The Matchmaker (1958)
Picture: A- Sound: C Extras: D Film: B-
The Matchmaker from 1958 is an average little romantic comedy starring Anthony
Perkins stuck right between his roles in 1955’s Fear Strikes Out and his most memorable role in 1960’s Psycho. The film holds up pretty well even though the material is quite
outdated, but really holds this film together is its presentation onto the DVD
format. Just to show you how far
transfers have gone in the DVD world the film looks stunning compared to most
of the films of this age available on the format.
It was released by
Paramount and was shot in black and white VistaVision and even looks better
than some of the other really good releases we have seen by this studio such as
Fear Strikes Out, which was also
shot in the incredible VistaVision format, which allowed for a much sharper
image due to the process in which it was photographed. Today VistaVision is mainly used for special
visual effects work, which allows for a clean negative print to work with,
which enables even digital effects to be created on an easier, larger and much
better negative area.
Unfortunately, this is the
case because once you see this print you will quickly realize just how amazing
a film can look when done right, regardless of the content. There are several scenes in the film that
demonstrate some of the best grayscale that I can recall seeing on the
format. There are a few in which a black
carriage is seen, which is presented in the deepest black and does not have a
washed out look at all, but rather looks natural and the whites are not burned
or even blurred out, which sometimes happens with sloppy transfers. This transfer equals some of the better
prints circulating around such as Warner’s Casablanca
Special Edition or even the restored Citizen
Kane. This is also a landmark for
Paramount as the film ranks up with some of their best DVD work alongside the
prints for Hud (1962) or Seconds (1966), at least for a black
and white production.
I know that I have barely
talked about the film at this point, but trust me if I felt that the plot
summary would really aid anything it would have been mentioned, rather I felt
it was more important to discuss the technical achievement of this DVD, which
is worthy of ownership just on that merit alone, especially if you are fan of
VistaVision or even black and white in general. Suffice it to say that the anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image
looks exceptional. The sound is a
mediocre Dolby Digital 2.0 mono mix, which is nothing spectacular and sounds a
bit ‘hissy’ for my tastes, but you’ll be so stunned by the picture that you may
not even notice.
No extras at all, but
Paramount deserves a nice round of applause for the work done here and we shall
leave it at that. Let’s hope we
continue to see excellent work like this because the more we see, the higher
the benchmark and that means people won’t settle for average work that many of
these studios have been pumping out since the format began. This was the inspiration for the stage and
film musical Hello Dolly, the film of which Fox made sure was shot in
Todd AO 70mm for the 1969 Gene Kelly/Barbra Streisand release.
- Nate Goss
