6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Acclaimed director Oscar Boetticher, Jr. tackles the Film Noir genre with this tale of dramatic suspense. A nurse suffering from a nervous breakdown starts having nightmares about a man being murdered. When she awakens, the man she dreamt of is standing right in front of her. What follows is a tale of intrigue involving international espionage, a missing package, and a gunfight through the fog of San Francisco.
Starring: Otto Kruger, Nina Foch, William Wright (I), Konstantin Shayne, Ivan TriesaultDrama | 100% |
Film-Noir | 60% |
Crime | 42% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Note: This film is available as part of
Noir Archive - Volume 1: 1944-1954.
While the frequently questionable “expertise” of Wikipedia asserts that film noir lasted from the early 1920s until the late 1950s, my
hunch
is at least some fans of film history would tend to proscribe the idiom’s heyday to a probably smaller window of time beginning at some
point in the
1940s and then extending into some other point in the 1950s. If that proscription is accepted, it might then be arguable that there was
no
better purveyor of film noir than Columbia Pictures during this period. While many of the undisputed classics of film noir came
from other studios, as
in the case of Paramount’s Double Indemnity
(released
on Blu-ray through Universal, due to the vagaries of film catalogs changing hands), or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (released on Blu-ray through
Warner Brothers, due to — well, you get the idea), Columbia Pictures managed to churn out a rather significant amount of noir offerings,
albeit often in what would probably be termed the “B-movie” category. Kit Parker Films and Mill Creek Entertainment have now assembled nine of
these rather interesting
Columbia offerings in one three disc package, and for noir fans, there are at least a couple of rather notable films in this first collection (it
looks like Noir Archive Volume 2: 1954-
1956 is due in a few months), as well as some other outings which frankly might be best categorized as oddities.
Escape in the Fog is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment and Kit Parker Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. While I'm scoring this at 3.0 to indicate it has a few more prevalent problems than some other transfers in this set, the difference is frankly kind of incremental. The biggest problems are due to the use of what I'm assuming are optical effects to create some of the fog, and in the opening sequence especially there are some odd looking problems, with vertical lines running through the image that almost resemble print through. There's also recurrent flicker in some of the fog sequences (as well as the opening credits). The entire transfer looked just a tad dark to me, so that (to cite one example) the blacks of William Wallace's suit tend to become an amorphous whole, without any clear differentiation between the sleeve and body. There's also a brief moment starting at 37:27 that is noticeably softer. Damage is once again mostly limited to speckling and dirt, though a few minor scratches are visible.
Escape in the Fog features a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track which can sound just slightly muffled in the higher registers when some of what was apparently stock music is utilized, or even when Nina Foch emits a scream or two. While there's the same kind of low level hiss that's noticeable in several other films in this set, there's nothing overpowering, and dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout.
No supplements are offered on this release.
I think Escape in the Fog might have played a bit more intriguingly had the film been more ambiguous about Eileen's "visions" and indeed even about her mental health. This is a kind of weirdly bifurcated entry that tries to dabble in some of the psychological tropes which were then beginning to be utilized in any number of films, while also sticking to a more tried and true story motif of World War II espionage. Video and audio both encounter some minor difficulties, but are generally solid for those considering a purchase.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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