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Purple Mask (The)
R2 - United Kingdom - Simply Media Review written by and copyright: Matthew Crossman (12th August 2016). |
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The Film
 Rochet (John Hoyt), Napoleon's Minister of Police, has set a trap for The Purple Mask (Tony Curtis). The Purple Mask is a masked man who goes about saving Royalists and kidnapping Napoleon's Ministers and extorting ransom so that he can help fund the Royalist Movement. Rochet's plan fails and Rochet himself is taken prisoner by The Purple Mask and ransomed back to Napoleon. Napoleon is furious with this turn of events and travels to the South of France to persuade Brisquet (Dan O' Herlihy) to come out of retirement and help hunt down The Purple Mask. Brisquet was exiled from Paris because of his love of duelling but is willing to once again take up the position of hunting down Royalists. At the Maison Majolin, a boutique in Paris, Laurette de Latour (Colleen Miller) is part of an underground network of spies that infiltrate the governing forces and pass on what they find to the under siege Royalists. Laurette discovers from an army official that Napoleon has a plan to publicly execute a high ranking official in the Royalist movement in the hope of flushing The Purple Mask out into the open when he tries to rescue the man. To Laurette this is shocking news as it can only mean that her own Father is to be executed. The Royalists decide that the only way they can prevent the execution of Laurette's Father is if Napoleon believes that The Purple Mask is dead or captured. To this end they employ the services of a flamboyant dandy called Rene de Traviere (Tony Curtis) to attempt a kidnap attempt on high ranking official in Napoleon's office. The Royalists intend to set up Rene by sending a letter to Rochet telling him when and where the kidnap attempt will take place but what the Royalists do not know is that the man they have employed to impersonate The Purple Mask is the real Purple Mask himself. This 1955 film bears more than a strong resemblance to the character of Zorro, a character that has been written about since the early 20th century and has appeared in films throughout most of that decade. Whilst 'The Purple Mask' may well be derivative of the character Zorro it succeeds thanks to a witty script and an outstanding performance from Tony Curtis. Curtis plays the two sides of Rene de Traviere/ The Purple Mask perfectly switching from being a dandy and fop when performing as Rene to then being dashing, thoughtful and caring as The Purple Mask. Perhaps unusually for an adventure film such as this there is not a great deal of action and the script sticks more to the espionage side of things and is quite wordy until the conclusion of the film. Colleen Miller plays the love interest and stands her ground well with Curtis and the rest of the cast are more than capable too. I wish I could comment more on the directorial qualities of the film but as you will see in the video section this DVD presents barely half of the picture available. 'The Purple Mask' is an exciting adventure film with a witty script and is perfect for all the family on a Sunday afternoon but I find it hard to recommend it based on the shoddy presentation available.
Video
'The Purple Mask' was originally released in 1955 in Cinema scope (2.55:1) Simply Media have released it here, like it was released in Spain and France, in 4:3 This is quite unacceptable. I really thought the 'bad old days' of pan and scan had died out when VHS had but unfortunately it's alive and well and sticking up a DVD near you soon. Nearly all of the Director's compositions are compromised. What is left of the picture is overly soft with muted colours and the occasional soft scratch on the print. I know of no other work of art that is treated with this kind of contempt and I find this extremely disappointing especially for such a fun film. Whether it comes down to the choice of a 4:3 DVD or not seeing 'The Purple Mask' at all is a difficult one but no film, especially in this day and age, should be treated in this manner.
Audio
The only soundtrack option is an English Dolby Digital dual mono track. It is perfectly acceptable. As mentioned the film is dialogue heavy and this is clear at all times. I believe the soundtrack provided on this DVD accurately presents the sound as it would have been heard in cinemas at the time of the film's release. There are no subtitles available of any kind on the disc.
Extras
None.
Overall
A fun, witty, exciting film completely spoiled by the shoddy presentation on the disc. Panning and scanning a film of 1.78:1 is bad enough but to release a film as 4:3 when it's original aspect ratio was 2.55:1 is a scandal in my opinion. In all honesty I would rather not see the film's release at all than see it treated in this manner. A real shame.
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