Woody Allen has produced many gems over the years, but his style is not universally appreciated. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion retains some of his idiosyncrasies while having a storyline that is likely to appeal to more that just his diehard fans.
He plays C.W.Briggs, an experienced insurance investigator working for a large New York company. He is a bit of a ladies man but does not get at all with Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Hunt) who has been hired by the company to make things run more efficiently, and that includes a review of their investigation division. One night at a birthday party for a work colleague they are both hypnotized on stage by a performer named Voltan and are made to believe they are madly in love with each other. Voltan releases them from their trance and while things appear back to normal he ingrains in them a code word that he can activate at will over the telephone to manipulate them into committing robberies using information stored at the insurance company. Of course then C.W. must solve the crimes the next day.
The movie has a lot of one liners in it and some quite funny dialogue that makes it worthwhile watching if you are in the mood for a clever comedy. |
So how does this DVD Scrub Up?
The anamorphic widescreen transfer is presented with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is quite good with very few problems evident. Images are sharp and clear and there are minimal film or transfer artefacts. The story is set in the 1940s and the colours reflect this era with brown and orange hues in abundance. Shadow detail is spot on and in general both interior and exterior scenes display a good level of clarity.
This is a single layer disk so there is no layer change with which to be concerned.
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Only a Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack is on offer so in general the sound is rather flat. Since the story is dialogue driven the lack of surround sound doesn’t terribly detract from the viewing experience, but certainly the audio provides a less than dynamic experience and for such a recent release is possibly a little disappointing.
There are however no problems with audio synch or dialogue clarity so from that perspective the soundtrack serves its purpose.
The soundtrack is predominantly jazz and big band numbers, again emphasising the era in which the story is set and therefore provides the appropriate atmosphere.
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