6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A screenwriter and confirmed bachelor gets an unexpected Christmas "present" in the form of a 17-year-old juvenile delinquent named Susan.
Starring: Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis, Glenda Farrell, Alvy MooreHoliday | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The 1954 screwball confection Susan Slept Here has impeccable comic credentials. The director,
Frank Tashlin, began his career directing Warner Brothers cartoons like Scrappy Happy Daffy
and Porky Pig's Feat—and you can spot the Looney Tunes touch in some of Susan's slapstick.
Screenwriter Alex Gottlieb was best known for producing the films and TV show of Abbott &
Costello. Star Dick Powell had spent much of his career as a light-hearted song-and-dance man,
and co-star Debbie Reynolds had made a musical comedy splash two years earlier flanked by
Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in Singin' in the
Rain. Add in such reliable supporting players
as Alvy Moore (best known today for TV's Green Acres), Glenda
Farrell (Lady for a Day) and,
as the film's villainess, a memorably vampish Anne Francis (Forbidden Planet)—and then just
stir the pot.
The Warner Archive Collection is taking a short break from thrillers and film noir to add Susan
Slept Here to its Blu-ray collection. It was WAC that originally brought Susan to DVD in 2010,
but the Blu-ray is sourced from a new master that displays the film's festive holiday palette to
best advantage.
Susan Slept Here was shot by Nicholas Musuraca (Out of the Past) in the era just before Kodak
introduced the problematic Eastmancolor stock that has provided so many challenges for film
preservation because of its pronounced yellow fade. Susan's negative, from which the Warner
Archive Collection has sourced a new master for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, suffers from
no such flaw. Its vibrant Technicolor palette, meticulously color-corrected by Warner's MPI
facility, remains vivid across the entire spectrum, which encompasses the omnipresent reds and
greens of Yule decor, as well as the frequent deep blues (no one wears a black tuxedo) and the
intense pink background against which Susan dreams of Mark. Even the gold of Mark's Oscar,
the film's narrator, has a pleasing shine. Detail is plentiful in this artificial world constructed by
production crews and costume designers, and the film's grain pattern has been finely rendered.
Consistent with its usual mastering standards, WAC has placed the 98-minute film on a BD-50
with an average bitrate just below 35 Mbps. It's hard to imagine a better image.
WAC has formatted Susan at 1.66:1, which is the ratio of the original theatrical release. The film
was released during the U.S. transition from Academy Ratio to widescreen, when a variety of
proposed ARs were vying for preference and first-run venues had to be equipped for multiple
options. The 1.66:1 ratio enjoyed a longer life in Europe than it did here, but Susan was one of
the films released that way.
Susan's mono soundtrack has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, with identical left and right channels, and it's one of the best-sounding mono tracks among recent WAC releases. Not only is the dialogue clear and distinct, but the musical score by Leigh Harline (Pinocchio) plays with clarity and a smooth top end that is never fatiguing. Susan has two original songs: the title track by Jack Lawrence, which is sung over the opening and closing credits; and the Oscar-nominated "Hold My Hand" by Lawrence and Richard Myers, sung by Don Cornell. Both sound great.
The only extra is a trailer (480i; 1.33:1; 2:17), which has not been remastered in 1080p, because Warner's library of RKO Radio Films library does not contain an original element.
Susan couldn't be made today. Even the greatest actress could not pull off Reynolds'
combination of naïveté and incipient womanliness in a contemporary setting, and her "sham"
marriage with a 35-year-old would immediately be denounced as inappropriate (or worse).
Tashlin's comedy belongs to a more innocent time, and it uses that innocence to transform what
might otherwise be a sordid tale into a cheerful holiday picture suitable for the whole family.
Highly recommended.
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