Review: All About Eve Blu-ray

STUDIO: Fox | DIRECTOR: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | CAST: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe
RELEASE DATE: 2/8/2011 | PRICE: Blu-ray $34.99
BONUSES: commentaries, featurettes, vintage promos and newsreel, more
SPECS: NR | 138 min. | Drama | 1.37:1 widescreen | 5.1 DTS Master Audio and mono | English, French and Spanish subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall

Bette Davis and Hugh Marlowe star in All About Eve.

All About Eve, Joseph Mankiewicz’s indispensable 1950 backstage drama starring Bette Davis (Where Love Has Gone) as the regal actress Margot Channing and Anne Baxter (The Ten Commandments) as the titular up-and-comer nipping at her heals, wholly delivers in its Blu-ray debut.

Hollywood journeyman Milton R. Krasner’s gorgeous cinematography sparkles as it never has before in high-definition, calling out the stars’ perfectly coiffed hairstyles and stunning wardrobes in all their glory and revealing never-before-noticed details around the well-detailed apartment and theater sets. The audio tracks, presented in DTS Master Audio, and the original mono, are crisp and unhindered.

As far as bonus materials go, there are only two new bonus features on the disc that have never been released before on Fox’s earlier DVD editions of the film: two promotional shorts in which Davis and Baxter talk to Hollywood biographer/journalist Leonard Slater about their characters in the film, injecting bits of dialog that fans will recognize from the film proper. The pair of shorts are notable pieces worthy of inclusion, of course, though Slater, a fine writer, doesn’t add much life to the proceedings.

The Blu-ray Book packaging, which feature a hardcover shell and 15 pages of photos and essays, are similar to Warner’s branded Blu-ray Digibooks. It makes for a fancy, collectable presentation, but the uncredited essays aren’t all that informative or revelatory. A little more scholarly effort would definitely make the package more appealing to the discerning collector who’s on the fence about updating his classics library.

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