7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A devious and sexually manipulative woman steals her husband's drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.
Starring: Linda Fiorentino, Bill Pullman, Peter Berg, Dean Norris, Brien VaradyThriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 1.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The Last Seduction is one of the great film noirs of the 20th Century, and its anti-heroine, Bridget
Gregory, is one of cinema's most memorable femme fatales. On the scale of sheer manipulative
badness, she easily ranks with Double
Indemnity's Phyllis Dietrichson, Out of
the Past's Kathie
Moffat, Cora Smith in The Postman
Always Rings Twice (Lana Turner's version) and Matty
Walker in Body Heat. Indeed, Bridget outdoes them all
in one respect, because she takes such
obvious delight in the sheer mechanics of luring men to their doom. Bridget's predecessors did it
for money, or to escape a bad marriage, or sometimes (like Mary Astor's Bridget O'Shaughnessy
in The Maltese Falcon) to save their own skins.
But Bridget relishes the con as much as its
rewards, and her sexual appetite matches that of any of her victims. She doesn't just enjoy being
bad; she luxuriates in it.
So why aren't Bridget and The Last Seduction (or "TLS") better known today? There are many
reasons, but probably the biggest is that its production company, the U.K.'s ITC Entertainment,
had no idea that director John Dahl and screenwriter Steve Barancik were making anything more
than a cheap R-rated skin flick for late night cable TV—which also explains why the film
premiered on HBO, thereby disqualifying it for Oscar consideration. Otherwise, star Linda
Fiorentino would almost certainly have been nominated for best actress, possibly accompanied
by Dahl's efficient direction, Barancik's clever script and superb work by supporting actors Peter
Berg and Bill Pullman. The film was ultimately named 1994's Best TV Movie by the National
Board of Review, while Fiorentino won best actress from several critics' societies and was
nominated for a BAFTA. Reactions of film festival audiences persuaded ITC to release the film
theatrically in the U.S. through October Films, where it received rapturous reviews and grossed
over twice its production cost. Roger Ebert listed TLS at number five on his 1994 ranking of the
year's top ten films.
On U.S. video, TLS has been treated even worse than in its theatrical release. The 1995 laserdisc from Polygram and
the 2002 DVD from Lionsgate used a full-frame VHS-era transfer that didn't even begin to
capture the film's subtly suggestive cinematography, wardrobe and production design—and, of
course, there were no extras. The U.K. saw better versions released through Network, including a
two-disc special edition in 2006 with newly created extras and an extended version billed as the
"director's cut" (created without Dahl's participation or approval). Network subsequently
released the film on Blu-ray in 2015 with much of the
same material.
Scorpion Releasing has now brought the film to Region A in what can fairly be described as a
"good news, bad news" Blu-ray edition. The transfer is dated and problematic, but it's so vastly
superior to anything previously released here that fans of the film probably won't care. (A tiny
disclaimer on the back cover states "Master Provided by ITV".) Scorpion has also managed to
obtain nearly all of the 2006 DVD extras, and it has recorded an excellent new commentary with
the director.
The Last Seduction was shot by cinematographer Jeffrey Jur, whose range extends from the
cheerful palette of My Big Fat Greek
Wedding to the foreboding shades of HBO's Carnivàle. (He
also photographed several episodes in Season One of Westworld.) In his new commentary,
director John Dahl repeatedly praises Jur's understated lighting, which, like the rest of the
production itself, doesn't forfeit its realism in search of a stylized re-creation of film noir (for an
example of the latter, see the recent Terminal).
As noted in the introduction, Scorpion Releasing
has disclaimed any responsibility for the condition of the master used for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray; the disc's back cover includes a short
note (in tiny type): "Master Provided by ITV".
Scorpion is wise to put some distance between itself and this video master, because its quality is
very poor, especially for 2018. The image is soft, even in closeups, and detail quickly vanishes as
we move to medium and long shots. Signs of artificial sharpening are evident throughout, as are
indications of heavy filtering and grain reduction. But perhaps the master's greatest sin is the
continuous presence of digital noise, which is difficult to capture in still images but is
unmistakable in motion. If you're someone who insists on turning up your sharpness setting, I
suggest you turn it off for this disc. Even without any sharpness added by your equipment, you're
likely to see fields of noise quickly pass up and down and back and forth across the image like
swarms of tiny insects. I initially thought the disc suffered from fluctuating densities,
but on closer inspection it became clear that the problem is shifting fields of digital gunk, which
have largely replaced the original element's natural grain.
On the positive side, the colors are strong and decently saturated, and the blacks decently rendered
(for the most part), which is important in a film where the heroine's consistently black-and-white
attire is a conscious design choice to convey the nature of her character. Scorpion has authored
the film with a more-than-respectable average bitrate of 29.08 Mbps, and the encoding appears
capable, but a good encode can't fix a bad master. Scorpion may have done the best it could with
the available materials, but TLS's Blu-ray would be an embarrassment coming from a major
studio. The film is great, and the new disc is such a quantum leap past prior Region A video
versions, that fans desperate for an even remotely watchable release may be thrilled just to
have this badly flawed product. I freely admit to being one such fan, but that doesn't blind
me to the video shortcomings of Scorpion's disc, which are considerable and, especially in the
current era, fully deserve the low score of 1.5 out of 5.
The news is somewhat better on the audio front, where TLS's original "Ultra Stereo" soundtrack—the poor man's Dolby Stereo—has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. Scorpion either could not obtain or decided not to use the 5.1 remix that appeared in the U.K., and as a fan of original audio formats, I applaud the result. When played through a good surround decoder, the track effectively creates a sense of ambiance for differing environments in New York City and Beston, and it maintains the dialogue clearly in the front center, with intelligible and natural prioritization. There are no "big" sound effects (with one possible exception, which I won't spoil for newcomers), but there's an infectiously upbeat jazz score by Joseph Vitarelli (She's So Lovely), which is essential to the film's impact, because, like so much else in TLS, it's the polar opposite of what one expects in a film noir. (Dahl's commentary delves into the score's development.) The soundtrack also includes some effectively used pop songs, of which the most memorable are a pair of tunes by blues guitarist and singer Charlie Terrell.
TLS was released without extras on both U.S. laserdisc and Region 1 DVD. A British special
edition DVD in 2006 contained a number of extras, including a roughly assembled "director's
cut". These extras were ported over (and supplemented) on a Region B Blu-ray released in 2015.
Scorpion has provided most of these extras, and it has added a newly recorded commentary by
Dahl.
Fiorentino's Bridget is a terrible person, but in a curious twist, she's also an inspiration, because
she was a female protagonist who took charge, for good or evil (mostly evil). In an early season
of Sex and the City, some of the characters watch one of the film's
memorable sex scenes,
cheering as Bridget rides her chump of a boyfriend while joyfully proclaiming, "I'm a total f*cking
bitch!" Women hadn't displayed that kind of sexual moxie in movies, especially if they were up to no
good. It was a long way from Mary Astor's manipulative tears or Barbara Stanwyck's chilly
repartee or Lana Turner's suggestive poses. Even Kathleen Turner in Body Heat had to play shy,
soft and wounded to get what she wanted. Not Bridget. She's an unapologetic scoundrel from
first to last, and you still can't help rooting for her. Scorpion's Blu-ray doesn't present her to best
advantage, but it's a big improvement over anything released on home video in the U.S. to date,
and I cautiously recommend it, simply because the film (and Fiorentino) are that good.
Warner Archive Collection
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Warner Archive Collection
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Limited Edition to 3000
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Standard Edition
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Vestron Collector's Series
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