Tonight's Movie: Bluebeard (1944) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

The atmospheric period crime film BLUEBEARD (1944) has just been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber.

It's an 80th anniversary special edition in a cardboard slipcase.

BLUEBEARD is a briskly told tragedy running just 72 minutes. It's the story of Gaston Morel (John Carradine), a Parisian painter and puppeteer who can't seem to stop himself from strangling the women he paints.

Enter pretty dressmaker Lucille Lutien (Jean Parker, LITTLE WOMEN), whom Morel engages to make new costumes for his puppets. Morel is quite taken with Lucille and resolves never to paint again.

Lucille's sister Francine (Teala Loring) returns to Paris at the request of Police Inspector Jacques Lefevre (Nils Asther) to help him solve the murders...and things get complicated, to say the least.

It's not a particularly exciting thriller, with the murderer known at the outset; the suspense lies in how or whether he'll be caught, and who might be killed in the meantime.

While it's only a so-so film, I do appreciate the movie's nice sense of atmosphere, despite its very cheap sets, and I think the cast does a good job with the material. 

Carradine's torment is effective in making him somewhat sympathetic despite his murderous history, and I always enjoy seeing Parker. The movie is worth a look, though perhaps it helps a bit if the viewer isn't expecting too much and can appreciate what was accomplished despite a low budget.

I first saw BLUEBEARD at UCLA a decade ago, introduced by director Edgar G. Ulmer's daughter, Arianne Ulmer Cipes.

Among other things, Cipes described being the flower girl when Carradine married his costar Sonia Sorel, who plays one of Morel's victims, Renee. Sorel became the mother of actors Keith and Robert Carradine.

BLUEBEARD was long in the public domain and only available on TV in poor quality prints, but what we watched at UCLA was a film print which had been found in Paris. Other than the opening credits and the "end" card being in French, the print was in English. I don't particularly remember the quality, but I believe it was likely better than this Blu-ray print.

The Blu-ray is from a 2020 HD master from a 4K scan, but the print shows its history as a public domain film from the Poverty Row studio Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). There are numerous flaws, beginning with the opening credits, although there are not any skips interfering with dialogue; the issues are mostly scratches, specks, and lines.

The dialogue is also softer than the norm for a Kino Lorber print. This is a case where even those who aren't hard of hearing might want to turn on the captions to better understand the actors.

Having observed the typical high quality of Kino Lorber's prints over the years, with rare exceptions, I have to assume that this was "as good as it gets" as far as what is available to work with for home viewing. On that basis I certainly appreciate it being made available in the best condition possible, and the issues didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the movie.

BLUEBEARD was filmed by Jockey A. Feindel and uncredited Eugen Schufftan. It was scripted by Arnold Phillips and Werner H. Furst from a story by Pierre Gendron.

Extras consist of two separate commentary tracks, one by David Del Valle and the other by Gregory W. Mank teamed with Tom Weaver. The disc also includes a trailer gallery for eight additional films available from Kino Lorber.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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