Paris When It Sizzles (1964)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1964
Running Time	105:51
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Richard Quine
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	William Holden Audrey Hepburn
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	Nelson Riddle

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Italian Spanish Slovenian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The movie is an unusual parody of the whole film-making process. There are numerous references to classic films such as Casablanca, My Fair Lady, and Breakfast At Tiffany's (get the connection with the latter two). As the two begin creating the script, we are whisked off in a dream-like sequence (complete with slow fades - a very important film device) to the actual story they are inventing. One minute we are watching gangsters, then a vampire, then Audrey Hepburn piloting a bi-plane.

    Some of the comedy works quite well. I particularly liked the references to poor Tony Curtis (a bumbling cameo). He appears in the dream sequences, yet is always relegated to a minor role such as 'second policeman', even though he was a major star at the time.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is pretty sharp all round, with only occasional edge enhancement. Grain pops up on a handful of occasions (most notably at 42:50 and 46:21). Given the nature of the film, set in Paris at the height of summer, there are few darker moments except in the closing scenes. As a result, shadow detail is rarely troubled and blacks are nice and deep. There is no low level noise present, though the significant number of film artefacts are more prominent during the darker scenes.

    Colours are typical of the era, with decent colour saturation of quite a wide palette, although the vibrancy is not anywhere near what you would expect from younger material.

   There were no MPEG artefacts and film-to-video artefacts were limited to some minor shimmer. Film artefacts were numerous. Given the age of the source material, this is not surprising. Most are the usual spots and nicks, though some are significantly larger than others.

    There are four sets of subtitles present; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. I sampled the English flavour and they were in a decent font and were very accurate.

    Thi is a single sided, dual layered disc. I was unable to detect the layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are four audio tracks present, all Dolby Digital 2.0 mono in English, French, Spanish, and Italian. I switched Dolby Pro-Logic decoding on to allow the audio to emanate from the centre channel. I listened to the English track in full and verified the presence of the other three.

    Dialogue is very prominent in the soundtrack. Most of the film centres on the dialogue exchanged between Holden and Hepburn and this is handled reasonably well, though Holden's dialogue can be a touch grating at times. There are no audio sync issues.

   The musical score is credited to Nelson Riddle and is typical of the era; fast-paced to suit a hip modern French capital.  Songs performed by Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire are also prominent.

    There is no surround channel or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Theatrical Trailer

    In terms of the disc itself, this is an average effort from Paramount, though the lack of decent extras is disappointing. The video is pretty good considering its age. The audio could be better - I found myself turning down the volume to make it bearable. There are virtually no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall