6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.9 |
There is a dead well dressed man in a meadow clearing in the hills above a small Vermont town. Captain Albert Wiles, who stumbles across the body and finds by the man's identification that his name is Harry Worp, believes he accidentally shot Harry dead while he was shooting for rabbits. Captain Wiles wants to hide the body as he feels it is an easier way to deal with the situation than tell the authorities. While Captain Wiles is in the adjacent forest, he sees other people stumble across Harry, most who don't seem to know him or care or notice that he's dead. One person who does see Captain Wiles there is spinster Ivy Gravely, who vows to keep the Captain's secret about Harry.
Starring: Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, Jerry MathersMystery | 100% |
Thriller | 69% |
Romance | 51% |
Dark humor | 22% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 2.0
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A man confronts his accuser atop the Statue of Liberty, where one false move will spell death. A wolf in sheep's clothing allows the beast lurking within to bear its teeth. A housemaster slowly, oh so slowly, pieces together the heinous crime perpetrated by two former students. A woman searches for clues in a suspected murderer's apartment just as the man returns home. Four people work to keep the demise of a fellow smalltown resident a secret from a local deputy. An assassin's gun slides out from behind a curtain as an ordinary man races to thwart his plot. An airplane buzzes then roars past as a man dives for cover. The hiss of a shower masks the approach of a madman with a knife in his hand. Countless birds gather on a jungle gym as a woman smokes a cigarette nearby. A husband barges into his new wife's bedroom and has his way with her as she retreats into a near-catatonic state. A physicist discovers killing a man isn't as easy as it might seem, wrestling with his victim right up until the violent end. A purple dress billows out beneath a dying woman like spilled blood. A serial killer retrieves his pin from a woman's grasp, one dead finger at a time. A fake psychic tries to squirm out of a thief's vice-like grip as he pushes a syringe closer and closer. Be it drama, horror or comedy, psychological stunner, monster movie or international spy thriller, is it any mystery that filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was known as the Master of Suspense? Is it any wonder his movies still hold hypnotic sway over filmfans all these years later?
No one really minds that Harry is dead. There's just that little matter of disposing of the body...
Aside from some hard-to-miss but ever-so-brief ghosting in the opening minutes of the film (all attributable to the source, not the restoration or high definition encode), The Trouble with Harry doesn't have much trouble at all. Robert Burks' pleasant autumn palette is warm and striking, with vivid colors, strong primaries, accurately saturated fleshtones and deep black levels. Contrast is dead on as well, as is detail, which rarely falters. Textures are clean and well-resolved, closeups are revealing, edge definition is refined (albeit at the expense of some minor ringing), grain is even and filmic, and delineation is quite good. There also isn't much in the way of print damage, scratches, blemishes or encoding artifacts to contend with, and noise reduction and other digital restoration techniques have been employed with care, almost to the point of being imperceptible by all but the most trained eye. Ultimately, Hitchcock's dark comedy boasts one of the most colorful, richly realized presentations in the 15-film Masterpiece Collection.
The Trouble with Harry also features an able-bodied two-channel DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track sure to delight fans and leave newcomers grinning. Granted, there's nothing particularly remarkable about the film's light and lively soundscape or the resulting lossless experience, but the mix is playful and precise, with clear, perfectly intelligible dialogue, convincing effects and bright, bouyant music. There isn't any distracting hiss or bothersome noise floor either, making this one yet another solid Hitchcock lossless experience.
The Trouble with Harry is one of the Masterpiece Collection's most unexpected surprises. The film is Hitchcock at his comedic best, the laughs come fast and frequently, and the Blu-ray edition doesn't disappoint thanks to a fittingly faithful restoration, a terrific video transfer and an excellent DTS-HD Master Audio mono mix. It's light on extras, which is a shame, but it's still one of the better discs in the 15-film Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection box set. As someone who counts Harry a personal Hitchcock favorite, I'm more than pleased with its high definition treatment.
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