6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A married American man working in London begins an affair with a divorced English mother of two. What begins as a casual affair takes an unexpected turn after the pair return from a week in Spain.
Starring: George Segal, Glenda Jackson, Hildegard Neil, Paul Sorvino, Cec LinderRomance | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The great English actress Glenda Jackson belongs to the same generation of luminaries that
includes Judy Dench, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren. In her younger days, she was considered
a sex symbol, "the thinking man's Brigitte Bardot" (as one critic put it). She shifted easily
between art house and mainstream cinema and was equally at home on the screen and the stage.
Though she disdained awards, she was showered with them anyway, including two Best Actress
Oscars within four years.
So why isn't Dame Jackson's name as familiar to today's moviegoers as those of her equally
talented contemporaries? The short answer is that she quit acting in 1992 to go into politics,
winning a seat in Parliament and serving in the House of Commons for twenty-three years. Not
until 2015, when she was nearly 80, did the acting world reclaim Jackson's talents, which are
undimmed with time. Since her political retirement, she has appeared regularly on the stage,
winning Broadway's Tony award in 2018 for a revival of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women
and, at the age of 83, recently completing a Broadway run as the title character of King Lear,
possibly the most strenuous role in Shakespeare's canon. (I saw both shows; the performances
were astonishing.)
Jackson's first Oscar was for Ken Russell's 1969 Women in Love, in which her character famously faced off on foot against a herd of horned steers. Her second was for a film that couldn't be
further removed from the literary heights of a D.H. Lawrence screen adaptation: the farcical
romantic comedy, A Touch of Class, released in 1973. Jackson's Oscar was a surprise win
against favored contenders Marsha Mason for Cinderella Liberty and Ellen Burstyn for The
Exorcist. Looking at the film today, it's not hard to spot the qualities of the multi-layered
performance that appealed to Academy voters, as Jackson breathed vitality into every corner of a
character who, in other hands, could have easily become a bundle of cliches. Blu-ray viewers can
now experience her portrayal of a single mom having an impossible affair with a married man in
a sparkling new presentation of A Touch of Class by the Warner Archive Collection.
A Touch of Class was shot by British cinematographer Austin Dempster (Bedazzled and The Looking Glass War). For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, the Warner Archive Collection has commissioned a new scan of an interpositive, which was performed by Warner's MPI facility at 2K, followed by MPI's customarily meticulous color correction and WAC's typically thorough cleanup. The resulting image is wonderfully film-like and beautifully detailed, aptly showcasing the London and Spanish locations and capturing every flicker of emotion in the many intimate closeups of the film's two co-stars. (Jackson's face is uniquely expressive; it's a throwback to the great movie star faces of the Thirties.) The film's gentle palette is delicately rendered, the densities are stable throughout, and the image is free of banding, aliasing or any other form of artifact or distortion. As usual with WAC, there's nary a streak, dust spot or speckle to be seen. WAC has mastered A Touch of Class at its usual high bitrate, here 34.99 Mbps.
The film's original mono track has been taken from the magnetic master, cleaned of any age-related damage and encoded as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. It's a serviceable mix, and WAC's presentation is so clear that you can easily detect the post-dubbing (if you care about that sort of thing). The sounds of the London streets and of Steve's and Vickie's Spanish getaway are aptly reproduced, including the roar of the crowd at a bullfight the couple attends. The cheerful score is by John Cameron (The Ruling Class). The title song, and several others, were written by four-time Oscar winner Sammy Cahn (who was nominated again for this film) with George Barrie.
The only extra is the film's trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:33), which has been remastered in 1080p. Warner's 2002 DVD was similarly bare.
For those new to Glenda Jackson's talents, A Touch of Class is an easy place to start, even
though the role doesn't scale the dramatic heights of which she was capable in films like Women
in Love or Sunday Bloody Sunday. One could also start with the pair of comedies Jackson made
with Walter Mathau, Hopscotch and House Calls (the latter sadly missing on Blu-ray). In
whatever she has appeared, from Shakespeare to comic fluff, Jackson is always a force to be
reckoned with. WAC has given her Oscar-winning performance the first-rate treatment it
deserves, which is highly recommended.
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Collector's Edition
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Limited Edition to 3000
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