7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 2.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
In 1928, young heiress Martha Ivers fails to run off with friend Sam Masterson, and is involved in fatal events. Years later, Sam returns to find Martha the power behind Iverstown and married to "good boy" Walter O'Neil, now district attorney. At first, Sam is more interested in displaced blonde Toni Marachek than in his boyhood friends; but they draw him into a convoluted web of plotting and cross-purposes.
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Judith AndersonFilm-Noir | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.30:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 2.5 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Kirk Douglas always played the tough guy, right? It’s hard not to think of Douglas’ dimpled chin and stalwart, steely gaze as inhabiting all sorts of iconic roles, including everything from Spartacus to Paths of Glory to Lust for Life. Even when he was playing something of a heel, as he did in films like Ace in the Hole, he’s a heel with strength. And so it may come as something of a shock to see a certain kind of role reversal at play in Douglas’ first film performance, the 1947 quasi-noir The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. What’s intriguing about this film is not just the fact that Douglas plays a sort of bookish milquetoast, but that another actor who is often thought of as playing intellectuals and wounded souls, Van Heflin, is the relative tough guy of the picture. But it’s a credit to the versatility of both of these men that their performances ring largely true in a film that is filled to the brim with moral turpitude, seedy goings on and a sort of simmering sexual subtext that never really gets anything out in the open (it was 1947 after all) but which manages to convey all sorts of layers of seduction and subterfuge through the most minimal means. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is a frequent inhabitant in the bargain bin of your local home video emporium by virtue of the fact that it fell into the public domain when its copyright wasn’t renewed in the early 1970’s, but even though it’s widely available (if never in very good condition), it seems like it’s one of those films that very few people have actually ever seen. This new HD Cinema Classics Film Chest release purports to be a restored version culled from 35mm elements housed by the Library of Congress (more about that later in the video section below), and the film’s debut in high definition may well bring it a new audience and increased appreciation.
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HD Cinema Classics – Film Chest with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.30:1. As mentioned above, the press sheet accompanying this release touts the fact that Film Chest worked with 35mm elements housed in the Library of Congress to restore this release, and while that may sound impressive, as anyone who has done research or gotten copies of archival data kept at the Library of Congress will tell you, just because it's at the Library of Congress doesn't mean it's in fantastic condition. As also mentioned above, this film fell into the Public Domain and has been bootlegged and released by inferior labels for years, though Paramount still has probably the best prints available and did release its own DVD a few years ago. Paramount may still end up releasing its own Blu-ray or licensing it out to labels like Olive Films down the road. What is here is another typical Film Chest restoration that does best with regard to removing scratches and other damage, but largely misses the boat in terms of good contrast and (especially) utilizing DNR, which erases not just film grain but a lot of fine object detail. The result is a sort of waxy smooth offering with inconsistent contrast that is alternately too low in some dim scenes and then seemingly pushed to the point where whites bloom in others. One of the best things that has been a consistent plus with the Paramount catalog releases licensed to Olive Films is that they have had no (or at most, next to no) digital tweaking and represent a very filmic look, for better or worse. This Strange Love is pretty far removed from that look.
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers features a mono soundtrack delivered via a standard Dolby Digital 2.0 mix. It's not particularly bad to have a lossy track here, though an incredible Miklos Rozsa score like the one in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers certainly could have benefited from lossless audio. The soundtrack has a couple of brief drop outs (at least one linked to what appears to be a missing frame), but otherwise damage is minimal. The midrange sounds really rather decently full in this presentation, though some extreme highs are a bit clipped. Dialogue is cleanly presented and is always easy to hear.
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is neat little potboiler featuring some great performances, though it somehow misses that higher tier of noir that Martha's more or less contemporaries like Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice attained. Perhaps the problem is instead of a couple plotting away, Martha features a quartet, and there are simply too many overlapping storylines to give the film the pared down focus that is usually a central selling point to noir. This Film Chest offering is another in the label's attempt to resurrect some lesser known catalog titles from the distant past, and while the label is to be commended for bringing attention to these underappreciated films, they need to take another look at some of their restoration techniques. This release might spur Paramount into creating an HD master of its own (if it hasn't already), which would seem to be a perfect sort of release for Olive Films to handle.
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