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She Devil [Blu-ray]
(Kurt Neumann, 1957)
Review by Gary Tooze
Production: Theatrical: Regal Films / Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Video: Olive Films
Disc: Region: 'A' (as verified by the Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player) Runtime: 1:17:52.668 Disc Size: 16,846,588,687 bytes Feature Size: 16,773,500,928 bytes Video Bitrate: 26.48 Mbps Chapters: 9 Case: Standard Blu-ray case Release date: February 26th, 2013
Video: Aspect ratio: 2.34:1 Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio English 815 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 815 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 1.0 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 16-bit)
Subtitles: • None
Extras: • None
Bitrate:
Description: Cult director Kurt Neumann (The Fly) directed this sci-fi horror classic about biochemists (Jack Kelly and Albert Dekker) working under the premise that all living organisms can heal themselves by adapting to harmful things in their environment, try to develop a new serum based on the fruit fly, the most adaptive of all organisms. They successfully administer their compound on various animals and are ready for the right human subject. They find the perfect patient, a young woman (Mari Blanchard) dying of tuberculosis - she willingly agrees to be injected with the serum and six hours later she's totally cured. What our heroes don't realize is that they've created an inhuman female monster that cannot be killed. Beautifully shot in glorious black-and-white by legendary cinematographer Karl Struss (Sunrise, The Great Dictator).
The Film: A scientist develops a serum from fruit flies that allows the body to increase its adaptive abilities so that it can fight disease. When he tests it on a woman with a fatal illness, she not only recovers but becomes evil and murderous. Excerpt from Sciffilm.org located HEREHot on the heels of his successful sci-fier Kronos, Kurt Neumann directed the lesser genre entry She Devil. Jack Kelly stars as a doctor who invents a miracle cure for several horrible diseases. Suffering from tuberculosis, Mari Blanchard agrees to test out Kelly's wonder serum. Almost instantly, Mari's health and strength are restored. Unfortunately, there is one teeny-tiny side effect: Mari's benign personality transforms into that of a scheming predator with a pronounced homicidal streak. As Kelly and his superior Albert Dekker stand by helplessly, Mari murders the wife (Fay Baker) of wealthy John Archer, then draws up plans to knock him off and claim his millions. Even back in 1957, no one took this one seriously. Excerpt from Hal Erickson, Rovi located HERE
Image : NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc. She Devil is offered in another modest Blu-ray transfer from Olive Films. It looks to have some cinemascope 'mumps' with a bit of stretch in the horizontal with characters faces looking a bit fatter. This is only single-layered and contrast looks a shade dusty - but this is probably more the condition of the source. There are some infrequent speckles but it looks quite good otherwise. The black levels vary a bit throughout but I don't think the density of the print is compromised much. There is no noise and this is obviously superior to SD. There is some decent detail and it gave me an acceptable presentation.
CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio :The audio is transferred via a DTS-HD mono track at 768 kbps. There is no buoyancy to speak of but a touch of depth sneaks in through the original music is by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter. Mostly, it is authentically flat - but clear and clean. There are no subtitles and m y Momitsu has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked.
Extras : No supplements - not even a trailer which is the bare-bones route that Olive are going with most of their releases.
BOTTOM LINE: Gary Tooze March 5th, 2013
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About the Reviewer: Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out new film experiences. I currently own approximately 9500 DVDs and have reviewed over 5000 myself. I appreciate my discussion Listserv for furthering my film education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver. Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our Amazon links.
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