Cast a Dark Shadow / Wanted for Murder Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Cast a Dark Shadow / Wanted for Murder Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 27, 2021

Considering their vaunted reputation as such a reserved and polite people, Brits certainly have a penchant for Murder Most Foul, if I might be permitted to co-opt a film title from one of the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple outings (a title which is itself lifted from Hamlet). Miss Marple's creator Agatha Christie may be the best remembered British author of murder mysteries, but this appealing double feature from Cohen Media Group's Cohen Film Collection imprint proves she wasn't the only one, and in fact wasn't the only female one. Both Wanted for Murder from 1946 and Cast a Dark Shadow from 1955 are based on stage plays, and in the case of Cast a Dark Shadow, a play written by Janet Green, who also gave the world Midnight Lace . Wanted for Murder has a different claim to fame in its authorship department, albeit in this case regarding one of the adapters of Percy Robinson and Terence De Marney's play, co-scenarist Emeric Pressburger, who had already begun his vaunted partnership with Michael Powell, but who was here on a "holiday" of sorts, before returning to Powell to deliver the one-two punch of A Matter of Life and Death and Black Narcissus.

For reviews of the two films included on this disc, please click on the following links:

Cast a Dark Shadow Blu-ray review

Wanted for Murder Blu-ray review

Cast a Dark Shadow / Wanted for Murder Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality of each film is assessed in the above linked reviews.

Cast a Dark Shadow / Wanted for Murder Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each film is assessed in the above linked reviews.

Cast a Dark Shadow / Wanted for Murder Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Cohen has packaged these together on one disc with the following minimal supplements. Both of the trailers listed below are new, not archival, and advertise Cohen's restorations.

• Cast a Dark Shadow Trailer (HD; 2:05)


• Wanted for Murder Trailer (HD; 1:22)

Cast a Dark Shadow / Wanted for Murder Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Neither of the films in this set is an undiscovered masterpiece, but Cast a Dark Shadow in particular has its moments, and the Pressburger connection to Wanted for Murder may make it a "must see" for Archers completists. Cast a Dark Shadow probably wins the technical merits sweepstakes in this double feature, though both presentations are certainly watchable, for those who are considering a purchase.