Sabrina (1954) (Blu-ray)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1954
Running Time	113:35
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Billy Wilder
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Humphrey Bogart Audrey Hepburn William Holden Walter Hampden John Williams Martha Hyer Joan Vohs
Case	?
RPI	Box	Music	Frederick Hollander

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby TrueHD 2.0 French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	1.37:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Portuguese English for the Hearing Impaired Dutch Danish Italian Spanish German Norwegian Finnish Swedish Japanese	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     The Larrabees are a very wealthy industrial family with two very different sons. The younger son David (William Holden) is a dashing playboy; he loves women and has already been married, and divorced, three times. The elder son Linus (Humphrey Bogart) is a staid, conservative businessman, controlling the family’s multiple businesses and with no time for women. The Larrabees live in a large estate on Long Island, with numerous servants including Thomas Fairchild (John Williams), a chauffeur whose daughter Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn) lives with him in a room above the garage.

     Sabrina has had a crush on David since she was nine years old, and watches him from the wings as he pursues a succession of women during the parties held by the Larrabees on their estate. David takes no notice of an awkward, adolescent servant’s daughter of course. Sabrina is sent by her father to Paris for two years to attend a cooking school. She returns to Long Island an elegant, sophisticated, cultured woman, and this time David takes notice and falls in love with her. The problem is that David is due to be married in two weeks to Elizabeth Tyson (Martha Hyer), the daughter of another wealthy family, and the marriage is to cement a lucrative business merger deal that Linus had negotiated. So that David’s marriage, and the merger, can go ahead Linus decides to woo Sabrina himself and then place her on a boat back to Paris. Of course, things do not work out as Linus expects.

     Sabrina is a delightful romantic comedy directed and co-written by Billy Wilder. It is light weight Wilder for sure but he still manages to get in some barbs about the American dream and the film was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, but lost out to Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, a very different type of film. Audrey Hepburn was 24 at the time of filming and is absolutely luminous as Sabrina. She is gorgeous and her looks and screen charisma light up every scene she is in. She was also nominated for an Oscar for the role, having won the year previously for Roman Holiday, but lost out to Grace Kelly in The Country Girl, a film pretty much forgotten today. The supporting cast are also interesting with John Williams good as Sabrina’s father and Walter Hampden a heap of fun as the father of Linus and David. However the thing that stops Sabrina being an absolute classic to my mind is that neither William Holden nor Humphrey Bogart are totally convincing. It was reported that Bogart was a last minute replacement for Cary Grant and did not like Hepburn in the title role; he wanted his wife Lauren Bacall instead. As well Bogart and Holden could not stand each other which would have caused some friction on set!

     Despite this Sabrina is a lot of fun. It may be lightweight and romantic but is worth watching for Audrey Hepburn alone, who is wonderful.

Video

     Sabrina is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, the original ratio being 1.37:1, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 AVC code.

     Sabrina is a black and white film made almost 60 years ago and it looks great in this HD transfer. Detail is very good and the film has an excellent depth and definition in pristine black and white. There is slight blur with some motion, and aliasing on vertical railings, but marks and scratches are nowhere to be seen.

     Subtitles are available in English, English for the hearing impaired, a wide range of European languages, plus Japanese.

     In this HD print Sabrina probably looks as good as it ever has.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
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Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio choices include an English Dolby TrueHD 2.0 track plus Dolby Digital 2.0 dubs in German, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese. The film was theatrically released with a mono soundtrack.

     The dialogue is easy to hear. There is no surround or subwoofer use obviously and the effects lack depth and resonance but this is to be expected.

     The film uses adapted music including music composed by Richard Rogers, the Edith Piaf classic La vie en rose and Yes! We Have No Bananas.

     Lip synchronisation was fine.

     The audio reflects the original theatrical release and is perfectly adequate.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     There are no extras, the same as the standalone Australian Blu-ray release.

    Standalone Blu-ray releases of Sabrina include a US Region Free and Scandinavian Region B version, but the specifications seem similar to ours and none have any of the extras that were available previously on either the Region 4 Australian DVD, reviewed on this site here, or the Paramount 2 disc DVD; details of the extras on that release can be found here.

     I can find no listing of a similar Blu-ray set to the Audrey Timeless Collection elsewhere. A local bargain.

     Sabrina is a delightful romantic comedy directed and co-written by Billy Wilder and staring the fabulous Audrey Hepburn.

     The video is probably the best the 60 year old film has looked and the audio is fine. No extras.

     A stand-alone Blu-ray of Sabrina has previously been available in Australia. The same Blu-ray is now released as part of the three disc set Audrey Timeless Collection from Paramount that also includes Funny Face (1957) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). The set is a bargain for fans of Hepburn or classic Hollywood cinema if you do not already own the standalone Blu-rays.

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Overall