7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Noir-melodrama hybrid pitting a trio of vicious bank robbers against a small Arizona mining town riddled with secret sins. Adulterers, alcoholics, voyeurs and thieves all find their fates hanging in the balance on one VIOLENT SATURDAY.
Starring: Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally, Virginia Leith, Tommy NoonanFilm-Noir | 100% |
Drama | 61% |
Melodrama | 7% |
Heist | 4% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.55:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.55:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
There are a lot of things that go against the grain in Violent Saturday, an almost criminally underrated thriller of sorts from 1955, but one of the oddest is that Violent Saturday is a heist film that really isn’t all that concerned with the actual heist. Oh, sure, there’s a meticulous plan set up to rob the local bank by a bevy of bad guys, and there’s an isolated little town in the American southwest going about its business (both good and bad) without an inkling of what’s about to hit it. But Violent Saturday is almost obsessively focused on the various damaged characters who wander in, out and through an “old west” town that creeps up an Arizona mountainside and which seems to be a relic of a bygone age. That little town is Bradenville, the kind of “village” where everyone knows everybody else, and yet no one seems particularly aware that virtually every inhabitant is hiding a secret or carrying around some personal baggage. Town librarian (and obvious descendant of the town’s founders) Elsie Braden (Sylvia Sidney) is about to be evicted and isn’t above purloining a forgotten purse at her place of work in order to forage cash to make ends meet. Shelley Martin (Victor Mature), partner in a huge copper mining concern whose operations ring Bradenville in mounds of slag, is stung when his little boy informs him the other little boys think he’s a coward because he didn’t serve in World War II. Shelley’s partner, Boyd Fairchild (Richard Egan), drinks too much and wonders if he’s being cuckolded by his bored wife Emily (Margaret Hayes). But while Boyd may indeed be obsessed with the mote that’s in Emily’s eye, he seems completely unaware of the beam in his own, courtesy of his infatuation with local nurse Linda Sherman (Virginia Leith). Local bank manager Harry Reeves (Tommy Noonan) also has an eye for the ladies, Linda in particular, an eye that takes him out wandering to cast furtive glances through windows. Now mind you, these are the supposed good folks in Violent Saturday, the imminent victims of a bank robbery being planned by three interlopers. Screenwriter Sydney Boehm (The Big Heat), adapting a novel by William L. Heath, is obviously not interested in standard genre conventions, at least if they get in the way of detailing the roiling personal lives of a cast of characters who seem to have been ported over from a daytime soap opera.
Violent Saturday is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.55:1. The commentary on this Blu-ray mentions this being a new HD transfer Fox did after Twilight Time released their DVD version of the film in 2011. My assumption is this was probably the same master used for the British Blu-ray which was released a few months ago, at least when judging by a cursory comparison of the screenshots between the two reviews (I've tried to get close to at least a few of the shots from Svet's review so that an easier comparison is possible). One way or the other, this is by and large a fantastic looking transfer, one that reproduces Charles G. Clarke's sometimes shimmering, sometimes gritty CinemaScope lensing with precision. I'm not a huge fan of Deluxe Color, and this does look just slightly brown to me at times, but that's also the palette being exploited a lot of the time, so it's a niggling concern, at best. Contrast and color space are consistent, and there are no signs of digital manipulation of the image. Many outdoor scenes offer stupendous depth of field.
Violent Saturday's original four track stereo soundtrack gets a 5.1 repurposing courtesy of a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. As befits the film's era, some of the foley effects aren't especially convincing (gunshots, while propulsive, have a bit too much ambient reverb on them, at least to my ears). But there's actually good separation here, helping to establish the sometimes busy environment of downtown Bradenville. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, as is Hugo Friedhofer's enjoyable score.
Call it a noir, call it a melodrama, call it a thriller, call it a hybrid, just call it "must see cinema". This is one of the most distinctive films that foists a bunch of violent criminals off on unsuspecting middle Americans, and its rather trenchant examination of a crumbling American Dream is really fascinating. While supplements here are a bit slim, technical merits are first rate and Violent Saturday comes Highly recommended.
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
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