Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1961
Running Time	109:43
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (76:00)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Blake Edwards
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Audrey Hepburn George Peppard Patricia Neal Buddy Ebsen Martin Balsam Mickey Rooney
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	Henry Mancini

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English German French Italian Spanish Greek Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Dutch Turkish Portuguese English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    It tells the story of Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), a New York socialite who is looking for a rich eligible man to marry. Paul Varjak (George Peppard), a struggling writer, moves into the apartment above Holly and they quickly become friends. As Paul's career is currently on hold, he is sponsored by a wealthy married woman Mrs. Falenson (Patricia Neal).

    As time progresses, Paul finds himself falling for Holly, who is constantly involved in short unfulfilling relationships. Unfortunately, Holly is determined to marry a rich man so that she will be able to easily support herself and her brother (who is soon to leave the army) in the lifestyle which she has become accustomed to. After a disagreement, Paul moves out of the building and Holly begins to date a Brazilian millionaire whom she plans to marry and move to Brazil with. Paul must convince Holly that they should be together before it is too late.

    Breakfast At Tiffany's is based on the best-selling novel by Truman Capote and depicts the care-free high life of the New York social scene at the beginning of the 1960s. It is a highly enjoyable romantic comedy and despite the fairly shallow plot is a pleasure to watch.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The original aspect ratio for this film was 1.85:1. I was unable to determine whether the transfer is slightly panned and scanned or, as I would assume, the matte opened slightly. The disc is Auto Pan & Scan Encoded. Engaging Auto Pan & Scan mode cuts off the logo and title information and provides an excellent example of why Pan & Scan should not be used.

    The transfer is at no point razor sharp and during a number of scenes appears quite soft. This can be blamed on the source material and is very common in films of this age. There is no low level noise visible during this transfer. During the few darkly-lit scenes, shadow detail remains acceptable for a film of this age and at no time poses a problem for the viewer.

    During a number of shots, edge enhancement has been used. This may have been done to compensate for the slightly soft shots but the results are quite distracting to the viewer.

    The colours presented in this transfer appear slightly muted as you would expect considering the age of the film.

    MPEG artefacts do not pose any problems for this transfer and only one is visible, at 12:05 during a shot of a intricate screen. This shot lasts only a couple of seconds and the artefacts are unlikely to be noticed by most viewers.

    A small number of aliasing artefacts can be seen during this transfer with examples at 44:38, 48:28, 91:20, 94:17 and 97:48. The duration of these artefacts is only a few seconds each and they are only slightly distracting to the viewer.

    The main area where this transfer is let down is in the presence of grain. The opening shot of the film shows copious amounts of grain which continues for the duration of the film. Initially, this is very distracting to the viewer but as you watch the film you become accustomed to, but can never ignore, its presence throughout. There are also numerous scratches and flecks present during the transfer as you would expect from a film of this age. Examples of these can be seen at 0:09, 7:44, 24:14, 42:00 and 69:57 but at no stage are they distracting to the viewer.

    The subtitles present on this disc are white with a black outline and are presented in a slightly thinner font than most other transfers. While I had no problems reading these subtitles at any stage, I did find them slightly harder to read than the thicker fonts present on most discs.

    The layer change occurs at 76:00 at the start of Chapter 11 during a natural fade-to-black and is not disruptive to the viewer at all.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The dialogue is always clear and easy to understand during this transfer. There was no discernible problems with sync at any stage during the film. No dropouts or other problems were detected at any stage of the transfer.

    The Oscar winning score by Henry Mancini significantly consists of the Oscar-winning song 'Moon River' played with many different variations. Personally, I found this to be quite annoying and repetitive as the film progressed but others will undoubtedly enjoy it.

    The 5.1 mix is highly focused across the front three audio channels with the surrounds being minimally used to support the score and provide ambient effects during the numerous crowd and party scenes.

    The .1 channel is used minimally to support the score and its presence at any other time was not detected.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Trailer

• Nothing

• Spanish, Italian, German Dolby Digital 2.0 mixes
• 12 subtitle selections (only English is included)

    The video presented on this disc is acceptable for a film of its age but is let down by excessive grain and the use of edge enhancement.

    The 5.1 English mix for this film is very effective and thankfully has not been aggressively remixed.

    The extras presented on this disc are extremely limited and could have been greatly improved upon.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall