Driftwood Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Driftwood Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf November 6, 2017

1947’s “Driftwood” is aimed at a family audience, making its general weirdness a bit more understandable as the production goes big to appeal to all ages. After all, this is a movie that features on dog on trial and a young Natalie Wood trying on her best Shirley Temple impression, so any expectations for subtlety and depth are generally punted out the nearest window five minutes into this endeavor.

Director Allan Dwan actually enjoyed a few collaborations with Temple, using time on “Heidi” and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” to inform at least some of “Driftwood.” It’s a tale of a precocious but isolated child (Wood) finding a collie who’s the only survivor of a plane crash, befriending the dog while the pair is adopted by a doctor (Dean Jagger) who’s also working on the cure for spotted fever. Of course, there’s a little more to “Driftwood” involving small town politics and personalities, but the basics are bizarre, with the screenplay trying its best to put on a happy face while dealing with plagues, air disasters, and the true temperament of the dog, whose defense of his new pal lands him in a legal mess.

Driftwood Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

"Driftwood" arrives on Blu-ray billed as a "Brand new HD master from a 4K scan," and the AVC encoded image (1.37:1 aspect ratio) presentation does generally well with detail, picking up on dimensional distances, costume textures, and set decoration. Facial particulars are also welcoming, dealing with a highly varied cast of fresh-faced youngsters and creased senior performers. Blacks are a little troublesome, offering more of a milkier quality that weakens delineation, but doesn't disrupt it in full. Grain is fine and filmic. Source has some wear and tear, but no significant damage.

Driftwood Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix delivers the essentials of "Driftwood" without many issues, though the scoring effort for the main titles showcases age- related issues, sounding a bit distorted. Dialogue exchanges are clear enough to follow, handling argumentative behavior well. Group activity doesn't overwhelm the track.

Driftwood Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary features film historian Jeremy Arnold.

• A Theatrical Trailer has not been included.

Driftwood Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Driftwood" offers a bright supporting cast (including Walter Brennen and Margaret Hamilton), and its bigness of spirit is entertaining, helped along by Wood's animated performance, which offers enough screen energy to power an office building. "Driftwood" struggles some with pacing, refusing to allow the dog's trial to act as its climax, saving something more panicky to land an ending, but the picture's easy enough to digest, perhaps even more so when it's at its most absurd.