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Released by: Kino Studio Classics
Released on: July 26th, 2016.
Director: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, Gig Young, Jean-Pierre Aumont
Year: 1962
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The Movie:
Directed by Anatole Litvak in 1962, Five Miles To Midnight was one of the seemingly countless suspense thrillers that were being cranked out in the early sixties. It's a better than average film made more interesting than it should be thanks to the pairing of Sophia Loren and Anthony Perkins.
Loren plays Lisa Macklin, an Italian woman married to an American man named Robert (Perkins). They get into a fight in a night club in Paris one night, and then next morning he leaves her to go off on a business trip. She tells him it's done, she doesn't want anything to do with him anymore, but shortly after that, while out with a newspaper reporter friend named Alan Stewart (Jean-Pierre Aumont), she learns that the plane he was travelling on has crashed.
After Robert's funeral, Lisa wakes up to see her husband, presumed dead, alive and well in their apartment. He got lucky, when the plane crashed, he was thrown from the wreckage and survived. He now plans to make a grab for a hefty insurance claim that he conveniently managed to take out on himself, just before his flight. The plan is that she'll collect it as the grieving widow and hand it over to him. She's okay with this, as she figures once he has the money he'll leave her for good. Meanwhile, she falls for a man named David Barnes (Gig Young), who knows more than he lets on to.
Five Miles To Midnight looks great, shot in high contrast black and white. It's a slick looking picture with some excellent location photography, plenty of shadowy interiors and a really nice look to it. It's also fairly predictable, though still fairly entertaining thanks to the casting. Sophia Loren is absolutely gorgeous here, she's got plenty of screen presence and style to spare. If the movie were nothing more than watching her strut about various interesting locations, it would still be worth watching as she really is stunning. The rest of the cast are interesting too, however. Gig Young is quite good as the new man in her life. He catches on that something is up faster than she expects, but it makes sense given that he's clearly paying attention to things. Jean-Pierre Aumont as the newspaper reporter is also fine. As to Perkins? Even only a few short years after Psycho was made he was already getting typecast as the 'weird guy' in various movies, this being one of them. A lot of the quirks that made Norman Bates as interesting to watch as he was in Hitchcock's classic are recycled here, the nervousness and eccentric mannerisms and the like. That said, he's good in the part and a lot of fun to watch.
Ultimately this is a decent watch, if not a lost classic. It's well made, reasonably suspenseful and features a good case - but most viewers won't have too much trouble figuring out where it's all headed, or even how it's going to get there.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Five Miles To Midnight arrives on a 25GB Blu-ray disc in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition picture framed at 1.66.1 and it looks good (“newly remastered in HD!â€), with proper framing. There's a bit of minor print damage here and there but it's mostly relegated to small white specks, for the most part the image is quite clean. Compression artifacts are never a problem though and shadow detail is quite good. The image appears to be free of any heavy noise reduction or edge enhancement but there are moments where contrast blooms just a tiny bit. The good most certainly outweighs the bad, however, and this is, overall, a very nice transfer.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language DTS-HD Mono track, there are no alternate language tracks or subtitles provided. The clarity is generally fine, though there are bits that sound a little flat, which likely stems back to the source. There are no issues with any hiss or distortion and while this track won't set the world on fire, it sounds just fine.
Extras are slim but there is an alternate scene taken from the French cut of the film, a trailer for the feature, trailers for a few other related titles, static menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Kino's Blu-ray release of Five Miles To Midnight looks and sounds very nice, even if it is a bit lit on extras. The movie itself is worth seeing for Loren alone, although the rest of the cast are quite good too. It's a slick, if fairly predictable, thriller that is a bit light on substance, even if it is loaded with style.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
