Charade (Avenue One) (1963) |
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Charade (Avenue One) (1963) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Thriller |
Menu Audio Filmographies-Cast Listing-Cast & Crew Biographies-Cast Gallery Trailer-3 |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1963 | ||
| Running Time | 113:25 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | Stanley Donen |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Select Audio-Visual Distrib |
Starring |
Cary Grant Audrey Hepburn Walter Matthau James Coburn George Kennedy Dominique Minot Ned Glass Jacques Marin Paul Bonifas Thomas Chelimsky |
| Case | Alpha | ||
| RPI | $24.95 | Music | Henry Mancini |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 2.0  (224Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Like Hitchcock's own films, Charade delights in taking hard turns at regular intervals. The identity of the killer is not revealed until the last few minutes, and many of the people Regina places her trust in prove to be very different to what they initially appear. The viewer is left as helpless as Regina in trying to determine the solution to the puzzle. In this regard the name of the film perfectly matches its underlying theme.
This is a very taut thriller with a plot, and I should add a romance, that moves along in leaps and bounds. The casting could not have been more perfect, with Hepburn, Grant, Coburn, Kennedy and Glass all imparting their own reputations and characters to their respective roles (Hepburn won a BAFTA award for Best British Actress for her role, while Grant was nominated for the BAFTA Best Foreign Actor Award). Dialogue is fast and witty and is one of the features of the film. The great Stanley Donen provides his own inspired direction and ensures that this film comes away with real class.
Two scenes, in particular, are worth noting. The first (beginning at 15:25) is set in a church with the body of Regina's husband lying in an open coffin. Only Regina, her close friend and the police inspector (memorably played by Jaques Marin) are present, but the three thieves are introduced one by one as they each enter the church and use various means of determining that their former partner is, in fact, dead. None of them utter a word, but the scene is delightfully funny. The second scene (at 43:00) shows some wonderful editing as Hepburn and Grant are running past a lengthy colonnade. The camera moves along with each in turn, with cuts from one to the other as a column passes between the camera and the subject, allowing virtually seamless alternating views of the two of them.
It is always with some nervousness that I sit down to watch a disc of an older film such as this. One never knows quite what to expect. In this case my fears were initially alleviated. I saw quite nice images of snow fields with realistic sky and reasonable clarity. However it soon became obvious that this was an aberration, probably caused by the lack of detail inherent in the landscapes on offer. The disc's single biggest fault is its total lack of clarity - the picture is downright blurred as if I was watching it through my grandmother's reading glasses. Perhaps I exaggerate a little, but this lack of clarity was very poor. This was even apparent when I viewed it on my 15 inch PC monitor, let alone on a 43 inch TV screen. Many of the opening credits were rendered unreadable. There didn't appear to be any degree of edge enhancement, although the characteristics of the image could well have absorbed a small amount of such processing without any obvious effect. Shadow detail was not good, although there was no discernible low level noise.
Colours were undersaturated and certainly reflected the film's age. The most significant splash of colour was the repeated appearances of Audrey Hepburn's vivid red overcoat. Even this lacked the solid colour I'm sure was intended by the costume designer. Much of this is possibly a reflection of the original film. Certainly there are very few clearly bright scenes, other than the early one in the Alps that I've already said appeared acceptable. The film tends to concentrate on some of the drabber locations within Paris in order to contribute to its general atmosphere (I hasten to add that we are also served up with views of the Notre Dame from the Seine and several other Parisian landmarks). Overall brightness is not a problem, and you can see the colours and picture detail straining to break through. Unfortunately, the general lack of clarity generally stymied their attempts and caused colour rendition to frequently suffer, especially in facial tones. In some other cases, especially with hard surfaces, colours seemed to come through very well (for example, the car at the beginning of chapter 3 which is clear down to the minor dents in the body work).
MPEG artefacts were almost totally absent, except for one glaringly obvious case of blocking at 106:10. Although in a particularly dark scene, I don't think too many viewers appreciate the sight of Cary Grant turning into large square blocks!
One area where the transfer really deserves credit is in the lack of film artefacts. Wherever this was sourced, it was certainly very clean, with only the odd minor spot or scratch popping up. Aliasing was not and never will be a problem in any transfer that lacks sharpness as much as this one does.
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Ultimately, dialogue is the key to this film and it is uniformly clear, no doubt thanks to the wonderful voices of the principal actors. Looping was obviously common but I don't believe was ever intrusive. Audio sync was acceptable, although there were several instances where gaps were observed in lip sync. This could well have been a feature of the original film.
The music was by Henry Mancini and includes an OSCAR-nominated theme song. It provides a suitable backdrop to both the onscreen thrills and romance.
There was no surround activity, and I certainly didn't notice the subwoofer piping in during the film. To be fair, it may have added a bit of bass to the odd sound effect, but this isn't really an effects-based film.
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NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;
| Video | |
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| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Toshiba SD-K310, using S-Video output |
| Display | Pioneer SD-T43W1 (125cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Pioneer VSX-D906S |
| Speakers | Richter Wizard (front), Jamo SAT150 (rear), Yamaha YST-SW120 (subwoofer) |