7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.1 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.6 |
A psychiatrist tries to help the man she loves solve a murder buried in his subconscious.
Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda FlemingRomance | 100% |
Film-Noir | 84% |
Psychological thriller | 70% |
Mystery | 53% |
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 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Mono is dual-encoded
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
In the forced collaborative world of Hollywood, bedfellows are strange more often than not, but have there ever been two stranger bedfellows than Alfred Hitchcock and Salvador Dali? Dali was an exuberant poseur who delighted in peeling back the layers of Ego and Id in his art, revealing a morphing, melting world of supercharged imagery that has perhaps unfairly been slathered with the surrealist epithet. Hitch, on the other hand, was a buttoned down, some would say repressed, individual who seemed ill at ease with overt depictions of sexuality and who usually even dealt with images of violence fairly discursively. How did these two ever find common ground to craft several sequences in Hitchock’s paean to psychoanalysis, Spellbound? It’s a long and convoluted story, one which is tangentially if not very explicitly dealt with in both the commentary and one featurette on this new Blu-ray, but the bottom line is both Hitch and Dali did share one salient personality trait with each other: they were both self-promoters non pareil. Hitchcock was one of the very first “star” directors, and he reveled in that rather distinctive role. Dali was of course something of an aging enfant terrible by the late 1940’s, but he had something that David O. Selznick relished in any individual: marquee value. The Selznick team evidently did a market study to find out exactly how much moolah might be brought into Spellbound with the addition of Dali’s name as part of the production team, and the results were somewhat staggering. While Selznick himself may have been less impressed with the actual filmic results than he was with the promise of untold riches being attached to Dali’s name, and there are those to this day who find Spellbound one of the cornier films of Hitch’s Selznick period, there’s no denying that the film has a weird hallucinatory power, one that can’t be separated from Dali’s inimitable touch. Hitch and Dali may indeed have been strange bedfellows, but Spellbound, bastard child that it may well be, is still unique in Hitchcock’s oeuvre, though it plies many of the same trades that Hitchcock works in many, if not most, of his other films, including an “innocent” bystander swept up in events beyond his (or her) control, a subtext of paranoia, and, of course, that simmering sexuality that Hitchcock seemed genetically incapable of letting burst free.
Spellbound is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. David O. Selznick was an
infamous memo writer, and
he is on record as decrying Spellbound as looking like a Monogram Studios shot feature due to its soft, diffuse
quality. With that
understanding, a certain degree of slack must be given to this high definition presentation, for it is indeed overly gauzy a
lot of the time, with a
sort of murkiness in midrange shots that can verge on near blurriness at times. Doing a side by side comparison with the
Criterion DVD release,
and allowing for the obvious resolution differences between the BD and even an upscaled DVD, the Criterion shows
better contrast with much
better black levels, though grain is also somewhat more apparent in the Criterion release than on this transfer. The
MGM-Fox release has a
somewhat milkier appearance, with less delineated gray scale than the Criterion. There really doesn't seem to have
been any DNR, or at least
any overly aggressive DNR, on this MGM-Fox release, as the screencaps obviously show grain (in fact some overwhelming
grain at times which
borders on digital noise). There's also some fairly noticeable haloing due to edge enhancement in several sequences
(check out the screencap
from the dream sequence with the "Proprietor" on the rooftop for a particularly flagrant example). But this BD has a
cleaner, sleeker look than
the Criterion, with noticeably fewer blemishes, scratches and the like
which argues to some sort of digital restoration and cleanup. There's also well above average sharpness and clarity
throughout this
presentation, especially in close-ups. Consumers are always in a quandary with these catalog titles that have also been
licensed by Criterion,
and this probably falls into the same category as a lot of the Universal titles from last year as well as a slew of MGM-Fox
oldies. If it comes to pass, a Criterion
version will no doubt be the go-to release if and when a BD comes down the pike, but for now, this certainly should
suffice, with certain caveats.
It should be noted that this is yet another MGM-Fox catalog release with no Main Menu, and which has been released on
a BD-J but with no bookmarking capability.
Spellbound's original mono soundtrack is delivered here via a relatively fulsome DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. Acute listeners will hear some copious hiss blanketing the track's high end from the first moments of the Overture (and how unusual is it for a suspense film like this to feature an Overture?). That propensity continues through the rest of the film, though it's considerably toned down after the Overture. Fidelity is fine, if not amazing, throughout the feature, with excellent reproduction of Miklos Rozsa's incredible score, which was one of the first to utilize the theremin. Dialogue is always well prioritized and easy to hear, and the soundtrack really doesn't exhibit any signs of damage or age, other than the omnipresent hiss and the expected thinness of the sound.
All of the supplements save for the Still Gallery from the Premiere Collection edition of Spellbound on DVD have been ported over to this release:
Spellbound has an intriguing mystery at its core that may receive too pat of an explanation as the films careens towards its climax, but viewers have to remember the film's era and how unusual and groundbreaking this subject matter must have seemed back in those days. Elevated inimitably by George Barnes' incredibly evocative proto-noir cinematography and just as much by one of the most glorious (if slightly over the top) Miklos Rozsa scores ever, Spellbound also provides one of the few chances film lovers have to see Dali's input in a mainstream release. The film may indeed be a bit creaky, but it's still immensely enjoyable. This release is probably not going to be the standard bearer if and when Criterion comes along with its own BD, but this release does offer some okay supplements, and boasts acceptable if not stellar video and audio. Recommended.
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Warner Archive Collection
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Limited Edition to 3000
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