Charade
(1963/Criterion Collection Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: C+ Extras: B Film: B
Cary
Grant was a leading man all the way in Hollywood,
making more classics than he always gets credit for and in several genres. His last great film may very well be Stanley
Donen’s Charade, the director’s
ever-clever, classy 1963 comedy thriller that proved he was a more formidable
director than just a giant of the Hollywood Musical. Best of all, he is paired with Audrey Hepburn
as married woman Regina Lampert, who is unhappy with her marriage because her
husband is too absentee for their own good.
However, she’s too late as he has been killed and now everyone is
starting to go after her!
What do
they want? What did he have? Where is it?
Is it really worth that much money to kill over? Mrs. Lampert may not last long as a Ms.
unless she can figure this out, and all while on vacation in France!
Peter
Stone (Arabesque, Jigsaw, The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three) and Marc Behm (Help!, The Return Of Dr. Mabuse) co-wrote the story The Unsuspecting Wife
that the film was based on, with Stone doing the screenplay and yes, it breaks
the fourth wall verbally at least (maybe more than it should?) and manages to
do this without missing a beat. I like
the film and it holds up very well, especially when compared to the early Bond
films (including those recent Blu-rays) and Hitchcock films of the time, as
well as ones that preceded it in the same mode.
And of
course, Hepburn and Grant have great chemistry together throughout, with
Hepburn still on a role as one of the top stars and icons of the 1960s. This is a film that not only understands
their charm, appeal and star power, but also that thrillers and comedies both
share a long history of suspense together and this one has balance between the
two like no other film ever made. Donen,
Behm and Stone totally understand what they are doing and it is a classic of
both genres in its own unique way. Some
may wish it were more thriller or comedy, but in the end, Charade gets the last laugh with its wit and large-scale
effectiveness working as well as any of its contemporary films.
Finally,
the other supporting actors who made this work so well deserve mention,
especially since they became even bigger stars afterwards including the great
Walter Matthau (moving on to more big screen work after going between film and
TV for years), James Coburn (who would soon be spy Derek Flint in two hit
films), George Kennedy (in one of his early big screen breakthrough roles) and
legendary character actor Ned Glass, in the middle of a 45-year career one that
is one of the greatest in Hollywood history.
They too are all the more reason to see or reacquaint yourself with Charade.
I was not
very happy with Criterion’s two DVDs of the film, despite having the best
extras to ever come with the film. First
was a disappointing letterboxed DVD, then they replaced it with an
anamorphically enhanced DVD that was no serious improvement. Though this was not as bad as the two DVDs of
Jacques Tati’s Playtime (now in a
superior Blu-ray from Criterion, as reviewed elsewhere on this site), it fell
short of the often impressive letterboxed 2002 VCI DVD of the film that was the
best version of the film for me until this Blu-ray as it had a real three-strip,
dye-transfer Technicolor print (despite its fading and other issues) that
Criterion did not have.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image is a new High Definition master from a
35mm Interpositive that received the usual top-rate cleaning treatment, but
that also means you get more grain than a new Technicolor print would have
had. Some shots here are as good as 35mm
prints I have seen of the film over the years, but some other parts could use
some work and if Universal could find a real Technicolor print, that would
help. Those who have seen the endlessly
bad prints that have been out from no-name companies since the VHS and Beta
days will be particularly impressed by what they see here. Detail and depth can be terrific, but grain
and some color limits are an issue. Director
of Photography Charles Lang, Jr. (Wait
Until Dark, The Big Heat, One Eyed-Jacks) did a great job of
shooting this film as a classy romantic comedy and suspenseful thriller at the
same time, with camera work rightly compared to Hitchcock films, but also at
the level of the best Grade-A Hollywood productions to that time. You can see the following three frames from
the out of point VCI DVD at the following links and compare them to the Blu-ray
yourself at these links:
Still One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10316/Charade+Still+#1+%E2%80%93+Mrs
Still Two
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10317/Charade+Still+#2+%E2%80%93+The
Still
Three
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10318/Charade+Still+#3+%E2%80%93+The
Also note
the great title sequence design for the opening credits by the great Maurice
Binder (Dr. No, Thunderball, Arabesque, Barbarella, all Bond films from You Only Live Twice to Licence To Kill) created the great
graphics that have forever become the visually identified with the film.
The PCM
1.0 Mono sound will show up on home theater systems as a center-channel-only
track and it sounds good for its age and not bad here, though this might be a
little lower in volume than expected. Criterion
and Universal used 35mm magnetic soundtrack masters to make the sound here, but
music rights are the only reason I could imagine they did not add Henry
Mancini’s terrific, influential (think of Bill Conti’s work on the 1981 James
Bond film For Your Eyes Only, for
instance) superior music score to the film and make this a stereophonic
Blu-ray. Mancini fans and audiophiles
know how popular the album is and have demanded an expanded version that still
has not materialized. JVC actually
issued an exceptional stereo version from their XRCD series (an XRCD 2 disc in
this case, unreviewed) that sounds incredible for the age of the recording and
is recommended to fans who can still get a copy. Too bad those track (or similar material)
could not have been added here, even as an extra.
Extras
include a booklet with tech information, illustrations, and a fine essay on the
film by Bruce Eder, while the Blu-ray has the original theatrical trailer at
1.33 (in low definition, which one of their DVDs did not) and a great feature
length audio commentary by Donen and Screenwriter Stone worth hearting after
seeing the film.
Donen was
unhappy by critics and other oversimplifying the film as just a Hitchcockian
imitator, which missed its clever deconstructive aspects, so he made his next
film a spy thriller called Arabesque
three years later (also at Universal) and pulled out all the stops to make it more
than just another Hitchcockian Spy thriller.
It worked and was issued on a Gregory Peck DVD set Universal issued, but
it would be nice if Criterion followed up this Blu-ray with a special edition
of that underrated thriller. Until then,
Charade on Blu-ray is a great
addition to the Criterion line-up and is definitely recommended.
- Nicholas Sheffo
