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George Cukor entered a new phase in his career - some critics would call it his creative peak - when he joined forces with the husband-and-wife writing team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin for A Double Life (1947), a melodrama set in the world of the theatre. Over the next seven years, he would direct seven films for one or both of the Kanins, including such popular hits as Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952). In essence, they created their own mini-studio, assembling a production team and even a few recurring cast members who would help them make some of the most intelligent films in Hollywood history.

The Kanins had written their story of an actor who confuses his off-stage life with his on-stage performance as Othello years earlier and sold it to Columbia Studios. Then Harry Cohn, head of the studio, decided not to make the picture and refused to even pay for the script. So the Kanins sold it to Universal-International and arranged to borrow their friend Cukor from MGM. Originally they had hoped to cast Laurence Olivier in the leading role, but when he proved unavailable they went after Ronald Colman.

Excerpt from TCM located HERE

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Artisan

Region 1 - NTSC

1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 5.58 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.

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen - 1.33:1

Edition Details:
• None

DVD Release Date: July 22nd, 2003
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Chapters 24

In an effort to cover most essential film noirs, we are going to review some past DVD releases that we may have missed. A Double Life is one of those rare noirs that won a major Academy Award for its star, Ronald Colman. The film also stars underrated Signe Hasso and Shelley Winters in one of the first credited roles. Ronald Colman is terrific as an actor going insane playing the leading role in a Broadway production of "Othello".

The expressionistic cinematography by Milton Krasner looks good on this single-layered disc from Republic/Artisan. The original film negative was preserved by UCLA and used for this transfer, but it's not pristine as would be expected. The stereo audio is serviceable featuring an Oscar-winning score by Miklós Rózsa. There are no subtitles, but the disc is closed captioned. There are no extras, not even a trailer. The disc can be currently purchased for under $10 at Amazon marketplace, and since a better release in unlikely, we can be moderately recommend this edition at a reasonable price.

  - Gregory Meshman

CLICK to order from:

Artisan

Region 1 - NTSC