Review: Bluebeard 4K UHD
It’s quite ironic that this morning I heard Mark Kermode’s review of Tom Cruise’s new film Digger. He didn’t like it, because it’s a bit frantic and weird. Hmm, I thought, a bit like last night’s film Bluebeard.
Richard Burton plays Baron Kurt Von Sepper is an Austrian flying hero who suffered a chemical accident that has scarred his chin and caused his beard to turn blue. He’s big in the Not-the-Nazi party, and has a penchant for nubile young wives.
He meets American singer Ann, woos her, then marries her. But he avoids sex with with her, getting her drunk or purposely scaring her to avoid making love to her, and when he leaves the castle they live in he leaves on business, giving her the keys to the castle and telling her not to use the gold one….so of course she does!
This has every beautiful actress of the early 70s in it (Joey Heatherton (Anne), Raquel Welch (The Nun), Nathalie Delon (Erika), Karin Schubert (Greta), Virna Lisi (The Singer), Agostina Belli (Caroline), Marilu’ Tolo (Brigitt), Sybil Danning (The Prostitute), Edward Meeks (Sergio), and Doka Bukova (Rosa). Top that with Burton and you have… a very weird film. It’s not boring; it’s just….very 1972. All those wives, but no questions about why they’re dead.
It also has a warning at the beginning about ‘historical attitudes’—mainly the abuse of women — but fails to mention all the real animals that are slaughtered on camera. I haven’t seen a film this bad for animal abuse since Wake in Fright, and it genuinely turned my stomach.
I think this one is for collectors only…or those who love really weird movies.
This worldwide 4K debut features a 4K restoration from the original camera negative with a Dolby Vision/HDR presentation of the film and optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature, along with special features, plus a 12-page booklet with a new essay by Peter Raleigh.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- NEW Interview with Anna Bogutskaya, co-founder of The Final Girls podcast
- NEW Audio Commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson
- Making a Difference: Jean Porter-Dmytryk on Edward Dmytryk
The 4K UHD and Blu-ray both include a 12 page booklet with new essay from Peter Raleigh
Review by Tina from a disc kindly supplied by Studiocanal via Fetch Publicity.
