6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 3.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
From legendary director Fritz Lang comes an engrossing spy thriller years ahead of its time. Gary Cooper is a US scientist, parachuted into war-torn Nazi Germany to obtain military secrets. But the deeper he probes, the deadlier his mission becomes...especially when his involvement with mysterious Lilli Palmer catapults him into an intense maelstrom of danger, betrayal and murder.
Starring: Gary Cooper, Robert Alda, Lilli Palmer, Vladimir Sokoloff, J. Edward BrombergRomance | 100% |
War | 33% |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Years ago I was given a very rare kinescope of an old Studio One broadcast from 1958, and it came replete with its original commercials. The show was sponsored by Westinghouse and along with the demonstrations by Betty Furness of the latest in home appliances, there was one truly hilarious yet disturbing advertisement for nuclear power where a nattily dressed gentleman came out and while pointing to a certain item in his hand said, “With just one shoebox of plutonium, we can power a city!” There was an odd love-hate relationship with atomic power that ran rampant through the United States in the 1950s. On the one hand, nuclear power was touted as a cheap way to power a nation increasingly reliant on electricity. On the other hand, the Cold War and acquisition of The Bomb by the Soviets meant that no one was really sleeping all that soundly unless they were retiring to their concrete and steel bomb shelters every night. One of the most fascinating things about 1946’s Cloak and Dagger, a kind of intermittently exciting entry by Fritz Lang that nonetheless holds some very real interest, is how prescient it was about this dichotomy. The film revolves around a rather unlikely hero, a professor who becomes a sort of globetrotting action hero spy who is attempting to ferret who in the smoking ashes of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy might have access to atomic secrets, but Lang’s leftist sentiments peek out of this film in at least one or two unusually overt ways, despite the fact that the film was drastically edited (and even reshot) after Lang was through with principal photography. Even so, this still has elements of being a rather startlingly pacifist screed that must have confused audiences in 1946 when it was released, just at the time when Americans were celebrating their victory in World War II and before much soul searching had set in about the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan to end that particular part of the conflict. There's little doubt that the film also angered the (right leaning) powers that be at Warner Brothers, for the film was evidently wrested from Lang's control in post production and radically tweaked to remove most (but not quite all) of its supposedly objectionable content.
Cloak and Dagger is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. There are significant improvements to virtually all areas of the image from the old DVD, most especially telecine wobble which has been virtually eliminated (my sense is some program was used that shifts the image frame by frame, as there is one really odd moment early in the film when the Nazi spies are rushing up a spiral staircase and it looks like the entire set folds in on itself for a moment). Contrast is very strong for the most part on this release and the overall image is nicely detailed, both huge improvements over the old DVD. However, there is quite a bit of damage evident throughout this presentation, including some persistent scratches that tend to show up at the sides of the frame. There's also some noticeable print through, again on the sides of the frame, as well as some emulsion damage. One brief insert has a weird blurred image that may be endemic to the source elements.
Cloak and Dagger's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track sounds surprisingly full for its age, especially with regard to Max Steiner's rousing score, which runs rampant with blaring brass cues. Dialogue comes through very cleanly and the battle scenes have some nice boisterous sounding effects. Fidelity is very good and dynamic range is quite wide.
No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.
Cloak and Dagger is a fascinating example of an artist's intentions being thwarted by those with a different agenda (which might be something as simple as making money). Still, some of (soon to be blacklisted) Ring Lardner, Jr. and Albert Maltz's original formulation, along with Lang's pacifist vision, manage to sneak—if only barely—into this finished product. If Cooper is a bit ill at ease, and the role itself is patently ridiculous, that's more than made up for by the lovely work done by Lilli Palmer. And the handful of Hitchcockian sequences in this film are among the best little set pieces in Lang's American oeuvre. As a study in the film "business" if not as a film itself, Cloak and Dagger comes Recommended.
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