6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A bunch of crooks use a comic paper, featuring stories penned by Felix H. Wilkinson (Alastair Sim), to pass on coded messages for robberies. When the comic's readership, a bunch of East End boys, discover what's going on they go to the police. The local constabulary, however, are no help, and so the plucky lads set out to foil the robbers themselves.
Starring: Alastair Sim, Douglas Barr (I), Harry Fowler, Joan Dowling, Jack Warner (I)Crime | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: LPCM 2.0 Mono
None
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This film is available as part of Alastair Sim's School for Laughter: 4 Classic Comedies.
Chances are if you are like many, maybe even most, American filmgoers, you tend to associate Alastair Sim with one thing and one thing only: his
inimitable portrayal of one Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1951 version of Charles Dickens' immortal A Christmas Carol. A few outliers might have vague memories of Sim in such underappreciated
gems
as Green for Danger (a film where he notably wasn’t even given
above
the title billing) or even his latter day stint in The Ruling Class, but
quite a bit of the rest of Sim’s multi-decade long filmography just doesn’t seem to be that well known by the public at large on this side of the
pond. Film Movement has now come to the rescue in that regard and assembled four charming Sim comedies that bridge the years of 1947 to
1960, and which offer a fine assortment of well
written, performed and directed outings that have a few linking elements besides Sim himself, including plots sometimes centered around the quest
for
riches, and occasionally with some chicanery and other shenanigans involved.
Hue and Cry is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement Classics, an imprint of Film Movement, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. As has been the case with several Film Movement releases I've reviewed, the insert booklet offers only a generic "new digital restoration" in terms of providing any technical information on the transfer. All of the releases in this set bear a StudioCanal logo, and I'm assuming this was probably culled from the same master as the UK Blu-ray release StudioCanal put out in 2015, which would suggest something that may not be strictly "new". That said, this is another very pleasing looking presentation, one that offers good detail levels across the board, though some relatively wide shots of the still bombed out London can lack significant amounts of fine detail at times. There are some minor contrast variations between the location work outside and the studio bound sequences, but on the whole blacks are very deep and gray scale nicely modulated. Grain resolves naturally throughout the presentation. A few kind of playful opticals can look a bit wonky (see screenshot 6), but on the whole this a nicely sharp and well detailed looking transfer.
Hue and Cry features an LPCM 2.0 mono track that has some of the same slightly boxy sounding characteristics as several of the other tracks in this set, but which offers dialogue cleanly and clearly, as well as providing decent support for Georges Auric's score. There's some very minor brashness in the upper registers (something else that shows up in some of the other tracks in this set), but I noticed no outright damage or distortion. Unfortunately, this release does not offer optional subtitles for those who might benefit from them.
Hue and Cry only features Sim in passing, but it has a number of other kind of fascinating elements to recommend it. The use of the devastated London locations really gives this film a kind of off kilter, slightly scary feeling, ambience that helps to promote an almost paranoiac fear that runs rampant through the story as the kids find themselves fighting a battle that no adult figure of authority seems interested in. Technical merits are generally solid, and the two on disc supplements very interesting. Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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