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Dom Robinson reviews
Castle Home Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: CHV 5009
- Running time: 116 minutes
- Year: 1986
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 19 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Stereo)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 2.10:1 (J-D-C Scope)
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Booklet, Dennis Hopper Interview
Director:
- David Lynch
(Blue Velvet, Dune, The Elephant Man, Eraserhead, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, The Straight Story, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Wild at Heart, TV: Hotel Room, On the Air, Twin Peaks)
Producer:
- Fred Caruso
Screenplay:
- David Lynch
Music:
- Angelo Badalamenti
Cast:
- Jeffrey Beaumont: Kyle MacLachlan
Dorothy Vallens: Isabella Rossellini
Frank Booth: Dennis Hopper
Sandy Williams: Laura Dern
Ben: Dean Stockwell
Detective John D. Williams: George Dickerson
Raymond: Brad Dourif
She wore Blue Velvet but there’s something else about nightclub chanteuse Dorothy Vallens(Isabella Rossellini) that Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan)wants to uncover.
After he visits his father in hospital he stops off at a derelict plot ofland where he regularly goes to think and chuck stones at the dusty bottlesclose by. Searching in the undergrowth for more projectiles, he finds asevered human ear, diseased and covered in bugs. Gingerly picking it up hetakes it for investigation to Detective John D. Williams (George Dickerson),but since he can’t be told much about the case itself he begins his owninvestigation, taking the detective’s daughter Sandy (Laura Dern)along for the ride.
She suspects Dorothy, which leads to more than a bizarre encounter or twoas Jeffrey breaks into her apartment and witnesses her relationship withpsycho killer Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper, as brilliant as always)and the extraordinary Ben (Dean Stockwell, in a role as far removedfrom Quantum Leap as you could possibly get, which was what I had seenhim in the most before first watching this film).
Blue Velvet is not one for the faint-hearted with its seriouslysado-masochistic overtones, strong language and violence, plus an incrediblemoment where a dead man’s point of balance is such that it leaves himstanding up.
About the best thing I can say about the film’s presentation is that it’s notthe 4:3 pan-and-scan version that was originally released. However, while thefilm was shot at a ratio of 2.35:1, the print used here isn’t quite as wideas it should be, losing around 10% of the original image and it’s not anamorphic.The Region 1 DVD is but by all accounts it was done on the cheap by trying toboost a standard letterboxed image and it came off badly. I don’t know if theirdisc suffered a fair number of dropouts on the print as this one does though.The average bitrate is 4.70Mb/s occasionally peaking over 8Mb/s.
The sound is equally disappointing with only the original Dolby Stereosoundtrack being used here and no chance of a remastered Dolby Digital 5.1version on any release to date. It certainly needs it because the dialogueappears muffled to a degree and almost slightly distorts when shoutingsuddenly breaks out. However, Angelo Badalamenti‘s score is impressiveand there’s a brilliant segue from Dorothy’s performance into Jeffrey’sinitial night-time investigations.
The Region 1 DVD cover.For the extras, there’s a new set of liner notes written in August 2000by Alan Robinson in an 8-page booklet with plenty of production stillsand a 45-minute DVD exclusive interview with Dennis Hopper, which isfairly entertaining but Hopper doesn’t quite appear to be firing on allcylinders these days.
The disc has no subtitles but does have an impressively-animated and scoredmenu and the film is divided up into 19 chapters.
Blue Velvet itself is a must-see but we could really use a Special Editionwith a new anamorphic widescreen transfer and scores of extras to give thefilm content its due credit.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.