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

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (May 2021): Kino have transferred Robert Day's The Green Man to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "4K Restoration from the Original Camera Negative". It looks marvelous in 1080P. I haven't seen the Studio Canal Blu-ray from last year but this must surely be its equal if not advancing upon it in terms of image quality. It is on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate. Contrast is wonderful, exporting tight visuals with grain texture support, no damage or any marks and plenty of depth. It looked fabulous on my system - like new.

NOTE: We have added 62 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 (16-bit) in the original English language. It exports a flat soundstage with the exploding bobs having very little depth. The score is by Cedric Thorpe Davie keeping a bubbly, subtle, tone. There is other music in The Green Man; from the Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Mikado', Brahms Hungarian Dance for Orchestra no. 5 in G minor and Mozart's Divertimento No. 17 in D major. It sounds as clean and consistent as the video. Kino offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Kino Blu-ray offers a new commentary by David Del Valle. He is excellent discussing Alastair Sim as the potential director, Basil Dearden's involvement, it being a low budget film, plenty of time extolling Sim as as generous actors, his uncomfortable fame, scenes that are ad-libbed, much on George Cole (although with Sim in A Christmas Carol), Terry-Thomas (his tooth gap and aristocrat demeanor) and Jill Adams ('British Marilyn Monroe') and other performers. His commentary reminded of Dr. Rudy Belmer's filling the space with lesser-known details of the cast and crew. I really enjoyed it and he did, indeed, advance my appreciation of The Green Man. There are also some similar genre trailers but none for this film.   

The Green Man is one of those British 50's black comedies that I hadn't really been exposed to very often - unlike the Ealing Studio variety with Alec Guinness (The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit, The Lavender Hill Mob.) It may not be at their iconic level but it deserve to be in the same conversation. There are themes of marital infidelity, deception, murder, mistaken identity and a sly budding romance. I really enjoyed the Kino Blu-ray and the Del Valle commentary. Strongly recommended!

Gary Tooze