D.O.A. (Roan Group)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B- Film: B
D.O.A. (B&W, 1950) starring Academy Award winning
Edmond O'Brien (Barefoot Contessa) was shot in L.A. and San Francisco in
the Noir classic story about a man who goes to a police station to report his
own murder because he has been poisoned.
The San Fran. shots were interesting showing a lot of unique shots of
the city in that time period. D.O.A is
based on a German film Der Mann.
The highlight of the film in my opinion was the jazz band playing at a
speed that was faster than anything I've heard from that time. You can see the roots of rock'n'roll and
felt it gave the film a unique environment from any other film. It showcased the up tempo tone of a
character trying to figure out what's happened to him. The movie is a bit dated now though. You can't help but feel as if you are
watching a 1950's movie even though it is fast-paced. It was great entertainment for it's time, but it's time has
passed now.
The acting was fairly good. Beverly Campbell had her first film role with this picture. She relays a story in the extras about
mentioning at a dinner to a publicist that she didn't think the film would win
the academy award it was nominated for.
This ended up keeping her out of work for 3 years. The studio was apparently not happy and held
this against her. They were telling
studios we gave her lots of money and a break but she didn't appreciate it. She says she realizes you can't be that
honest. You have to put up a front about
the picture you are in. You can't be
naive. You would hope they want to make
good pictures but it's really about just appearing to make good pictures. It makes you realize that a lot of these
publicity interviews with actors are so contrived and meaningless (as if we
didn't already know that). Some (maybe
a lot) of films win Academy Awards for the wrong reason too. It can turn into a popularity contest of who
the studio will publicize with the best chances to win an academy award or
which film crew will endear themselves (suck up) enough so the studio will push
their work to be recognized. In that
system you do not get the best films winning or produce the best work
either. Anytime fairness is
compromised, the quality and morale of the works being produced falters.
The standard 1.33 X 1 image is good, with excellent gray
scale and contrast. I expected the
transfer to be well-done and it was.
One reason was that it is the only film on the disc and is a popular
title from back then. The picture
quality was not outstanding but it was good.
The audio was stable with no dropouts and gave a smooth clear
projection. The music sounded as good
as it would in monophonic. It is about
as good of sound as you could get without remixing into a stereo track with
newer sound tracks. The audio is Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono following other Roan releases I've reviewed. It's encoded at 192 kbps, which also follows
other later Roan releases. With as low
as this is, it still sounded great. The
picture information came in at an average of 5 mbps. The video was good, but felt there was enough room on the disc to
make it look excellent if they would have used the full space available. The extras were informative. The film background was an easy read and the
Beverly Campbell (Beverly Garland) introduction was very candid and forward
about a little of what was going on behind the scenes.
- Marcus Mazur
