The Miami Story Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Miami Story Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 8, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of Noir Archive - Volume 1: 1944-1954.

While the frequently questionable “expertise” of Wikipedia asserts that film noir lasted from the early 1920s until the late 1950s, my hunch is at least some fans of film history would tend to proscribe the idiom’s heyday to a probably smaller window of time beginning at some point in the 1940s and then extending into some other point in the 1950s. If that proscription is accepted, it might then be arguable that there was no better purveyor of film noir than Columbia Pictures during this period. While many of the undisputed classics of film noir came from other studios, as in the case of Paramount’s Double Indemnity (released on Blu-ray through Universal, due to the vagaries of film catalogs changing hands), or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (released on Blu-ray through Warner Brothers, due to — well, you get the idea), Columbia Pictures managed to churn out a rather significant amount of noir offerings, albeit often in what would probably be termed the “B-movie” category. Kit Parker Films and Mill Creek Entertainment have now assembled nine of these rather interesting Columbia offerings in one three disc package, and for noir fans, there are at least a couple of rather notable films in this first collection (it looks like Noir Archive Volume 2: 1954- 1956 is due in a few months), as well as some other outings which frankly might be best categorized as oddities.

Around three decades before Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs strutted their pastel laden stuff in Miami Vice, Florida’s iconic mecca provided the location for a somewhat smarmier, and decidedly less colorful, story involving organized crime in the city. What’s kind of interesting about some aspects of the plot dynamics in The Miami Story, at least when compared to the hotshot cops in Miami Vice, is that police in this particular instance are shown to be kind of helpless in the glowering face of mobster Tony Brill (Luther Adler). Mick Flagg (Barry Sullivan), a guy with a shadowy past, is coaxed into infiltrating Brill’s gang, but (no surprise here) complications arise.

This is another film that, at least a little like The Killer That Stalked New York, dabbles in a quasi-verité ambience at times, including with a real life PSA of sorts by a United States Senator informing the world that organized crime is a thing of the past in Miami. Tell that to Crockett and Tubbs.

The Miami Story Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Miami Story is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment and Kit Parker Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Kind of ironically, given the fact that this film is one of the "newer" ones in this set and the only "widescreen" offering, The Miami Story has one of the less pleasing transfers. Damage is pretty evident from the get go, part of which is understandable due to the opening of the film being a kind of quasi-newsreel with a lot of optical effects. But even the PSA by Senator Smathers is littered with scratches and speckling (along with really weirdly low amplitude on the soundtrack). Once the "actual" film starts, things look dark and rather "dupey" a lot of the time, with a pretty coarse looking grain field and recurrent damage in the form of more speckling and scratches. Despite the use of close-ups, fine detail isn't especially impressive, and a lot of this presentation is pretty soft looking. Things are certainly more than watchable, and as with other offerings in this set, my score should probably be viewed within the context of the entire set.

The Miami Story Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Miami Story features a DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix which once again features some narration, along with a first person "confessional" by a Senator, and then some fairly florid dialogue once the actual story begins. There are some amplitude problems in the Senator's speech, as mentioned above, but the rest of the film sounds better in that regard. Some of the sound effects are enjoyable and the ambient environmental effects in some outdoor sequences are realistic.

The Miami Story Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this release.

The Miami Story Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Whether or not you accept Wikipedia's definition of the length of the "noir era", one way or the other The Miami Story came at the tale end of that time frame, and some may feel it's more of a traditional gangster yarn than a "real" noir. The film is arguably lacking in real star power, and its story is on the rote side. Video has some issues, but audio sounds generally fine after a somewhat bumpy beginning, for those who are considering a purchase.