Charade (MRA) (1963)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1963
Running Time	113:00
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	MRA Entertainment	Starring	Cary Grant Audrey Hepburn
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, Lufthansa was probably happy!
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Who knew murder could be so romantic!

     Oh! They just don't make movies like Charade anymore - and more's the absolute pity! Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant team up in a delicious little comic thriller, ably supported by such luminaries as Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy.

     If this is an opportunity for you to revisit an old friend, a plot synopsis is redundant. If you have never enjoyed this particular treat, too much plot exposition would be uncharitable in the extreme - the complete delight of this film is enjoying the twists and turns of the plot as they unfold.

     Suffice it to say that Hepburn plays Regina 'Reggie' Lampert, a beautiful and capricious woman who is soon to be divorced from her husband Charles. However, before her divorce plans are complete, he winds up dead, her beautiful apartment has been completely cleaned out, and it seems a lot of people are very interested in his demise. The French police, the CIA and some very very shady characters are all paying particular interest to the ex Mr Lampert, and his bemused widow.

     To confuse matters, the ardent attention she is receiving from a recently met stranger (Grant) is proving very difficult to completely grasp. Just exactly who is he, and what does he know about the missing sum of $250,000 that Charles Lampert is supposed to have had?

     This film is a delightful cat and mouse adventure, with gloriously witty dialogue and a fabulous sense of warmth and respect between the two principal characters. At one point, Hepburn's character says to Grant's: "Do you know what's wrong with you? Absolutely nothing!" Quite right! Both lead roles relish the extended joke that is the context of this film. Pitched between a James Bond spy story, with plenty of Hitchcockian references peppered about, it is one extended jape at popular films of the time, as cheeky as a summer kiss and as stylish as Ms Hepburn's Givenchy attire.

      A highly enjoyable story. However, now we come to the unfortunate matter of this particular transfer.

Video

     This is an utterly appalling transfer, with virtually nothing to redeem itself.

     It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.75:1 but is NOT 16x9 enhanced.

     There is a significant amount of grain, evidence of compression and a rather soft picture. There is blocking of detail in the shadows although the highlights are reasonably acceptable. Low level noise is present virtually throughout and the overall luminance is rather flat and dull.

     The colour range is not too bad and skin tones are generally acceptable.

     This print is horribly scratched, dusty and is laden with reel change markers throughout. There are also dreadfully clumsy chops and chunks missing from the film and it is grouped in such a way that it displays chapters 1 to 6, then the counter resets to zero. I'm sorry, but the transfer sins present here are truly horrid.

     This is a single sided disc, but there are all these peculiar chapter resets which are quite annoying.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

     The soundtrack is delivered in English Dolby Digital 2.0.

     The dialogue is disappointingly thick and feels somehow distant - not exactly echoing - just disconnected from the film. This is further exacerbated by the slight audio sync delay which one has to determinedly overlook to avoid being made distant from a truly engaging film. There are no subtitles.

     The original music by Henry Mancini is utterly delightful - a true herald of its time - cheeky, breezy and laden with references to films of its generation.

     The surround presence and subwoofer activity is totally nonexistent.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

     There are no extras on this disc.

Menu

     The menu is static and silent.

     There have been several versions of this movie released on DVD. As it would be unfair to make a comparison of this kind of "budget" production with, for example, a Criterion Collection version, I've made a comparison on the comparable bare bones release I found of an R1 disc. It's also worth pointing out that the R1 I'm about to describe has an R4 counterpart which was released by Universal Pictures Home Video. May I suggest you carefully search around for that version as it may save you the frustration of the flaws of this particular presentation.

     The R4 version misses out on:

• Subtitles in English, Spanish and French
• 1.85:1 Anamorphic presentation
• "A" and "B" sided disc, with Side A containing the rather ordinary 2002 remake version of the film - The Truth About Charlie

      The R1 version misses out on:

• Nothing

       It's going to have to be R1 - particularly if you decide to go the whole hog and get the Criterion edition.

     Stylish, cheeky and very, very elegant, this is the kind of film you can enjoy again and again and again. That's what makes this transfer such a shame.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall