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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Mystery > Conspiracy > Religion > Murder > Thriller > WWII > Spy > Comedy > Large Frame Format > Heist > Conclave (2024/Focus/Universal Blu-ray)/Conflict (1945*)/Journey Into Fear (1943/RKO/*both Warner Archive Blu-rays)/North By Northwest 4K (1959/MGM/Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)/Nine Queens (200

Conclave (2024/Focus/Universal Blu-ray)/Conflict (1945*)/Journey Into Fear (1943/RKO/*both Warner Archive Blu-rays)/North By Northwest 4K (1959/MGM/Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)/Nine Queens (2000/Sony Blu-ray)



4K Ultra HD Picture: B+* Picture: B-/B/B/X/B Sound: B/B-/B-/B/B- Extras: C/C+/B-/B/C- Films: C/B-/B-/B+/B-



PLEASE NOTE: The Conflict and Journey Into Fear Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.



Now for a group of smart thrillers, including a few classic and a new entry...



Edward Berger's Conclave (2024) is a thriller set at The Vatican during the time that the Church has to select a new Pope. Ralph Fiennes is the cardinal chosen to head up the process, but suddenly, strange things start to happen that smack of criminality, conspiracy and a rot within the hallowed halls of the very religion he also placed his faith in that he will be challenged like never before to see this through.


Unfortunately, we get to suffer more of his pain than expected because this thing runs about three hours, is not that good, is everything we have seen before (think the subplot of Godfather III) and I barely bought any of it, even while struggling to stay awake through it. Even without the many real life scandals the Church has had, just dealing with the content within this film, this is dull quickly if it was a different religion or something fictitious. Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow are part of the supporting cast, but even they cannot save this from collapsing on itself. For the very, very curious only.


Extras include Digital Movie Code, while the disc adds...

  • SEQUESTERED: INSIDE CONCLAVE: Enter the mysterious world of CONCLAVE with the cast and filmmakers for a behind-the-scenes look at what it took to raise the curtain on one of the most secretive and secluded processes in the world.

  • and FEATURE COMMENTARY WITH DIRECTOR EDWARD BERGER: Commentary with director Edward Berger.



The next two thrillers are underrated gems that have been out of circulation for way too long and it is great that Warner Archive has saved, restored and reissued them. Curtis Bernhardt's Conflict (1945) gives us a married Humphrey Bogart, sick of his wife after five years and more interested in her younger sister, he kills his wife!


But despite being thorough in how he kills her, making her drive to their remote second home and giving her directions that sets a trap for which she will drive accidentally to her death, he is suddenly not certain she is dead. Is she actually taunting him because she survived and is keeping it a secret to get back at him? Is he just imagining some things and taking a few coincidences too seriously? Is she a ghost back from the dead, out to kill him and send him to hell?


Alexis Smith and Rose Hobart are the sisters, Sydney Greenstreet, usually a villain, but later brilliant as radio's Nero Wolfe, is the investigator looking into what exactly happened and the rest of the solid cast includes Charles Drake, Grant Mitchell, Ann Shoemaker, Pat(rick) O'Moore and Ed(win) Stanley are the kinds of actors you would see in these films all the time and though they were not hugely successful, were always consistently good and made good films even better.


Bogart did not want to do the film until Jack Warner pushed him into it, but when all is said and done, it is one of Bogart's most underrated gems and all involved are in great form. That is why all serious film fans, especially of mystery and suspense, will want to catch Conflict or catch it again. Now fully restored, it is a good time at the movie.


Extras include two 1945 Warner live action shorts: Peeks At Hollywood and Are Animals Actors?, 9/11/45 audio radio drama version of the film with Bogart, two 1945 Warner animated cartoon classic shorts: Life With Feathers and Trap Happy Porky (all four shorts are in HD) and an Original Theatrical Trailer.



Norman Foster's Journey Into Fear (1943) is the other gem with the Mercury Theater back in action with this international thriller as Joseph Cotten plays an engineer helping the Allies during WWII and pursued by the Axis, Nazis and Gestapo thinking if they get him or simply kill him, it will set back the Allies' war efforts on a technical level. In Turkey, he has apparently been identified, so he has to flee, but instead of taking a train or airplane, the head of the Turkish Secret Police (Orson Welles) has him take a passenger ship to be safer.


Unfortunately, the killers are still onto him. From there, the screenplay (which Cotten co-wrote from the Eric Ambler novel) gets more and more suspenseful, concluding in a really memorable and clever climax that I always liked and was thrilled held up as well as it did. This version is the one closest to what the filmmakers originally intended.


Also making this work so well is the great cast that includes Agnes Moorehead, Dolores Del Rio, Ruth Warrick, Everett Sloane, Frank Readick, Richard Bennett, Hans Conreid, Jack Durant, Eustace Wyatt and others who keep things interesting. Great work and my only complaint is that I wish it were longer!


Extras include three excellent, classic Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio drama versions of three classics: Dracula (7/11/1938,) Treasure Island (7/18/1938) and A Tale Of Two Cities (7/25/1938) and all are considered masterworks of the medium and hold up incredibly well. Smart, great move to include them here with lossless DTS-MA 2.0 Mono sound!



Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest 4K (1959) is the latest gem from the Master of Suspense to get the Ultra High Definition treatment and for the most part, it is another remarkable restoration. Here's what I had to say about this masterwork when I covered the previous Blu-ray edition at this link:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9171/North+By+Northwest+-+50th+Anniver


So having said what I said about the film then, I wanted to add a few things 15 years after that last release. We have seen few thrillers or chase films that are either this classy, smart or funny since the last time I reviewed it. When Hitchcock and his team made it, they were working on a higher level than most have in the genres covered. It has little touches most still miss but at least perceive and with a finesse and class we rarely see in any kind of film anymore.


