Search - Bluebeard on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1944 DVD Release: 01/11/2000 Format: DVD - Black and White Edition: Special Collection Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 10 mins Studio: All Day Entertainment Members Wishing: 1 Genres: Crime, Thriller, Crime Thriller See Also: Bluebeard, Bluebeard

Bluebeard casts the saturnine John Carradine as Gaston, a popular painter in 19th century Paris. Unbeknownst to the authorities, Gaston is also the serial killer of beautiful young women that they have been seeking for several months. Whenever a girl fails to come up to Gaston's standards of perfection, she is summarily strangled and tossed into the streets. Gaston's latest model is the gorgeous Lucille (Jean Parker), who once she learns her employer's horrible secret courageously vows to bring him to justice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Carradine - Gaston
Jean Parker - Lucille
Nils Asther - Insp. Lefevre
Ludwig Stossel - Lamarte
George Pembroke - Insp. Renard

It's getting so that being released by Allday Entertainment is about the nicest thing that can happen to an Edgar Ulmer movie, and Bluebeard is among the best of Ulmer's movies, and arguably his best. Produced at Poverty Row studio PRC, it was another case of Ulmer making something out of nothing, at least where the movie's budget was concerned. It is one of the two handsomest looking movies ever made at the low-budget studio (Ulmer's The Wife of Monte Cristo was the other); with its period Parisian setting and a plot focusing on a designer, the movie looks more like an MGM feature of the late '30s, except that it is distinctly livelier than that comparison implies, both in its look and pacing. Between the tight editing and the elegant camera placement and movement, this is an intrinsically exciting movie to watch, just to see where (and how) it leads to the next development in the plot and through the next scene.
Bluebeard fell out of copyright in the early '70s, and with the dawn of the home video era, it was available in dozens of different, low-quality editions, usually mastered from 16 mm dupe prints. Allday's edition is the first to look as good as the movie looked on television in the early '60s, when it was still under copyright and licensed from its rightful owner, before the pirates degraded it. The image is still a slight bit dark, but not in an obtrusive way, and the detail and clarity are extraordinary. There is some fuzziness at times in the source, but it's minimal compared to what has been seen in this movie in recent years; at last, modern viewers can appreciate the time and care that went into the costuming and the decor, as well as the performances -- perhaps the best ever of either John Carradine's or Jean Parker's respective careers. Almost as impressive is the condition of the audio track, which is clean and extremely sharp, and mastered at a robust level. Carradine's baritone voice has never sounded better than on this disc, and the musical score by Leo Erdody (mostly adapted from 19th century classical music, including -- and it's a wonderful "in" joke concerning the plot -- Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition) comes to life as it hasn't been heard since the original theatrical release in 1944.
To go with the disc's presentation of the movie, Allday has produced a 12-minute documentary about the making of the movie, which includes interview material with Ulmer's widow -- who tells of the ten years it took her husband to bring Bluebeard to the screen -- and puppeteer Bob Baker, who shows off the surviving puppets from the movie's marionette production of Faust; most amazingly of all, viewers are treated to behind-the-scenes color footage shot by the puppeteer during the Faust sequence. This featurette is just about worth the price of the DVD by itself and, coupled with the presence of the best copy of this movie seen in decades, it becomes a must-own title for anyone interested in the best of old Hollywood, not to mention art films and low-budget cinema, three categories into which this movie fits. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide