Désirée is director Henry Koster's 1954 screen adaptation of the Annemarie Selinko novel. In it, Marlon Brando (A Streetcar Named Desire) stars as Napoleon Bonaparte, whose legendary rise and fall comes filtered through the prism of his relationship with the title character (Jean Simmons, Spartacus), a millinery clerk left forever desiring the French emperor after he marries his empress Josephine (Merle Oberon, Wuthering Heights).
Directed by Richard Quine (Paris When It Sizzles), Bell, Book, and Candle finds actors James Stewart (It's a Wonderful Life) and Kim Novak (Picnic) reunited after their first pairing in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo; this fantasy-comedy has a decidedly less serious tone that the Hitchcock thriller, as Novak plays a witch living in modern-day New York who works her magic in order to woo a befuddled publisher (Stewart) away from his fiancée (Janice Rule, 3 Women).
Twilight Time's Désirée Blu-ray presents the film in its 2.55:1 original aspect ratio with a 4.0 DTS-HD Master Audio track. The disc also has the following bonus features:
Isolated score track
Original theatrical trailer
Liner notes by Julie Kirgo
The distributor's Bell, Book, and Candle disc preserves the picture's 1.85:1 aspect ratio and also adds a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track alongside the followiing supplements.
Two featurettes:
- Bewitched, Bothered, and Blonde
- Reflections in the Middle of the Night
Isolated score track
Liner notes by Julie Kirgo
As is the standard for Twilight Time releases, both Blu-rays have limited 3,000 unit runs.
Désirée and Bell, Book, and Candle street on April 10th.