January 11, 2003.

"How come you haven't made a pass at my daughter?"

Starring Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams, Charles Vandel, Brigitte Auber, Jean Martinelli and Georgette Anys.  Screenplay by John Michael Hayes, based on the book by David Dodge.  Music by Lyn Murray.  Produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  Released by Paramount Pictures in 1955.

A former American citizen, John Robie was also a hero of the French Resistance during World War II.  Unfortunately, he also acquired an incredible talent in robbing people right where they lived.  Years after the end of the war, "le Chat" was still considered by some to be the best cat burglar France has ever known.  This acknowledgement has caused a lot of friction among his former comrades who now hate his guts because every time someone is robbed of their jewels in the middle of the night, the "usual suspects" are usually John Robie and his former comrades.  No one likes to be made a scapegoat.

Now a new string of high profile nighttime robberies have begun around the French Riviera, and everyone's attention is once again directed towards "Le Chat".  However, John Robie has never committed these crimes.  He left the business years ago and wasn't interested in returning in that line of work.  Unfortunately, the police don't believe this one minute.  In an attempt to prove his innocence and catch the real cat burglar, Robie somehow convinces H. H. Hughson, a representative of the company that insured all those stolen jewels, to help Robie evaluate who will be the burglar's next target and catch him in the act.

The next target is believed to be the Stevensons, a mother and daughter enjoying a leisurely trip in the Riviera.  But in the process of "studying" the Stevensons, John and the daughter Frances start falling for each other (with a little help from Mrs. Stevenson).  Can "Le Chat" juggle a potential relationship and locate the real cat burglar at the same time?  Or will he end up in a French prison for a crime he claims he didn't commit?

Following the hugely successful release of the movie "Rear Window", Alfred Hitchcock may have been left in the slightly uncomfortable position of attempting to top his previous accomplishments.  It appears that Hitchcock didn't even try to surpass his previous success.  The movie itself isn't bad in any way; the story is engaging, the cast is superb and the locations are exotic.  But compared with many of Alfred Hitchcock's previous features, the movie does appear to lack that certain something that makes a Hitchcock movie a Hitchcock movie despite having all the required elements in place.

One eerie element that wasn't present in the movie's original release is the knowledge that Grace Kelly died following the consequences of an automobile accident at pretty much the same area of France many years later.  It's a bit bizarre to be aware of this fact as you see Cary Grant and Grace Kelly's characters speeding down the winding roads of Southern France.

Picture

1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen.  The Internet Movie Database lists the original aspect ratio as being 1.66:1.  The framing of the movie on DVD appears to be correct for a 1.85:1 aspect ratio movie, revealing no obvious cropping or head cutting with one possible exception that manages to question the IMDB's aspect ratio listing.

The source elements have survived the passage of time reasonably well despite revealing a slight color shift.  But unlike other re-released movies, this feature doesn't suffer from a brownish overcast.  Instead, the movie has a look similar to what you would experience when you adjust your TV set to the "Cool" setting.  Luckily, this cool overcast extends only to the color palette itself and doesn't actually affect the color temperature: most of the whites still look white and not blue.

There are two interesting flaws in the movie that probably have nothing to do with the DVD mastering process.  First of all, the optical effects tend to look very grainy.  Second, some scenes appear as if the camera was fitted with a sun shade a bit too long, causing the corners of the frame to appear much darker than the center portion.

Only the opening credits appear grossly misconverged and blurry (The Technicolor process was not without its faults).  But once you get past this, the remainder of the movie is in decent shape revealing minimal dust and dirt, no obvious print damage and reasonably aligned elements.  Black level and shadow detail are a bit problematic, but not so much that the movie looks entirely gray in the nighttime scenes.  Again this may simply be a problem with the technology that was available at the time.  Finally there is a hint of edge enhancement present in the image, but not so much that everything has bright ringing edges all over the place.  Still, I would have preferred if the edge enhancement was avoided altogether.  More often, it causes more problems that it resolves such as in the various mountain scenes which look a bit unnatural at times.

I wouldn't give this transfer high marks, but it is satisfactory enough for the subject matter.

Sound/Subtitles

Dolby Digital 2.0 mono.  In a way, this may be a blessing in disguise considering how many horrible sounding "remastered" multi-channel soundtracks have been released over the years.  The soundtrack may sound a bit flat overall, but the vocals are clear and comprehensible, there's no annoying pops and there's only a slight amount of hiss.  Considering the movie's time frame, this is acceptable.

One important note.  If Charles Vanet's dialog appears a bit strange, that's because it was dubbed.  Despite his attempts to speak English phonetically, the resulting dialog simply wasn't good enough for the movie.

Also included is a French language soundtrack along with English subtitles.  Unfortunately, the French dialog in the movie was not incorporated in a separate English subtitle track.  The French dialog isn't critical to the movie's storyline, but it would have been nice if those of you who don't understand French could have enjoyed what was being said.

Features

Four featurettes are included on the disc.  Actually, three of the featurettes could have formed the basis for a full 30 minute documentary, but they were split up so that the studio wouldn't have to pay full wages to the featurette production staff.  If you've ever wondered why so many DVDs out there have their featurettes broken apart in such an awkward manner, now you know.  The fourth featurette is dedicated to legendary costume designer Edith Head who was instrumental in designing the look of the costumes in so many Hollywood movies of that era.  Although the featurettes are not as engaging as the previous Hitchcock documentaries created by Laurent Bouzereau for the DVDs released by Universal, they are still chock full of interesting movie facts.

Also included is the movie's original theatrical trailer and a photo gallery.

Final verdict

Don't watch this movie the same way you'd watch any of Alfred Hitchcock's other movies.  If you believe you'll be watching a masterpiece, you're more likely to be disappointed.  However, if you watch this movie the same way you would watch any old movie, you will enjoy it very much.  Overall, the feature does contain all the elements you would normally find in a Hitchcock flick (beautiful scenery, decent actors, intriguing storyline) and it does a decent job of offering you an enjoyable evening's entertainment.

Picture		Video	1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen
Sound		Audio	ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono) ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono)
Story		Subtitles	English
Features		Features	Four featurettes Theatrical trailer Photo gallery
Value		Final word	Despite not being a masterpiece like some of Hitchcock's other movies, this is still a very decent movie.