The Female Animal Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

The Female Animal Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov August 27, 2020

Harry Keller's "The Female Animal" (1958) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the disc include exclusive new audio commentary by film historian David Del Valle and director David DeCoteau and vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Unexpected kiss

During a shooting session, popular actress Vanessa Windsor (Hedy Lamarr) is nearly crushed by a falling projector. A day later, she phones second-grade actor Chris Farley (George Nader), whose quick reflexes saved her life, and invites him to accompany her at the premiere of her latest film.

Farley picks up Windsor with a borrowed jacket but handles his duties perfectly and at the end of the event gets a second invitation -- this time to Windsor’s very private villa. The trip to the villa culminates with a long swim in the ocean and fireworks on the beach.

In an attempt to have him as close as possible and use him whenever she can, Windsor asks Farley to leave his tiny apartment and move to the villa because the place needs someone to keep an eye on it. Farley agrees to do the ‘job’, but warns the actress that he isn’t prepared to be her toy boy.

Around the same time Farley moves to the villa he has a casual encounter with Penny Windsor (Jane Powell), who has successfully proved to her busy mother that she can’t control her. Without knowing anything about her, Farley saves her from an abusive ‘date’ and then takes her to the villa to recover. The slightly inebriated girl tries to seduce Farley, and much to his surprise nearly succeeds.

Eventually, the mother and daughter realize that they are emotionally attached to Farley and seriously complicate his ‘job responsibilities’. However, instead of competing for his love, they decide to let him choose the right winner.

Harry Keller’s The Female Animal appears in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II box set but is not a conventional film noir. It is actually a period melodrama whose primary interest is in the importance of romance and the many ways in which grownups incorporate it in their lives. In other words, it is the type of film that quite easily could have been directed by Douglas Sirk.

The film is wonderfully acted and directed but has one big and quite simply impossible to ignore flaw. It has to do with the decision to cast Lamarr as the aging actress who is willing to risk everything to fall in love one last time. Simply put, Lamarr is too young and beautiful to be the desperate and introverted alcoholic Robert Hill’s screenplay wants her to be, so the vulnerability she has to display while being with her younger lover does not look right. Needless to say, the legitimacy of the not so complex relationship that is at the heart of film suffers quite a bit.

But even with Lamarr looking as she does the film is still a gem. While its three main characters experience minor failures and triumphs that force them to reevaluate their attitudes and ultimately lives, a very fine atmosphere emerges and adds balance to the drama that makes quite a difference. Indeed, because of the atmosphere it feels like the film was actually conceived to be an unconventional time capsule, preserving just enough of the vibe and rhythm of life around the Hollywood studios in the late 1950s to convince its audience that the stars and those that wanted to be like them were in fact ordinary people with ordinary needs.

Unfortunately, the entire film relies on Lamarr’s performance to be the glue that holds the drama and atmosphere together, so the few opportunities that exist to impress as a time capsule are actually completely mismanaged.

Keller relied on the services of cinematographer Russell Metty, whose credits include such classics as Spartacus and Touch of Evil.

The Female Animal Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Te Female Animal arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from a very nice organic master that was supplied by Universal Pictures. It reminded me of the one the studio produced for The Tarnished Angels, though here there are some noticeable limitations. For example, there are a couple of darker sequences with some extremely light 'trailing' patterns (see screencapture #18). They are very easy to ignore/miss, but if you project on a larger screen you will likely spot their presence. There are a few shaky transitions as well, though they are so quick that I would say that they are practically meaningless. The rest looks really good. Delineation, clarity, and depth range from good to really good. The grading job also promotes wonderful ranges of gray, black and white nuances. In fact, given the nature of the original cinematography, I thought that the darker footage where there are plenty of gray nuances looked rather spectacular. A few blemishes remain, but there are no distracting cuts, damage marks, torn or warped frames to report. My score is 4.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The Female Animal Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

The audio is sharp and very clear. Balance is also good. I did not feel that the upper register can be healthier, but perhaps there is a bit of room for extremely small stabilization enhancements. Still, this is a very solid audio track that serves the film exceptionally well.

The Female Animal Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - a vintage trailer for The Female Animal. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

• Commentary - in this new audio commentary, film historian David Del Valle and director David DeCoteau discuss in great detail the unusual stylistic identity of The Female Animal, the reality its characters are placed in, Hedy Lamarr's performance and career, the evolution of the film noir genre, etc. It is a wonderful commentary, so consider listening to it in its entirety.

The Female Animal Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hedy Lamarr should not have been cast to play the aging actress in The Female Animal. She looks too young and too beautiful, and her desperation never feels authentic. But this was her final film and apparently it was some sort of a compromise, so perhaps it was one of those take-it-or-leave-it deals. To be honest, I enjoyed the film a lot because it is very, very elegant, but it is pretty easy to tell that an opportunity was missed to have something truly special. Kino Lorber's release is sourced from a fine master that was supplied by Universal Pictures and features an outstanding audio commentary by film historian David Del Valle and director David DeCoteau. The Female Animal is included in Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II, a three-disc box set. RECOMMENDED.