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Arabella
R2 - United Kingdom - Simply Media Review written by and copyright: Matthew Crossman (24th March 2016). |
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The Film
 The film opens in Rome in 1928. Arabella (Virna Lisi) pull up to her Grandmother’s house in her red sports car and is immediately set upon by a tax collector. Arabella pays off the debt before visiting her cash poor Grandmother (Margaret Rutherford). It is now that we discover that Arabella is to be wed in a marriage of convenience. Her fiancé’s family wish him to marry a Princess, which Arabella is, of sorts, whilst Arabella’s Grandmother wants her to marry into a wealthy family for the obvious reasons, especially as the tax collectors seem to appear and re-appear at regular intervals demanding money for unpaid taxes often dating back many years. This is not the only scheme Arabella is planning however as she goes on to start to scam assorted characters such as General Horace Gordon, Duke Pietro Moretti, a hotel manager (she arranges for a public toilet to be placed outside his hotel…Don’t ask) and an insurance manager (all four characters are played by Terry Thomas). Later on the mysterious Giorgio (James Fox) starts to pursue Arabella across the Italian countryside, his motives quite unclear, as sometimes he aides Arabella and at other times he hinders her progress in her scams. If the above synopsis sounds like a bit of a mess then I have represented ‘Arabella’ perfectly. The whole production is a bit of a disaster. So much so it’s difficult to know where to start. The direction by Mauro Bolognini initially (my saying initially will become much clearer in the ‘Video’ section of this review) is a jumbled mess. Bolognini initially started his career in films by studying set design and in Arabella it seems he still hankers for those days. Each set is cluttered with completely unnecessary junk that just draws the eye away from the main action of the film. He also tries far too hard to be clever with his shots, often shooting the actors through windows, or furniture completely taking the viewer out of the film. The script, I am assuming there was one, is based on farce. Or comedy, or romance…It’s difficult to know. In the end it really does not matter as the film fails in every aspect regardless of the direction it takes. One cannot blame the actors though, given what they have to work with. Lisi is a natural beauty and is a great choice for Arabella and she carries the role well with poise and mischief. Terry Thomas does his best in all four roles but he’s quite clearly here for the money. As is James Fox. I cannot imagine that any of the main cast were keen to see Arabella added to their C.V in any great hurry. Even by stetting the film in Rome and Naples the film fails because the Director saw fit not to show any of the beautiful architecture of either city to any great degree. The decision to dub all the dialogue in post production appears to be poor choice too as nearly all the actors have trouble (either that or they just don’t care) in managing to synch the dialogue to the lip movements making watching and listening to the film a rather odd experience. It is, at times, like listening to a completely different soundtrack to a completely different film altogether. The whole production staggers on for 105 interminable minutes before it’s finally put out of it’s misery in a completely unsatisfactory denouement. One to avoid I’m afraid, on almost every single level.
Video
As if the film was not enough of a mess the DVD presentation pretty much matches it. Arabella is presented in 4:3 pan and scan (OAR = 1.85:1) and if that was not bad enough it’s on a print that has seen far better days. Whilst the scratches and damage shown in the opening credits calms down somewhat the rest of the film has a soft image with extremely muted colours that would have been pretty unacceptable even on VHS. I have to be honest and say I do not know what the original aspect ratio was but it certainly was not this. The composition of many shots are compromised but that does not guarantee that it was not the fault of the director in the first place. Simply Media should have rejected this print immediately rather than waste good money putting the film onto the market place in such shoddy condition. Even bad films like Arabella deserve better treatment than this.
Audio
The only soundtrack option is the dual mono one. As mentioned the film was dubbed post production and the sounds like it was dubbed in an aircraft hanger. The additional sounds of footsteps, doors and traffic soon begins to grate on the ears as these seem far too loud and incessant. Apparently Ennio Morricone provided the soundtrack but very little of it is heard until the final thirty minutes or so but when it does appear it sounds rather tinny. Morricone went with a soundtrack of sweeping strings for the film and here they comes across almost as screeching. A real waste of the great man’s talent. There are no subtitles available on this disc.
Extras
None.
Overall
Everything about this DVD is very, very poor. The film is a complete misfire from start to finish. Billed as a comedy/farce it’s biggest crime is that it is not funny in the slightest. Apparently it’s supposed to highlight the cultural differences between the British and the Italians but what comes across is lazy generalisations of both countries. Of course I’m viewing this now over forty years later but I don’t think viewers would have fallen for it in 1967 either. The video and audio presentation on the DVD is one of the worst I have seen since the days of VHS and in this day and age discs like this should not be seeing the light of day. Even up scaling the image through a blu ray player does not help at all. Simply Media have been releasing some genuinely interesting films from the Universal back catalogue recently but Arabella is one, especially in this condition, that probably should have stayed firmly locked away in the vault.
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