On
The Riviera (1951/Fox
Blu-ray)
Picture:
A- Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B+
Jack
Martin (Danny Kaye) is an American entertainer on the beautiful
Riviera, but he bears a striking resemblance to world famous French
aviator Henri Duran (also Danny Kaye). An opportunity of a life time
falls into his lap as he is asked to impersonate him, but things get
more hilarious as he tries to juggle his two schedules, romance two
woman, keep the wives from finding out their secret and avoid the
real Henri in Walter Lang's On
The Riviera
(1951).
Jack's
boss is bored with his acts and threatens to fire him unless he comes
up with a new act, so Jack comes up with the idea to impersonate the
famous, rich and womanizing aviator Henri Duran, which could either
save him or land him in a scandal. Things get complicated when their
wives (Gene Tierney, Corrine Calvet) find out Henri is really Jack
and then decides to 'test' their husband, but then it gets really
complicated Henri finds out the wives know and switches with Jack
back to trick the wives. In the end Jack learns the secret of
romancing woman and Henri learns the value of staying with one woman,
but not before mayhem (and music) ensue.
For
an 62+ year old old film, 20th Century Fox has restored and cleaned
up this film for Blu-ray fairly well, not bad at all with no static
but still grainy with the wide shots and vistas. Before CGI, green
screen and blue screen, see how actors played two roles on the same
screen, Danny Kaye plays a masterful role of two different
characters, masquerading as each other. The only slight thing they
forgot was to subtitle the songs as Danny was singing on stage.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 AVC @ 38 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer
is amazing and likely comes from at least one dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor version of the film, but you can see in many
places how good it must have looked in such copies. Director of
Photography Leon Shamroy, A.S.C. (Leave
Her To Heaven,
The
Robe,
The
King & I,
Desk
Set,
South
Pacific,
Cleopatra,
the original Planet
Of The Apes)
delivers
rich color, fine compositions and a top rate look to the film.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 lossless sound mix can show its age at
times and sounds good at times, but there are more than a few times
one wishes for at least stereo sound and a few moments sound was not
as clear as I would have liked. Extras
include The
Riviera Story
featurette, a portrait of Danny Kaye, Choreographer:
Jack Cole
featurette and trailer.
-
Ricky Chiang
