She Played with Fire Blu-ray

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka "Fortune Is a Woman" )

directed by Sidney Gilliat
UK 1957

British writer and director Sidney Gilliat (Green for Danger, The Lady Vanishes) is responsible for some superb moments of cinematic suspense. This lesser-known crime drama – based on the book "Fortune is a Woman" – featuring the beautiful Arlene Dahl (The Black Book, Slightly Scarlet) as a married woman who runs into a former boyfriend, insurance investigator Oliver Branwell (Jack Hawkins, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Five Finger Exercise), in the line of his business. When her husband (Dennis Price, Murder Most Foul) dies in a fire, the two re-kindle a relationship that ended abruptly. Eventually, murder, arson and blackmail threaten to consume them both. Newly remastered

***

Oliver Branwell (Jack Hawkins) is an honest, decent man, dedicated to his job as an insurance claims assessor -- until he makes a business call, to assess the damage from a fire, on Tracey Moreton (Dennis Price) and meets Morton's wife Sarah (Arlene Dahl), with whom Oliver had been involved romantically five years earlier. He's thrown off balance by her presence and the seeming friendliness of Tracey and his mother (Violet Fairbrother), both members of the upper-class who have found their lifestyle squeezed and trimmed back by England's dire postwar economy and taxes. But soon, Oliver finds himself in more than a personally awkward position over his friendship with Tracey and lingering attraction to Sarah -- he accidentally uncovers evidence of a massive insurance fraud committed by Tracey, and doesn't want to report it for fear of implicating Sarah. And matters only get worse when Tracey's family home is burned to the ground, in a fire that was definitely arson, killing Tracey (or did it?) in the process. And just when Oliver's dilemma seemingly couldn't get worse, he and the newly-widowed Sarah are married. And then the police start sniffing around, along with a blackmailer (Bernard Miles) who is after a share of the 30,000 pounds insurance that Sarah collected on Tracey's life.

Excerpt from B+N located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: 13 March 1957 (London)

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

Comparison:

Sony Pictures (Screen Classics by Request) - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Kit Parker Films - Region FREE - Blu-ray

Thanks to Gregory Meshman for the DVD Review!

Box Cover		She Played With Fire is part of the Noir Archive Volume 3: 1957-1960 9-film Collection Bu-ray
Distribution	Sony Pictures (Screen Classics by Request) Home Video - Region 0 - NTSC	Kit Parker Films - Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:34:27	1:34:38.005
Video	1.85:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 5.82 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1.85:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 48,587,202,604 bytes Feature: 17,087,987,712 bytes Video Bitrate: 21.99 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:
Bitrate Blu-ray:
Audio	English (Dolby Digital mono)	DTS-HD Master Audio English 836 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 836 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 1.0 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitles	None	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Sony Pictures Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 1.85:1 Edition Details: • None DVD Release Date: May 1st, 2012 Keep Case Chapters 10	Release Information: Studio: Kit Parker Films 1.85:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 48,587,202,604 bytes Feature: 17,087,987,712 bytes Video Bitrate: 21.99 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • Shares disc with The Tijuana Story and The Case Against Brooklyn Blu-ray Release Date: September 17th, 2019 Standard Blu-ray Case Chapters 17

Comments:

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

ADDITION: Kit Parker Films Blu-ray (September 2019): Kit Parker Films in association with Millcreek Entertainment have released the last (of three) of these 3 Blu-ray / 9 Film Noir features Boxsets. Volume Three has:

The Crimson Kimono (1959), The Lineup (1958), Man on a String (1960), The Shadow in the Window (1956), The Long Haul (1957), Pickup Alley (1957), The Case Against Brooklyn (1958), The Tijuana Story (1957) and She Played with Fire (1957)

Volume One was described as "Stalwart noir directors and casts highlight these hard to find features Address Unknown (1944) dir/William Cameron Menzies, cast/Paul Lukas, Carl Esmond, Peter Van Eyck; Escape in the Fog (1945) dir/Oscar (Budd) Boetticher cast/Otto Kruger, Nina Foch, William Wright; The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947) dir/Henry Levin cast/Rosalind Russell, Melvyn Douglas, Sid Caesar; The Black Book (aka The Reign of Terror) (1949) dir/Anthony Mann cast/Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, Arlene Dahl; Johnny Allegro (1949) dir/Ted Tetzlaff cast/George Raft, Nina Foch, George Macready; 711 Ocean Drive (1950) dir/Joseph M. Newman cast/Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger; The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) dir/Earl McEvoy cast/Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop; Assignment Paris (1952) dir/Earl McEvoy cast/Dana Andrews, Marta Toren, George Sanders; The Miami Story (1954) dir/Fred F. Sears cast/Barry Sullivan, Luther Adler, John Baer - all in high definition presented in their original aspect ratios."

Volume Two has:

Bait (1954), The Crooked Web (1955), The Night Holds Terror (1955), Footsteps in the Fog (1955), Cell 2455, Death Row (1955), 5 Against the House (1955), New Orleans Uncensored (1955), Spin a Dark Web (1955), and Rumble on the Docks (1956)

Again, 3 films per dual-layered Blu-ray, and She Played with Fire has a supportive bitrate in 1080P and this is in the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. This is one of the more notable upgrades to HD. Contrast markedly improves as does detail and depth - it exports some fine, pleasing, grain.

The audio is 24-bit lossless (DTS-HD Master 1.0 channel mono) is unremarkable not being demonstratively robust but does a fine job with the score by William Alwyn (The Running Man, So Evil My Love, Burn, Witch Burn, Odd Man Out, On Approval, A Night to Remember and The Fallen Idol) sounds more effective in the lossless. The Blu-ray offers optional English subtitles (see sample) on this Region FREE Blu-ray package.

No supplements - but the disc is shared with The Tijuana Story and The Case Against Brooklyn. She Played with Fire is an excellent crime-drama dealing with forgeries, arson, blackmail and murder. It skirts the edges of the Noir cycle. The negative on these Noir Archive sets are the lack of extras but the value with these packages is that each has 9, 50's crime, films. She Played with Fire was another highly enjoyable viewing in 1080P.

Gary Tooze

Columbia Pictures made some fine thrillers in United Kingdom in the 1950's with Hollywood stars at the helm - Faith Domergue in Spin a Dark Web, Victor Mature in The Long Haul and, here, Arlene Dahl in She Played with Fire, known in UK as Fortune Is a Woman. Ms Dahl is very good in her usual "is she or isn't she a femme fatale" mode. One wishes her previous year's Wicked as They Come gets released by Sony very soon.

For the record, Sony Pictures has the best image quality among the MOD releases and always in the right aspect ratio. There is no damage on the print and the contrast is excellent and the grain is in check. The mono sound is, likewise, very good quality. Per usual standards for made-on-demand releases, there are no subtitles or captions and for this release there are no extras. Still, an excellent job and we can only recommend this release.

- Gregory Meshman