Blue Underground

Region 0 - NTSC

1.84:1 Original Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 7.66 mb/s
NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Blue Underground (Limited Edition)

Blue Underground (Blu-ray)

Argent Films (Blu-ray)

DTS-HD Master Audio English 1081 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1081 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 1.0 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit)
DTS-HD Master Audio Italian 1079 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1079 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 1.0 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit)

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 1.84:1

Edition Details:
• DISC ONE:
• International Trailer (16:9; 3:55)
• US Trailer (16:9; 1:48)
• Tinto Brass Biography
• DISC TWO:
• Inside Salon Kitty: interview with Tinto Brass (16:9; 14:47)
• Designing Salon Kitty: interview with production designer Ken Adam (16:9; 18:00)
• 3 Radio Spots (1x 60 second; 2x 30 second)
• Poster & Still Gallery
• Ken Adam's Production Design Gallery
• Jost Jakob's Costume Design Gallery
• DVD-ROM: The Story of Salon Kitty (pdf)

DVD Release Date: 24 June 2003
Amaray

Chapters 29

Dual-layered Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video 1080P

Edition Details:
• Inside Salon Kitty: interview with Tinto Brass (14:48)
• Designing Salon Kitty: interview with production designer Ken Adam (18:01)
• 3 Radio Spots (1x 60 second; 2x 30 second)

• International Trailer (3:55)
• US Trailer (1:49)

Blu-ray Release Date: November 23rd, 2010
Standard Blu-ray case

Chapters 29

Chapters 18

This UK 1080P transfer is comparable although only single-layered with a modest bitrate. It shows more noise than the Blue Underground - but it would be more dependant on how discerning you, or your system is. Colors support each  HD release. Audio offers original (Italian), English and foreign language (French and German) DUBs - all in uncompressed.

A 24-minute interview with Brass is offered as an extras and there is a theatrical trailer and a whack of Argent Film trailers.

NOTE: The Blue Underground release no longer appears to be available from Amazon in the US (but is purchasable from the Amazon Canada link) - the Argent Films is an opposing hi-def choice at a sleight cheaper price at the writing of this review. 

***

ADDITION: Blue Underground - Region FREE Blu-ray - (November 2010) - This is the same uncut release of the film - also from Tinto Brass' source print. Colors make the most dramatic shift - especially in skin tones (of which, there are a lot) which lose their orange hue. Compression artefacts present on the LE DVD are lessened/eradicated by the strong Blue Underground dual-layered 1080P transfer that sports a high bitrate. There is slightly more information in the frame and everything tightens up essentially improving the appearance from a video-look to representing film with some wonderful textured grain - now a common trademark of BU Blu-ray editions (no DNR here!).

Audio stays with the original mono for both lossless English and Italian options. It sounds decent although less remarkable by having no real range. There are a few instances of depth and the music definitely improves. There are English subtitles for the Italian track and optional English (SDH), French and Spanish available. The translations appear to occasionally differ from the 2-disc DVD release from 2003. My Momitsu has verified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

Extras lose the superfluous galleries and PDF files but retain the Inside Salon Kitty - 15-minute interview with Tinto Brass, Designing Salon Kitty - 18-minute interview with production designer Ken Adam and the 3 Radio Spots (1x 60 second; 2x 30 second) and two trailers (all as discussed by Eric below).

Blue Underground have developed a strong reputation with the HD output disc transfers and this ranks as another that makes a demonstrative step beyond the DVD editions (in regards to a/v). Fans of Brass and his very 'adult films' should definitely consider picking this Blu-ray up. It gives good... 'presentation'!

 -Gary Tooze

***

ON THE DVD: Released in 2003, Blue Underground's limited edition DVD has remained the definitive edition of the film as it was completely uncut and featured both the English track (with subtitles for scenes not dubbed into English) and the Italian track with full English subtitles as well as a host of original extras on disc 2 (the single-disc edition reproduced only the contents of disc 1). The elements are clean but not spotless. Encoding is at the mercy of the lengthy film's intentionally soft and grainy cinematography of Silvano Ippoliti (the consistent style of his work for Brass compared to his slicker work for other directors indicates that the look is a stylistic choice of Ippoliti and Brass). Some racier bits (which may not even have been part of the Italian original) look rougher than the surrounding footage. Edge enhancement is present but not distracting but the grain has not been over-scrubbed (lending some nice texture to the sharper close-ups and medium shots). The musical number roughly a half-hour into the film reveals that differences in sharpness between the static close-ups shot afterwards and the softer zoom shots (as with CALIGULA, Brass shot several sequences with multiple cameras equipped with zoom lenses).

Mono Italian and English tracks evince a little hiss but are fine overall. In an early scene, a piano starts playing long before a character's hands touch the keys, but this occurs on both the composited English/Italian track and the uncut Italian track so it may have been intentional. Curiously, there is some additional dialogue on the English track where none was recorded for the Italian versions of the scenes. Unlike some recent Blue Underground foreign films, the subtitles here are not dubtitles and reveal how the English and Italian tracks differ (sometimes, one is more eloquent than the other and vice-versa). The first disc affords a high bitrate to the feature and only includes the international and US trailers as extras. The substantial extras are on disc 2, including interviews with Brass and production designer Ken Adam as well as radio spots, extensive still galleries, and a DVD-ROM supplement. The publicity stills gallery mistakenly includes a couple stills of Berger and Thulin from Visconti's THE DAMNED (as well as the iconic Berger-in-Dietrich drag image). While the UK Argent Films release features an exclusive interview, it lacks the rest of Blue Underground's supplements (as well as the Italian track with optional English subtitles. The Scandinavian Another World Entertainment edition also features English subtitles for the restored scenes (in addition to optional Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish for the feature) but it is an NTSC-PAL conversion and is also lacking substantial extras. Reportedly the shorter 112 minute US version is available on DVD in Japan.

 -Eric Cotenas