Alec Guinness in a sublime and moving performance), Lawrence ingratiates himself to the cause of liberating the Arab armies from their British masters. He breaches a fragile truce between feuding factions run by Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn). But skepticism runs high with Fisel’s confident and trusted advisor, Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) who perceives Lawrence – perhaps rightly so – as an interloper in their private war. However, after establishing a seemingly impossible stronghold on the coast, Lawrence’s rise from upstart to cult figure swells his ego to his own detriment.

The film is a visual feast for the eye, breaking new ground with its powerful editing techniques. The visceral nature of these cuts are best exemplified in two great scenes; one in which a close up of Lawrence blowing out a match immediately cuts to a long shot of the rising sun over the dessert; the other, with a mesmerizing long shot and long take of Sherif Ali miraculously materializing from the Nefu on horseback.

In his debut, Peter O'Toole delivers a tour de force; introspective, self appointed and fundamentally flawed. Egyptian born, Omar Sharif is masterful and commanding as Sheriff Ali. 

Shortly after the film’s world premiere, all prints of Lawrence of Arabia were drastically cut in order to accommodate more nightly viewings of the film. David Lean never approved these cuts but he was given the opportunity to revisit his masterpiece some thirty years later and restore all of the missing footage. The absence of certain audio portions meant that surviving principle cast members were recalled to dub in their lines of dialogue.

However, all is not well on DVD. Lawrence of Arabia has thus far been released to DVD 3 separate times (with a fourth disc pending in mid-Feb.2007). The first two DVD incarnations (one a deluxe 2 disc set, the other a single) are both minted from the same print. Colors are not quite as refined as one would hope for. Contrast levels appear slightly weak with grayish blacks and dull whites. However, the biggest misgiving on all 3 discs is the persistent inclusion of digital aliasing, shimmering and edge enhancement which make certain scenes quite painful to watch.

The latter of these 3 incarnations was released under Sony’s hi-res ‘Superbit’ series. Colors are infinitely more refined on this edition but aforementioned digital anomalies persist. Also, the Superbit edition is awkwardly cut and spread across two discs – not at the intermission – as the previously issued 2 disc set was – but rather and quite obtusely right after the beginning of the second half of the film has already begun. Therefore, none of these aforementioned releases of Lawrence is recommended.

Instead, we shall have to wait and see if restoration expert, Robert A. Harris has any pull in overseeing a new DVD transfer from Sony Pictures pending in February. Extras on the aforementioned 2 –disc include a brief documentary on the making of the film, audio commentaries, a brief featurette from Steven Spielberg, vintage short subjects and the film’s original and re-release theatrical trailers. There are NO extras on the Superbit edition.

OTHER FILMS IN THE RUNNING THE YEAR IT WON: The Longest Day, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Music Man, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Nick Zegarac is a freelance columnist, reviewer and author of several screenplays. To gain instant access to more that 500 of his on line DVD reviews, go to Nix Pix at http://nixpixdvdmoviereviewsandmore.blogspot.com/

To learn more about great Hollywood legends and film classics, go to The Hollywood Art at http://thehollywoodart.blogspot.com/

So, come on, then. What are you waiting for? Let’s all go to the movies!

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