Dark Journey Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Dark Journey Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 16, 2013

Note: This film is currently available only in The Vivien Leigh Anniversary Collection.

Vivien Leigh will never escape the looming Technicolor shadow of her portrayal of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. For many, both those who have read Margaret Mitchell’s source novel and those who haven’t, Leigh simply is and will always be Scarlett. That kind of association with one iconic role can be as much of an obstacle as it is a boon to an actor’s career, but the fact is of course Leigh essayed many memorable parts over the course of several decades. Even diehard Gone With the Wind fans are aware of Leigh’s stunning turn as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , which might almost be thought of as Scarlett O’Hara: The Next Generation. Other, more devoted, fans of the actress can point to any number of other notable performances, including everything from Caesar and Cleopatra and Ship of Fools. But rather remarkably for an actress who is so lionized and so well remembered today (even if it is largely for one legendary role), Leigh actually only made a relatively paltry 19 films over the course of her career. Part of this was due to Leigh’s love of the theater (real fans will know she brought home a perhaps undeserved Tony for her brief run in the musical Tovarich!), but part of it was due to her emotional problems, which became more and more debilitating from the late forties onward (and which according to some accounts led to her early departure from Tovarich!). Leigh’s pre-Gone With the Wind British work seems to have most seriously fallen by the wayside in the actress’ oeuvre, and several of those films have in fact fallen into the public domain, with a resultant release of various pretty shoddy looking home video versions through the years. Now Cohen Film Collection (working in tandem with the British Film Institute at least some of the time) is releasing four early Leigh ventures that may help to reclaim this underappreciated era in the actress’ burgeoning career.

Do you hate films where the “foreigners” played by American actors often speak with fake accents, even though they’re speaking English? It’s one of the stranger conceits in film “vocabulary”, but even those who detest the habit may wish that at least a little of the approach had been followed in Dark Journey, a rather interesting spy thriller that is just a tad confusing since so many of its actors speak that impeccably clipped English when they’re actually supposed to be of various nationalities, or at least sympathies. At least Conrad Veidt, certainly one of the oddest leading men to share a romantic two shot with Vivien Leigh, shows up with his fairly heavily accented patois, and his nationality is never in doubt—he’s a high ranking World War I era German officer named Von Marwitz who is feigning having left the military due to injuries, but who is in fact a spy.

Vivien Leigh portrays Madeleine Goddard, who is supposed to be a Swiss dress merchant, but who is living in Sweden and who is also pretending to be a German spy, when in actuality she’s a double agent in cahoots with the French. (Got that?) It actually takes a little while for all these competing nationalities to settle down into a comprehensible whole, but the good news is Dark Journey is a fun and well done film which mixes elements of thrillers with a more straightforward romantic aspect, as both Madeleine and Von Marwitz circle each other warily, slowly but surely falling in love while also suspecting each other of having a bit up their respective sleeves.

Dark Journey is rather interesting in its egalitarian treatment of the various parties to the conflicts of World War I. Instead of casting Von Marwitz as a nefarious villain and Madeleine as the virtuous heroine, the film is really rather well modulated, actually shying away from any outright political screed making and instead focusing on two characters caught up in huge historical events over which they have little if any control. Leigh really comes into her own in this role, with a sharp, intelligent characterization which is equal parts steely spine and sweet, vulnerable heart.

Dark Journey Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dark Journey is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Let me state up front that the numerical score I have given this film is meant at least partially to show a relative difference between this film and its siblings in the complete Vivien Leigh set. This could probably be easily bumped up to at least a 3.25 or even a 3.50 if it did not compare unfavorably to the others in this set. This seems to have been sourced from secondary elements, and so the image here is much grainier throughout most of this presentation. A lot of this presentation is quite soft as well (you'll notice it especially in the shipboard scenes that bookend the film). The grain is almost impossibly heavy at various times, especially in the opening credits and then again toward the end of the film. But there are qualitative differences scattered throughout the film. Pay attention, for example at around 40:42, when Leigh walks through a door and is confronted by her German collaborators. The image before that transition is at least reasonably sharp and well defined with a fairly natural grain structure. The scene inside the room is suddenly quite a bit softer and with much heavier grain. This anomaly recurs quite frequently throughout the film. All of this said, things are never less than watchable here, and a good deal of Dark Journey looks nicely defined and even reasonably sharp.

Dark Journey Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dark Journey's uncompressed LPCM Mono track has a few more pops and cracks than some of the other tracks in this set, and there's also some persistent midrange crackle that is quite noticeable in the music cues. Dialogue is clearly presented, however, and given reasonable expectations, there's nothing major to complain about here.

Dark Journey Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Dark Journey Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dark Journey is a rather unusual spy thriller, one that makes strange bedfellows out of Leigh and Veidt. The film is brisk and has a fair amount of suspense, but the romantic coupling of these two oddly matched performers perhaps robs the film of some of the emotional impact it might have had with a more typically dashing male lead. This Blu-ray has less pleasing video than some of the others in this set, but the bulk of those problems no doubt stemmed from problematic secondary source elements. Dark Journey still comes Recommended.