Sabrina (1954)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Featurette-Sabrina Documentary Gallery-Photo
Rating
Year Of Production	1954
Running Time	108:42
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (63:23)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
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	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	Frederick Hollander

    Sabrina the movie started life as Sabrina Fair, a play by Samuel Taylor. Paramount bought the rights specifically for Audrey Hepburn. They turned the project over to Billy Wilder, a veteran producer and director. He began work with Samuel Taylor to convert the play into a movie, but Taylor dropped out, and Ernest Lehman finished the job. They cast William Holden as the younger brother, and gave the part of the older brother to Cary Grant. One week before the start of shooting, Grant dropped out, and they had to replace him. They got Humphrey Bogart, and I am very glad they did - I can't imagine the film being quite so credible with Cary Grant.

    Sabrina is a fairly simple story. A young girl (Sabrina - Audrey Hepburn), grows up as a chauffeur's daughter in the household of a wealthy family, developing a crush on the younger playboy son (David - William Holden), and being sent away to Paris to study cooking (all chauffeur's daughters learn cooking in Paris, didn't you know?). On her return, she is a dazzlingly beautiful and well-dressed young woman, and she draws the attention of the man she's wanted for so long. Only catch is that he is engaged to be married to the daughter of a man who is about to merge his company with the company run by the elder brother (Linus - Humphrey Bogart), so the elder brother sees it as essential that he break up Sabrina's romance. There are some interesting twists, and I refuse to spoil them for you, so I'll tell you no more about the plot.

    Sabrina has been remade fairly recently, but this is the original, and very definitely the better version. Audrey Hepburn is absolutely perfect as both the unsophisticated waif-like young girl (before she leaves for Paris), and as the much more glamorous young woman when she returns. William Holden makes an excellent playboy, while Humphrey Bogart gets some of the best comic lines, and delivers them completely dead-pan, increasing the humour.

Video

    This movie was made in the Academy ratio: 1.37:1. That is very close to the 1.33:1 aspect ratio in which this version is presented. During the 50s, it was quite normal for musicals to be made in colour and wide-screen, while other films continued to be made in black-and-white and in this ratio - that's why Funny Face is wide-screen, and this film is not.

    The image is quite sharp and clear, but shadow detail is somewhat reduced from what we are used to these days. I'm very happy to see that Billy Wilder felt no need for a soft-focus filter - the picture is well-defined throughout. There's some very fine film grain, which is pretty much inevitable in a black-and-white film of this vintage, but it merely adds to the charm. There is no low-level noise.

    The colours range from a fairly bright white, to a deep and satisfying black. There's not much more that we can ask for.

    The print used is clearly a release print (with reel-change markings apparent), but it is quite a clean one - there are not too many film artefacts, and they are not distracting. There's surprisingly little aliasing, and only brief moments of moire or shimmer. I saw no MPEG faults.

    There are nine subtitle tracks, but I only reviewed the English. It is a nice font, easy to read. The content of the subtitles is fairly accurate, if a little abbreviated from the spoken word.

    The disc is single sided, and dual layered (RSDL-formatted). The layer change is located at 63:23. It is quite visible, but untroubling.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are four soundtracks available on this DVD: English, French, Italian, and Spanish, all in mono. I only listened to the English soundtrack.

    Dialogue is clear and easily understood. Audrey Hepburn's French is unaccented - a little too good for an American girl, but understandable given her background.

    The score is by Frederick Hollander. Nice pleasant stuff, including some songs that even I have heard (Isn't It Romantic? and La Vie En Rose). Audrey Hepburn sings part of La Vie En Rose, and her singing voice is rather well-suited to the song.

    The mono soundtrack gives the centre channel speaker plenty to do, but the other speakers get the night off. 

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The extras are quite limited.

Menu

    The menu is static and silent, with a suitable image in the background.

Sabrina Documentary (11:14)

    This is a fancy name for a featurette. It is quite interesting, concentrating on the process of making the film, and the personalities involved. Well worth a look.

Photo Gallery

    This comprises 22 black and white stills clearly taken on the sets during the making of the movie.

    The Region 1 version of this disc has identical features, and is presented in the same aspect ratio. Looks like we have a tie. 

    Sabrina is an enjoyable romantic comedy, sporting a decent transfer to DVD.

    The video quality is decent.

    The audio quality is about as good as a 50s mono soundtrack can get.

    The extras are sparse.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall