7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.9 |
A writer meets a young socialite on board a train. The two fall in love and are married soon after, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of both them and everyone else around them.
Starring: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price, Mary PhilipsFilm-Noir | 100% |
Drama | 69% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
If Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchock had ever deigned to collaborate, the result might have been something very like Leave Her to Heaven, a sumptuous 1945 Fox film that was one of the studio’s major success stories during that legendary decade. Part psychological thriller and part roiling melodrama, Leave Her to Heaven was based on a huge bestseller that may have seemed a bit unusual to have become such a sensation in the halcyon days of a post- World War II America. Leave Her to Heaven is often cited as a kind of “bizarro world” take on film noir, a brightly (even candy) hued Technicolor extravaganza that manages to be almost oppressively claustrophobic despite its often wide open expanses settings. The film is a fascinating study in obsession and it contains at least one dynamite set piece that has the cool, collected shock value that is one of Hitchcock’s hallmarks. The Hitchcock comparison is especially apt, for as “scary” as many uninitiated people seem to think Hitchcock’s films are, they actually tend to deal more with the interior lives of their characters than might be evident from a cursory glance at some of Hitch’s most famous sequences. That’s why so many younger viewers are thrown for such a loop when they first see Psycho, having only been aware of the iconic shower scene and not realizing that’s one isolated moment in an otherwise often weirdly placid film. For this very same reason, these same younger viewers usually can’t even make it through something like Vertigo, another film which, much like Leave Her to Heaven, is an object study in obsession. But there are Sirkian elements here as well, notably in the roiling emotional undercurrents that swirl through the developing relationship and ultimate marriage of the film’s lead duo, socialite Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney) and author Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde).
Leave Her to Heaven is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. As has become legend in film preservation circles, the geniuses at Fox literally discarded all of their original Technicolor elements in the 1970s and so a glut of Fox classics that were originally released in Technicolor now exist courtesy of safety dupes. The difference is easily noticeable as even a cursory examination of the screenshots accompanying this review will show. The entire look of the film is a bit on the dark side, with flesh tones looking either peach colored or (more usually) brown enough at least at times that it almost appears that some of the cast is wearing the vaunted so-called "Egyptian" (or, considering this is a Twilight Time release, should that be Egyptian ?) makeup. Reds also tend to drift toward a brown tinged rust color, but blues probably look the best (the cerulean blue "woody" station wagon the troops drive to Robie's ranch in is a great example). If you can overlook colors that don't quite resemble "true" Technicolor, the rest of this high definition presentation is quite laudatory. Colors, while not what they really should be, are rather robust and nicely saturated and it's obvious that some attempt has been made to color time this to something akin to a kind of faux Technicolor. The image also boasts excellent fine detail for the bulk of the film's running time. Depth of field is frequently quite impressive in some of the location shots. This is certainly head and shoulders above the previous Fox Studio Classics DVD release in terms of sharpness and clarity, but some will still be shaking their heads over the shortsightedness of long ago Fox employees who were (let's just come out and say it) stupid enough to simply throw away some of the studio's most prized assets.
Leave Her to Heaven features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that reveals some low level distortion in the lower midrange which is instantly noticeable in Alfred Newman's first cue (simply toggling to the isolated score track, which does not have this distortion, will reveal the easily audible difference). There's nothing too distracting about this anomaly, and it tends to diminish over the course of the film, but those with finely attuned listening ears will no doubt hear it. Dialogue is largely unhampered by the problem and remains generally cleanly presented. Aside from the minor distortion, fidelity is very good. Dynamic range is mostly limited to a couple of hyperbolic dramatic moments and Newman's score.
Analysts and critics have been arguing over just which genre Leave Her to Heaven should be pigeonholed into. Is it a bizarre brighly colored noir? Is it a doomed romance? Is it a turgid melodrama? Well, yes, yes and yes. That's one (or perhaps three) of the reasons the film still is so fascinating to watch. It will strike some as too slow, with a too hyperbolic third act (especially once Vincent Price's crusading attorney springs into dunderheaded action), but the film has an inexorable power that is still undeniably effective. This Blu-ray features very good video (at least considering the elements that were at hand) and decent if occasionally problematic audio. The extras ported over from the Studio Classics DVD are also appreciated, as is the lustrous isolated score by the iconic Alfred Newman. Highly recommended.
Warner Archive Collection
1947
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Warner Archive Collection
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Warner Archive Collection
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Limited Edition to 3000
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Warner Archive Collection
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Reissue
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Limited Edition to 3000
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4K Restoration
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4K Restoration
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