Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Amazon's listings, normally accurate to a fault, erroneously tag this item as "full screen." In fact it's widescreen, 1.85 or 1.78, it's hard to tell, and the jewel case itself only states (in English) "Letterbox." So it's the original theatrical release aspect ratio. Don't worry about its being a Brazilian pressing: the language is English, the opening titles are English, everything English. Only the jewel case text is in Portuguese.
Quality wise? A-okay, certainly better than Fox's own VHS version which is full of streaks, scratches, and quivers. But it needs to be digitally remastered and released in DVD by Fox itself, Dolby 5.0 all that stuff. Meanwhile, this version is the best thing going, and it's damn good.
As for the movie. Well . . . de gustibus and all that. For me, the most fascinating persona is not Lot (Stewart Granger) but the "Queen of Sodom," a lady of tastes sapphic and sadistic ("Next only to the pleasure of giving death is the excitement of watching it" she burbles to a horrified Lot), played to a perfect lip-snarl by the French actress Anouk Aimée.
Most of all though is the MUSIC SCORE, which outclasses every other element of the movie and is a bit incongruous to find accompanying this biblical pabulum, amusing and visually stunning as much of it is. To me the score is simply one of Miklos Rozsa's absolute finest, his third best after Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis, utterly LUCID and free of the mushy dissonances that occasionally, just occasionally muck up the Rozsa repertoire. Take just one example: a pastorale Rozsa called "By the River," which plays when Lot is courting his wife-to-be (Pier Angeli), a little gem-of-a-gem that stands with ANY pastorale in any of his films.
So we need to have this DVD remastered in state-of-the-art by Fox itself in Dolby 5.0, the whole works. But meanwhile, kudos to the Brazilians for doing Fox's work for it, a very very credible job. Buy with confidence.
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