NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: VCI Blu-ray (September 2022): VCI have transferred Luis Buñuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz to Blu-ray. An initial text screen states; "Essay of a Crime is part of the project for the preservation of Mexican Cinema implemented by the National Cinematheque. This film is owned by the Film Production Workers Union (STPC) and has been restored by the institution's Digital Restoration Laboratory.   

Image digitization was performed from the original 35 mm negative acetate. 129,589 frames were restored. The sound was worked from a composite positive copy, using the optical sound negative to fill in the missing audio. " The 1080P image is quite striking - in advance of what many may expect from, often flawed, VCI. It is very clean and has a smattering of textures but there are a couple of instances of compression artifacts. Generally though it has decent contrast - the HD presentation is a shade dark - but has frequently impressive detail. Hopefully the screen captures below will give you an idea of the video quality.

NOTE: We have added 56 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, VCI use only a lossy Dolby track in the original Spanish language. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz has a few screams that come through with little depth. The score is by Jorge Pérez  (a veteran Mexican composer who has also done a few of the Santos and other genre films.) sounding clean if lifeless and slightly hollow. VCI offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The VCI Blu-ray offers a a 26-minute Video Essay by Dr. Davit Wilt entitled The Life of Crime. He talks about the stars of the film that passed away before its release in May 1955; Miroslava and José María Linares-Rivas as well as noting that screenwriter Eduardo Ugarte died in December of that year. He discusses the careers of some of the cast, the production company, frequent Buñuel collaborator Ugarte and much more. It's fairly informative if he is directly reading from a screen.

NOTE: The Blu-ray menus are also in Spanish.

Luis Buñuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz is was made in the latter part of his “Mexican” period - dubbed by some as a time that his films were more commercial… certainly true in comparison to his later works in which he was granted significant artistic freedoms. “The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz” brought Buñuel international acclaim and it was in these 50's films that he developed his style with trademark surreal, unpredictable imagery with biting and often grim social observations. Buñuel created sublime artistic cinema merely touching on dark perversions, eroticism and criminal intent. Archibaldo feeling that his re-found music box is compelling him to indulge in the practices of a serial killer, finds his careful plotting and scheming continually falls short of its intended target. The plot walks the fine line between frustrated serial killer, bizarre fetishism and cynicism over Buñuel’s usual foibles of the rich, macho men with sexual and religious restraints. It's a film I am very happy to own looking as good as it does on the restored VCI Blu-ray. The video essay has some value and, despite the lossy audio, the package should be appealing to the director's loyal fan-base.

Gary Tooze