7.1 | / 10 |
Users | ![]() | 4.0 |
Reviewer | ![]() | 3.5 |
Overall | ![]() | 3.5 |
If you were a famed mystery playwright with a devastating string of recent flops, what would you do for a can't-miss thriller script? Beg for it? Pay for it? Or would you kill for it? You would if you were Sidney Bruhl, the leading character in Ira Levin's dazzlingly funny, deliciously scary Broadway-smash-turned-movie-hit DEATHTRAP. Michael Caine stars as Bruhl and Christopher Reeve plays Bruhl's one-time student who's written a play so flawless "even a gifted director couldn't ruin it"... and who requests Bruhl's production help. And Dyan Cannon is Bruhl's loving wife, who doesn't want the student helped to an early grave. Sidney Lumet directs DEATHTRAP's hairpin twists with such drop-dead wit and delightful dread that you'll stop laughing only long enough to gasp in surprise.
Starring: Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth, Henry Jones (I)Thriller | Uncertain |
Crime | Uncertain |
Comedy | Uncertain |
Mystery | Uncertain |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | ![]() | 3.5 |
Video | ![]() | 4.0 |
Audio | ![]() | 3.0 |
Extras | ![]() | 0.5 |
Overall | ![]() | 3.5 |
As a novelist, Ira Levin was a success whose bestsellers included Rosemary's Baby and The
Stepford Wives. As a playwright, however, he usually struck out. But on the one occasion when
Levin hit the theatrical jackpot, he really hit it. Levin's play Deathtrap opened on Broadway in
February 1978 and played for over four years, setting records that remain unbroken to this day.
Even the release of this film directed by master craftsman Sidney Lumet didn't dent ticket sales
at the Music Box Theatre (which is the same Broadway theater featured in the film).
As with many successful feats of authorship, Levin started with what he knew. Deathtrap is
about a playwright (indeed, two of them) struggling to write a commercially successful
play—specifically, a "one-set, five-character, two-act play", which is a format that is relatively
cheap to produce and therefore easy to shop to potential investors. Not by coincidence, Deathtrap
itself is just such a play; it used a single set, featured five characters and divided neatly into two
acts with a stunning curtain close between them to ensure that patrons would return to their seats
after intermission.
Prolific screenwriter Jay Presson Allen (Cabaret, Marnie) adapted Levin's script for the screen,
retaining much of his original dialogue and wisely leaving most of the action where Levin had set
it, in the established playwright's country home (relocated from Westport, Connecticut to
Easthampton on Long Island). Under Lumet's direction, the result never feels stagebound, but
theatricality is inherent in the material. Deathtrap is a thriller, but it's also a comedy peopled by
outsized, eccentric personalities. They're supposed to be outlandish, and it's essential that a
viewer approach the film with that expectation.
Deathtrap is one of the first Blu-ray releases by the Warner Archive Collection (WAC), which
produces limited quantities on demand of catalog titles for which the studio does not anticipate
sufficient sales to justify a wide release. The WAC releases are available either directly from
Warner or from retailers who have chosen to offer them for resale.
According to published comments attributed to Warner's George
Feltenstein, this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray release of Deathtrap is based on a new high-definition transfer. It certainly
looks it. All of the meticulous detail in Sidney Bruhl's elaborately precious country home—from
the dainty living room decor, to the museum-like study, to the bedroom beneath the weighty
mechanisms of an endlessly turning old windmill (gee, that's not unsettling or anything!)—can
be fully appreciated, along with every tiny shift in expression and sideward glance, as Lumet and
cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak push in close to observe the faces of Sidney, Myra and
Clifford. During the opening sequence in the city, colors are often cool, even downright chilly.
They warm considerably when Sidney reaches the country—all those brown woods and earth
tones—but the warmth is an illusion. Myra has a greenhouse with ultraviolet grow lights, whose
sickly purple glow seems to expand and contract with the evil intentions of certain players
onscreen (the "pain" that Helga Ten Dorp feels next door). That light is a classic stage effect
discreetly transferred to the movie screen.
The image is so clean that, for a film of this vintage, one suspects a touch of grain removal. I
stress the word "suspects", because I have no way of knowing. The digital software used by such
top flight post houses as MPI, which is the on-site facility that handles the digital intermediates
for Warner's major productions, is now so sophisticated that visible grain can be reduced without
sacrificing detail. Certainly none of the telltale signs associated with so-called "DNR" are visible
on Deathtrap. What we get is a smooth, virtually noiseless, film-like image from a source that
has been well-preserved. Black levels are solid, and there is no indication of compression or
other mastering errors. If this is the level of quality we can expect from future WAC releases on
Blu-ray, collectors will be happy indeed.
Deathtrap arrives with a lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0 track that presents the film's original mono soundtrack in the front left and right channels. It's a serviceable track with good fidelity and surprisingly broad dynamic range, especially in the thunderously stormy passages that occur near the end of both "acts". Dialogue is always clear, although the looping is occasionally obvious, and the harpsichord-dominated score by Johnny Mandel (M.A.S.H., The Verdict) achieves the appropriately arch and ironic effect.
Other than a trailer (1080p; 1.78:1, 0:54), the disc has no extras. Consistent with the barebones approach of the WAC program, the menu is basic and, although there are chapter stops, they are unlabeled and cannot be selected either from the main menu or a pop-up menu.
The WAC program has made an excellent start with Deathtrap, a film beloved by its fans and
one that has aged well, although it never achieved anything like the success of Levin's original
stage play. Levin had obviously become thoroughly familiar with the theater milieu that, as
demonstrated by the TV series Smash, hasn't changed that much in the past thirty years. In
addition to its other virtues, Deathtrap is a sly parody of the grandiosity that seeps into so many
of that world's inhabitants. Those characters seemed right at home on a Broadway stage, but in a
film they're bound to strike some viewers as wildly over the top. I have always enjoyed watching
Caine, Cannon, Reeve and Worth operate the efficient machinery of Levin's thriller, but
individual mileage may vary. With due warning, highly recommended.
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