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Dom Robinson reviews
Carlton Home Entertainment
- Cat.no: 37115 00023
- Cert: PG
- Running time: 83 minutes
- Year: 1945
- Pressing: 1998
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 8 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 1.0 (Mono)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Presented in Fullscreen
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: No
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Cast/Crew Biographies
Director:
- David Lean
(The Bridge On The River Kwai, Dr Zhivago, Great Expectations, Lawrence Of Arabia, Oliver Twist, A Passage To India, Ryan’s Daughter)
Producer:
- Noel Coward
Cast:
- Laura : Celia Johnson (The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, The Hostage Tower)
Alec : Trevor Howard (Battle Of Britain, Ghandi, Ryan’s Daughter, Sons And Lovers)
Noel Coward’s sensitive portrayal of what happens when two happilymarried strangers, played by Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson,meet and their acquaintance deepens into affection and eventually into love.
It is the story of two people, thrown together by the chance meeting of thetitle, helpless in the face of their emotions but redeemed by their moralcourage.
The picture quality is very good with motion artifacts only really noticeablein the dark areas. I was surprised it would look as good as it does becauseI’ve seen a few of DVDs which struggle which grey/black shades. This being ablack and white film, bad encoding could have made watching it a nightmare, butgladly the only thing you have to worry about is the general scratches on theoriginal print which would be present on any medium and do not deter from theviewing pleasure.
The film is presented in fullscreen, as it was originally filmed and has areasonably high average bitrate of 5.53Mb/s.
The sound is mono – albeit presented in Dolby Digital 1.0 – and is fine, butis sent through the rear speakers as well as the front speakers.
Extras :
There’s just the one language on this disc – English – with no subtitles.
The interactive menu is very good, but static. Sometimes dragging the mousepointer over an option highlights it, but even if it doesn’t you can stillselect that option.
On inserting the disc, a copyright logo is shown before the film begins.Selecting the main menu option from the remote control will bring this up veryquickly.
Overall, this is a very engaging film well-acted by both Johnson and Howard,containing clever dialogue with funny touches. Watching a film like this makesone wonder how today’s studios can get away by substituting a good dialogueexchange for a supposed raunchy sex scene that’s about as enticing as doingthe ironing!
It’s also interesting to see Carlton bringing a range of old films and TVdrama to a new format so soon and in Dolby Digital, but it would be an ideato include subtitles and a decent number of chapters.
FILM : ****PICTURE QUALITY: ****SOUND QUALITY: ***EXTRAS: *——————————-OVERALL: ***
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1998.
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.