Beat
The Devil
(1953/United Artists)/Hollow
Triumph
(1948/Film
Detective
Blu-rays)/In
Cold Blood
(1967/Sony/Columbia/Criterion Blu-ray)/Shadows
and Fog
(1991/Orion/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)
Picture:
B-/B-/B/B Sound: C/C/B-/B- Extras: C-/C-/B-/C+ Films:
C+/C/B/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Shadows
and Fog
Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, is
limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies last
from the links below.
There's
something amazing about films shot on black & white film that
communicate things like nothing else. Here's four examples just
released, including upgrades to three we have previously reviewed....
John
Huston's Beat
The Devil
(1953) is a comedy heist film with Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones,
Robert Morley, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre and Bernard Lee that
has a following we first reviewed on DVD at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13088/Beat+The+Devil+(1953/UA/Film+Detective+DVD)/
Though
the sound is no better, the picture is improved enough to say this is
the best version now available, which we can also say for the new
Blu-ray edition of Steve
Sekely's Hollow
Triumph
(1948).
The Film Noir shot by John Alton is one we also covered on DVD,
which you can read more about at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12622/Big+Bad+Wolf+(2012/Horizon+DVD)/Daleks+Invas
More
on both below, though a trailer for each respective film is the only
extra.
Richard
Brooks' In
Cold Blood
(1967) was issued by Sony on Blu-ray a few years ago in a good but
basic edition with shockingly no extras we covered at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10428/In+Cold+Blood+(1967/Sony+Blu-ray
The
new Criterion Blu-ray corrects that with a slew of great extras
that background the landmark book and film, including an illustrated
paper foldout inside the Blu-ray case with an essay by critic Chris
Fujiwara, then the Blu-ray disc adds a new interview with
cinematographer John Bailey on the film's cinematography, a new
interview with film historian Bobbie O'Steen on the film's editing, a
new interview with film critic and jazz historian Gary Giddins on the
film's music by Quincy Jones, a new interview with writer Douglass
Daniel on director Richard Brooks, a vintage interview with Brooks
from 1988 from the French television series Cinema
cinemas, a vintage
interview with actor Robert Blake from 1968 from the British
television series Good
Evening with Jonathan King,
With Love from Truman,
a short 1966 documentary featuring novelist Truman Capote, directed
by Albert and David Maysles, two archival NBC interviews with Capote:
one following the author on a 1966 visit to Holcomb, Kansas, and the
other conducted by Barbara Walters in 1967 and the Original
Theatrical Trailer. Yes, it is worth the upgrade, but if you are
still not convinced, see more below.
Last
but not least is Woody Allen's Shadows
and Fog
(1991), a clever comedy that starts as a murder thriller with a
strangler going around his neighborhood at night and immediately
becomes Kafkaesque when a group of his neighbors wakes him up in the
middle of the night to join their 'gang' (or is that lynch mob?) to
find the killer. He just wants to get back to sleep (check out the
wild glasses he picked for his character) and let them take care of
it. The circus is also literally in town, which eventually
complicates things, including a couple (John Malkovich and Mia
Farrow) whose relationship is not going well, so she lands up running
into a prostitute (Lily Tomlin) and goes back to her brothel (where
the 'co-workers' include Kathy Bates and Jodie Foster, plus customers
like John Cusack) and gets propositioned.
In
the meantime, Kleinman (Allen) consults a very smart surgeon (Donald
Pleasence) about the matter while the killings continue, then when he
leaves, keeps running into old frienemies and strangers as no one
seems to know what is going on about anything... but the killer.
Some might accuse Allen of playing too loose with the comedy or
wishing for a more serious thriller (more likely now than then, when
fans and moviegoers complained that they wanted the 'funny' Allen,
only for not enough of the to go see his films when he delivered
those kinds of films), but Allen is simply being sly in his approach
here and it works better than he gets credit for.
The
film shows his usual love of pure cinema with more richly realized
inner-textual references than there might first seem to be, but that
doesn't take away for how well the film works and also has one of the
best casts he ever assembled. Be on the lookout for some stars to be
as well.
Extras
include another illustrated booklet on the film with Julie Kirgo's
must-read essay, while the Blu-ray disc adds an Isolated Score Track
and the Original Theatrical Trailer.
All
four films are shot on 35mm black and white film and look good in
High Definition, but the 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image
on Devil
and Triumph
has specks, some debris, damage and other flaws in their prints and
transfers, but they surpass their DVD predecessors. On Triumph,
you can really see the darkness of the film black and more clearly
what Director of Photography John Alton really achieved here. Both
need more work, but these will do for now.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Blood is from
a new 4K master than makes for an interesting comparison to the
previous Blu-ray that looked really good and showed how good the
lighting of the real anamorphic Panavision image is. This just edges
out that disc with a richer and slightly more detailed appearance,
but some shots of good lighting might be dimmer than they should be
at times. Otherwise, a pleasant surprise that delivers the film's
dark intents more starkly.
Finally,
the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Fog
is easily far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the
film because no previous format could deliver Director of Photography
Carlo Di Palma's uncanny capturing of the German Expressionist look
throughout that makes this amazing to watch at times and separates it
from Allen films like Manhattan and Stardust Memories.
We get minor print damage and issues, nice depth of field and
surprising detail without seeming out of character or the era
intended.
In
the sound department, all the films are theatrical monophonic
releases except Blood, presented in a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1
lossless mix from its original 4-track magnetic sound with traveling
dialogue and sound effects, offering detail and warmth the Dolby
TrueHD 5.1 upgrade on the previous Blu-ray was missing. In fairness
to Dolby, this is not the same soundmaster, but a brand new one that
more money and effort was spent on, with likely new technology. It
would be hard to believe the soundmaster is the same for both.
The
rest of the films are here in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) Mono lossless
mixes, with the 2.0 configurations on Devil
and Triumph
just too compressed and a little low in volume in the way they were
transferred, similar to the same soundtracks on Film Detective's
releases of The
Bat
and Bucket
Of Blood
(both reviewed in the same text elsewhere on this site), but the 1.0
Mono on Fog
was originally a Dolby SR (Spectral Recording) Mono theatrical
release, so it is far better and rare for that format. This is very
warm, clear and one of the best monophonic tracks I have heard in any
lossless format in a while down to the Kurt Weill music, though that
is in lossless DTS-MA Stereo on the isolated music score track also
sounding fine. Even for Allen, it is one of his best monophonic
tracks.
To
order the Shadows
and Fog
limited edition Blu-ray, buy it and other great exclusives (including
several other Woody Allen films) while supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
