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

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (October 2026): Kino have transferred Edward Dmytryk's Bluebeard to 4K UHD and Blu-ray. We reviewed the Umbrella Blu-ray back in 2024, HERE. The new Kino is on a dual-layered disc with a very high bitrate. Both are from StudioCanal’s new master, made from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative. As noted above, we were unable to capture the 4K UHD, so our comparisons use the Region 'A' Blu-ray against Umbrella’s 2024 Region FREE Blu-ray. The Kino Blu-ray is dual-layered, with a slightly higher video bitrate than the already high-bitrate Umbrella. It’s encoded at true 24 fps, so its feature runs a few seconds shorter, but it’s the same complete cut. Framing is identical at 1.85:1, with no extra or missing information on any edge. The differences are mostly in the grading. The new master is consistently a shade brighter, and its color balance shifts subtly: the red damask of the Baron’s bedroom is a deeper crimson rather than the Umbrella’s more orange-red, and the yellow walls are a touch more saturated. Skin tones look marginally lighter, while Burton’s famous blue beard keeps its inky tinge. Grain is present and consistent, with no sign of heavy noise reduction, and at 1080p the new scan’s gain in detail is negligible. The plaid of Burton’s jacket, the hawk’s feathers and Heatherton’s hair resolve much as they did on the Umbrella. In short, it’s a very pleasing HD presentation with bright, vivid period color, but owners of the Umbrella Blu-ray needn’t feel compelled to upgrade for the Blu-ray alone. The 4K UHD, presented in SDR rather than HDR, is where the new negative scan pays off.

While we are in possession of the 4K UHD disc, we cannot resolve the encode yet, and therefore, cannot obtain screen captures. We hope to add to this review at some point in the future. So, the below captures are from Kino's 2026 1080P Blu-ray transfer.

Both discs offer the original English track in DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel at 24-bit, so there’s little to separate them. The track is clean and consistent, and the dialogue, much of it post-synced, as is typical of a European co-production, is always clear, even if the dubbing of some of the international cast occasionally shows. Ennio Morricone’s (Black Belly of the Tarantula, Hitch-Hike, The Key, For a Few Dollars More, A Fistful of Dollars, Violent City, Grand Slam Revolver, The Great Silence, Who Saw Her Die?, The Black Belly of the Tarantula, The Fifth Cord, Luna, Danger Diabolik, Two Mules For Sister Sara, A Bullet for the General, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, The French Conspiracy, U Turn, Stay As You Are, Short Night of Glass Dolls,) score remains the standout. Its waltz-like main theme and plaintive melodies sound full and well separated, lending the film an elegance and melancholy that pull against its sleazier impulses. The violence is mostly suggestive, and the effects are modest but effective, with no hiss or distortion to speak of. The Berger and Thompson commentary is a separate lossy track. Optional English subtitles are included on both discs. Kino’s use a smaller font with a drop shadow, placed lower in the frame than the Umbrella’s larger, bolder text. The Blu-ray disc is Region 'A'-locked.

Kino's 4K UHD is, like all from this format, Region FREE.

Kino include a new audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson, found on both the 4K UHD and the Blu-ray. They discuss the film’s troubled international production under the Salkinds, Dmytryk’s post-blacklist career, Burton’s performance and his place in early-’70s exploitation cinema, and the remarkable array of European actresses cast as his wives. The Blu-ray adds Making a Difference: Jean Porter-Dmytryk on Edward Dmytryk, running over 1/2 hour, in which the actress (Cry Danger, Bathing Beauty, One Million B.C., The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), married to the director for 50 years, traces his life and career as well as her own. The interview was filmed by Eckhart Schmidt in 2003 and produced and edited by Robert Fischer for Fiction Factory in 2023, dedicated to the memory of the couple. Brutality, Burton and Bluebeard is a new interview of over 20 minutes with Anna Bogutskaya, co-founder of The Final Girls and author of Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate, who examines the film’s violence, its treatment of its female characters and Burton’s unusual star turn. There’s also a theatrical trailer of under 2 minutes, plus trailers for other Kino titles, including Raid on Rommel, Play Misty for Me, Fright, Eyes of Laura Mars, Blood and Lace and Dmytryk's own Mirage and The Carpetbaggers. Note that none of the extras on the 2024 Umbrella Blu-ray carry over. That includes the David Del Valle and Daniel Marino commentary, Kim Newman’s Burton & Taylor - Exploitation Stars!, the Richard Burton Exploitation Trailer Reel and the Joey Heatherton Easter egg, so owners of that disc may want to hang on to it.

