6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
In this exploitation thriller, Karen Petrie is a beautiful woman with a shadowy past. When she becomes millionaire Walter McCoy's new wife, it ignites a flurry of jealousy and passion in his two young sons. Soon Karen's seductive spell is cast on the whole family, leading to a string of deception and eventually murder.
Starring: Judith Brown, Andrew Robinson (I), Keenan Wynn, Peter Hooten, Lois HallPsychological thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 16-bit)
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
For an introduction to director Arthur Marks, please see the review of The Roommates, which is the first half of this double-feature Blu-ray from Gorgon Video. Marks's 1975 release, A Woman for All Men, is a cut above even his own work in the exploitation field, for several reasons. One reason is the script by Robert Blees (Magnificent Obsesssion), a member of the Writers Guild with substantial credits in both film and television. Blees's script has a sufficiently coherent structure that one could easily envision a successful remake of the film, with appropriate adjustments for a different era. The underlying themes and motivations are timeless. A second reason is the quality of the cast. The two male leads were played by veteran character actor Keenan Wynn and by Andrew Robinson, who had recently gained attention as the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry; he would later achieve permanent cult fame as "Garak" on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. A third male character was played by Alex Rocco (The Godfather and Get Shorty), whom Marks has said is his favorite actor. These three performers significantly upped the dramatic ante in a feature that was otherwise primarily about sex and nudity. But Marks was lucky in that department as well. For the woman of the title, he cast Judy Brown, who not only performed her many nude scenes with an apparent lack of self-consciousness, but also brought a kind of femme fatale intensity to the role that gave the film an unexpected weight. A Woman for All Men is trash, but it's surprisingly interesting, in a kitschy way. It was a good choice for the second half of Gorgon's double bill.
The source for Gorgon Video's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of A Woman for All Men was not identified, but the company has provided a surprisingly well-defined and detailed image for a low-budget film from forty years ago. As one might expect, there is major damage in the form of scratches and blotches in the opening titles, where optical printing often locks in such issues, but the bulk of the film is in remarkably good shape. Colors are a mix of soft earth tones (for the McCoy home and construction site) and bright hues (mostly for Karen's wardrobe and occasionally for that of other women). The image has natural grain to it, although I cannot discount the possibility that some light degraining may have been applied to certain shots. Fortunately no artificial sharpening has coarsened the grain or otherwise marred the image. Because Gorgon is supplying A Woman for All Men on a double-feature Blu-ray with a second Arthur Marks film, the 95-minute feature has been mastered with an average bitrate of only 21.99 Mbps. While this is somewhat low for a feature originated on film, A Woman for All Men does not involve many edits or major action, so that a skilled compressionist can accomplish a lot with a little. Even with print damage, the image appeared to be free of artifacts.
The original mono soundtrack for A Woman for All Men is presented in lossless PCM 2.0 with identical left and right channels. The dialogue is clear, but it is frequently quite loud relative to the sound effects. However, this appears to be a function of the original recordings, in which such effects as wind, waves and construction equipment are fairly weak and distant. From a storytelling perspective, the soundtrack gets the job done, and in the days when the effects were pumped through a drive-in loudspeaker attached to a car door, I suspect no one noticed any deficiency.
A Woman for All Men is like some trashy pulp novel that feels almost modern. What was titillating or shocking in 1975 may be yawn-inducing today, but the film's core themes are timeless. Generations still fight over property and inheritance. Sexual rivalry still splits friendships and families. Power, sex and money are routinely used as both currency and weapons of battle. A Woman for All Men may frequently be ludicrous, but it's about something. Gorgon Video's presentation is unlikely to be improved upon and is, on that basis, recommended.
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