Recently, I heard (unconfirmed) that a major filmmaker I really like was not a fan of the film, implying it was average-ish and somehow oppressed and compromised by the 1950s confining filmmaking style. Instead, I would argue that the film is excellent as a straight out thriller, but especially since Hitchcock knew he had done some of this before, he wanted and needed to add a layer or two of more goods to go with what already worked. James Stewart was originally going to be the lead, but their falling out over Vertigo killed that, leaving Cary Grant one of the only other living actors of the time who could have taken over and boy, did he!


Grant once again shows off his brilliant comedic skills (Bringing Up Baby) with his romantic panache (Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief, also just issued in a 4K restoration) with his thriller and action star capacities he already showed off in two other Hitchcock classics: Suspicion and Notorious. Ernest Lehman's screenplay is very well-rounded and from the opening with Saul Bass' brilliant opening credits, the film is off and running and never stops until its amazing conclusion. That is a lot for anyone to juggle, but Hitchcock is one of the only filmmakers in history who could have pulled it off and make it work on all levels and more than ever, North By Northwest does. Now, one of the most imitated, referenced and enduring of all such thrillers, its great it has received a new all-out restoration that is pretty good for the most part, but more on that below.


Extras include Digital Movie Code, while the disc adds an archival feature length audio commentary track with screenwriter Ernest Lehman

  • North By Northwest: Cinematography, Score & The Art Of The Edit featurette (23 minutes; BRAND NEW!)

  • Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North By Northwest archival making of (39 minutes)

  • The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style featurette (57 minutes)

  • North By Northwest: One For The Ages archival featurette with William Friedkin, Guillermo Del Toro and more (25 minutes)

  • and A Guided Tour with Alfred Hitchcock look at the film's locations (3 minutes).


An extra or two from past versions of the film are not here, which has made some fans unhappy, but that's most of them to date and I cannot strongly enough recommend this classic!



Fabian Bielinsky's Nine Queens (2000, from Argentina) is our final release to look at, a now sort of old-fashioned heist thriller from the late analog era where the valuable item everyone is going for is a sheet of very valuable postage stamps, the title object. Two lowbrow con artists (Ricardo Darin, Gaston Pauls) meet in the middle of separate cons that force them to cross paths and they barely escape from either begin caught and arrested or maybe killed. Soon, an older conman wants them to help him with a special sale.


He asks them to handle the title sheet of mint-condition stamps, but the ones they are handling are actually forgeries, yet they are so good, some equally corrupt entities would also love to get their hands on them, so madness ensues and that includes a few fight and action sequences. A quarter-century later, stamps do not have the buzz value they used to, yet there are many worth serious money, even after the big crash way back in 1980 that ruined the market for decades afterwards.


Cheers also to the cast, directing style, energy, look, pace and locations we do not see enough of. I can see why people still talk about the film and though there might be a few minor moments where it is off or a little predictable, it is well done and all serious fans of the genres the film represents will definitely want to give it a good look.


The only extra is the Original Theatrical Trailer.



Now for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on North By Northwest 4K is from a new 13K scan (both halves of the VistaVision frame scanned at 6.5K) and in most cases, it is superior to all previous transfers *save a few items to note. One, the green-backgrounded MGM logo should be a little more emerald green. Two, the phone in the lobby of the hotel should be a little more gold like a real gold bar. Three, the scene in the woods with the nearly-straight, bare tress is a little off, likely an issue with the negative that was too late to fix, but they have done their best to fix it.


Then there is four, an early key scene with a flaw no one has caught yet. The villains get Thornhill (Grant) very drunk, putting him into a fancy Mercedes-Benz convertible and sitting him in the driver's seat, sending him off to his death over the rocky hillside into the waters below. Before another twist, we are supposed to see the danger he is in with an almost Vertigo-like shot where we can see the depth (Thornhill's point of view, very clear to the audience) to spell out the trouble ahead. The rest of the sequence looks fine, but that first shot is ruined and it ruins the impact and what Hitchcock intended. You can see it on all past video versions. Otherwise, this looks as good as a fresh, dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor print and impresses throughout otherwise. Just wish this were also in Dolby Vision, but maybe next time.


The sound is here in a new, lossless Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems) that is the best the film ever has or will sound with all the elements at their best including Bernard Hermann's brilliant music score, plus a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix from the original theatrical monophonic elements (the film was never issued in Perspecta Sound apparently like several of Hitchcock's films and some other non-Paramount VistaVision releases) that fans and purists will be very happy with. I preferred the Atmos, which just opens everything up and matches the larger-than-life visuals and Hitchcock style. Many will watch the film twice, one with each soundtrack, but its all well done.


The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Conclave has a slight softness that is more because of the transfer than the style the makers visually chose for the film, though consistent. Maybe a 4K version would clear this up, while the lossless Dolby TrueHD 7.1 fares better and has a consistent soundfield. That is not bad considering this is often a quiet, dialogue-based film. The combination is passable, but nothing unforgettable either.


The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfers on Conflict and Journey Into Fear can show the age of the materials used in minor places, but these transfers are far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film and come from solid new scans of the original camera materials. They both look great and have their own great visual styles that just make them better. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes on both films are as good as they will ever sound, from the surviving optical theatrical monophonic sound elements for the films and continues the winning streak of Warner Archive's great restoration and preservation work.


The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Nine Queens may have some small flaws in brief spats, but this looks good down to some really good color, while the Spanish DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.0 lossless mix shows its sonic limits, as well as limits of the budget and technology used here. Remastered as well as possible for this release, this is as good as this film will ever sound and the combination we get here is fine.



To order the Conflict and/or Journey Into Fear Warner Archive Blu-rays, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:


https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20



- Nicholas Sheffo


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