Bluebeard is a genuine artifact of early-'70s European excess: Edward Dmytryk's (Murder, My Sweet, Crossfire, The Caine Mutiny, Warlock, Mirage) macabre black comedy updates Perrault's wife-killing nobleman to 1930s Austria and turns it into a parade of glamorous stars and inventive deaths. Richard Burton (Becket, The Night of the Iguana, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Where Eagles Dare, Candy, The Medusa Touch, The Wild Geese) plays Baron Kurt von Sepper, the decorated flying ace with the inky blue beard, with heavy-lidded weariness - impotence and a mother fixation curdling into murder - and there's an unexpected melancholy beneath the camp. Joey Heatherton (Where Love Has Gone) is the film's real surprise as Anne, the American showgirl who discovers his frozen former wives in a locked vault, bringing intelligence and nerve to a role that could have been merely decorative. The wives themselves are a who's who of the era: Raquel Welch (One Million Years B.C., Fantastic Voyage, Bedazzled, Hannie Caulder,) as a former nun who can't stop confessing, Virna Lisi (How to Murder Your Wife, Casanova 70,) who can't stop singing, Nathalie Delon (Le Samouraï, When Eight Bells Toll), Marilù Tolo (Marriage Italian Style), Karin Schubert (The Punishment, The Erotic Daughters of Emmanuelle, Three Musketeers of the West, Cold Eyes of Fear,) Agostina Belli (The Night of the Devils, Scream of the Demon Lover) and Sybil Danning (Women in Prison, Julie Darling, Reform School Girls, Eye in the Labyrinth, Crossed Swords, God's Gun, Nightkill, The Salamander, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times,) macabre black comedy updates Perrault's wife-killing nobleman to 1930s Austria and turns it into a parade of glamorous stars and inventive deaths. Kino's package, from StudioCanal's new 4K scan of the camera negative, offers a very pleasing Blu-ray - consistently a shade brighter than the 2024 Umbrella, with deeper crimsons and identical framing - but at 1080P the differences are subtle, and the 4K UHD is where the new scan shines. The 24-bit lossless mono serves Morricone well, and the new extras - a commentary by Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson, Anna Bogutskaya's appreciation and Jean Porter-Dmytryk's affectionate half-hour portrait of her husband - are all worthwhile, though Umbrella owners will want to keep that disc for its own, entirely different, supplements. Heatherton still deserves more credit - and Bluebeard now looks better than ever. Recommended!

***

ADDITION: Umbrella Blu-ray (April 2024): Umbrella have transferred Edward Dmytryk's Bluebeard to Blu-ray. It is on a dual-layered disc with a very high bitrate. It has moments of looking quite good and others that are less remarkable. There is some noisy grain, bright colors, occasional depth - although contrast can waver a bit. Overall the 1080P was pleasing if not stellar. I don't know that this has been on the Blu-ray format ever before.

NOTE: We have added 66 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Umbrella use a DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel track (24-bit) in the original English language. Bluebeard has lesser-seen aggression although post-gore is shown briefly. The murders are fairly passive, outdoor rifle shot, a guillotine, fire etc. but the audio is mostly notable for the score by Ennio Morricone (The Cold Eyes of Fear, Grand Slam, Revolver, The Great Silence, Who Saw Her Die?, The Black Belly of the Tarantula, The Fifth Cord, Luna, Danger Diabolik, Two Mules For Sister Sara, A Bullet for the General, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, The French Conspiracy, U Turn, Stay As You Are etc. etc.) and, uncredited, Maria Pia Fusco (Emmanuelle in America, Tinto Brass' "Salon Kitty") sounding clean with reasonably consistent dialogue in the lossless transfer. Umbrella offer optional English (SDH) subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Umbrella Blu-ray offers a new commentary by film historian David Del Valle (author of Lost Horizons Beneath the Hollywood Sign) and film historian/producer Daniel Marino (son of NFL QB legend.) They describe Bluebeard as a delicious, Gothic, kitsch horror film - unusual for Richard Burton. They discuss the popularity of these genre in the early 70's with comparisons to Grande Guignol, details on producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind, plenty on Burton, Edward Dmytryk, the McCarthy era, the real 'Bluebeard'-based legend and much more. There is an observation that Bluebeard has a nod to The Two Mrs. Carrolls where the murdered wives are painted on canvas by the killer - as well as Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon. It's great commentary filling the time with cast / era tidbits. Marino impresses again and Del Valle has always been a favorite. New is 10-minutes with Kim Newman (author of Classic Monsters Unleashed) giving us a keen overview with "Burton & Taylor - Exploitation Stars!" with the famous couple appearing in a few bizarre, fringe, experimental and genre films. Included is a 20-minute 'Richard Burton Exploitation' trailer reel showing many of those efforts including Candy, The Medusa Touch, Villain, Bluebeard, The Klansman, Exorcist II: The Heretic, and The Wild Geese. There is a "Stills Gallery", TV Spots and a trailer plus an Easter Egg with 8-minutes of rough "Behind the Scenes" video of a Serta Mattress commercial with Joey Heatherton.   

Edward Dmytryk's Bluebeard has Richard Burton and a bevy of beautiful actresses including 70's sex symbols Joey Heatherton + Raquel Welch (One Million Years BC,) Italian beauty Virna Lisi (How to Murder Your Wife), French actress + model Nathalie Delon (5 year wife of Alain Delon), Italian fashion model Marilù Tolo, German Karin Schubert (a pornographic actress in the 1980s), giallo and Spanish-Italian horror film actress Agostina Belli (Scream of the Demon Lover), and, Austrian-born, softcore, genre, 'B'-actress Sybil Danning (The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, Reform School Girls.) There are exploitation aspects - there is a lot of nudity (every gal except Welch and Delon) and a fun mix of sexual deviations (lesbianism, S+M, impotence etc.), black comedy, horror and social commentary. It's a little scattered but a bona-fide 70's artifact. I agree with the commentary that 'bedroom eyes' Joey Heatherton didn't get enough credit for her fine performance in Bluebeard but, unfortunately, this wouldn't be her vehicle to super-stardom. She's still with us at 79-years old. Plenty of titillation and always great to see Burton get intense. I would have been fine with just 'Raquel Welch as a promiscuous Nun'. The Umbrella Blu-ray has it all from the film in 1080P, a commentary, new Kim Newman piece, and an ancient TV-related Easter Egg. Absolutely recommended!

Gary Tooze