March's Blu-ray recommendation is an upcoming release, presently exclusive to Australia and New Zealand: Anatole Litvak's pulse pounding Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), reviewed without spoilers here:
"readers unfamiliar with this film may be surprised to learn that Sorry, Wrong Number was adapted from an immensely popular 30 minute radio play — at the time made famous by actress Agnes Moorhead, playing an invalid who becomes increasingly distressed after hearing of a murder plot due to mistakenly crossed telephone lines. This audio-only version is basically a “one person” drama: effectively suspenseful as it builds to a shocking and most terrifying conclusion. Thankfully, Lucille Fletcher adapted her own play"
Surely worth adding that Fletcher was Bernard Herrmann's first wife and the mother of Dorothy Herrmann. I don't think that Herrmann wrote music for this particular play. What is less well known is that Jerome Moross wrote a one-act opera on the same story. I saw it staged in New York years ago. The music is in his familiar style. It was Moross's last work. Of course he had been a friend of Herrmann's from their early days.
Some interesting Blu-rays coming out of Australia lately, Sorry, Wrong Number & War Of The Worlds & I Married A Monster From Outer Space, & I received the remake of The Haunting (1999) yesterday (not released on Blu-ray anywhere else), & I understand that the label Imprint are also working on a release of When Worlds Collide (1951).
I'd love to see a Blu ray of Pal's War of the Worlds. How does anyone on here feel about the painting out of the wires on that film? It's a hotly discussed topic with fans. Personally I'm firmly in the camp of painting them out, as I agree that George Pal and others who made the film would wish this to happen.
For those in the other camp it's easy. Stick both an original and an 'improved' version for both audiences. Ray Harryhausen actually helped colourise most his b&w films for dvd release. The decision to make them in monochrome, was the same as using wires for the Martian war machines. Necessity not design.
