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

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (May 2023): Kino have transferred three films for their fourteenth edition of Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema series to Blu-ray. This has Undercover Girl (1950), One Way Street (1950) and Appointment with a Shadow (1957). They are on three single-layered discs, in 1080P, with very high bitrates and generally look very pleasing with rich texture, no speckles and impressive contrast. I really didn't have any concerns with the HD presentations.

NOTE: We have added 130 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Kino use a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) in the original English language.  There is sporadic violence throughout - but it is generally tame with a handful of guns firing. On Undercover Girl the 'music director' was Joseph Gershenson (Monsters on Campus, Games, Madame X) utilizing stock music by the likes of Daniele Amfitheatrof (The Capture, An Act of Murder, The Last Hunt, I'll Be Seeing You, Edge of Eternity, The Lost Moment, The Desperate Hours, Human Desire, Letter From An Unknown Woman.), Hans J. Salter (Man Without a Star, The Killer that Stalked New York, The Strange Door, Cover Up, Man Without a Star, Scarlet Street, The Land Unknown, The War Lord, The Mole People, The Strange Case of Doctor Rx), Dimitri Tiomkin (High Noon,  Angel Face, Strangers on a  Train, The Men, Dial M For Murder, The Thing From Another World etc. etc.) etc.  On One Way Street the score was by Frank Skinner (Back Street, The Sleeping City, The World in His Arms, Arabian Nights, The Lady Gambles, The Appaloosa, Madame X, Magnificent Obsession, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, All That Heaven Allows, Thunder Bay, and The Naked City) and on Appointment with a Shadow the score was by Salter and Henry Vars (The Leech Woman, Seven Men From Now) It all sounds clean supporting the films very well. Kino offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Kino Blu-rays offer new commentaries for each film. The Undercover Girl commentary is by delightful film historian/writer Julie Kirgo. DVDBeaver loves Julie's work and she never disappoints - always offering astute observations. The commentary on One Way Street is by by author/film historian Lee Gambin and costume historian Elissa Rose. No one can ever say that Lee is not prepared or well-researched. Elissa discuss the Australian-American Hollywood costume designer Orry-Kelly who was credited with the costume design on One Way Street. He also worked on 42nd Street, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Arsenic and Old Lace, Harvey, Oklahoma!, Auntie Mame, and Some Like It Hot. On Appointment with a Shadow the commentary is by two of my favorites film historian David Del Valle and filmmaker David DeCoteau. They expose some of the gossip minutia of the cast and lesser-known details of the production. Great stuff! There are also newly mastered theatrical trailers for One Way Street and Appointment with a Shadow.

I really enjoyed all three films; my favorite might have been Undercover Girl which was only the second movie for Joseph Pevney (The Strange Door) as a director. Beautiful, Canadian-born, Alexis Smith (The Turning Point) plays a young woman who joins the police, and tries to track down the killers of her father, a narcotics investigator accused of accepting a bribe. One Way Street takes place mainly in Mexico and has James Mason as a Doctor, Swedish actress Märta Torén (Deported), noir mainstay Dan Duryea (Black Angel) and William "Cannon" Conrad (The Killers.) Appointment with a Shadow is a short-ish feature (1 1/4 hours) directed by Richard Carlson, known mostly as an actor in films like It Came From Outer Space, and Tormented. It is about an alcoholic reporter trying to get sober and redeem his work professionalism by discovering the whereabouts of a fugitive criminal. I am very happy the Kino Blu-rays. Very much worth seeing and owning, imo.

Gary Tooze