No one is a more devout fan of Jules Dassin‘s Rififi than myself, but I’m always a tiny bit concerned when Criterion delivers a Bluray of a black-and-white classic. How grain-monky will it be? It’s standard policy, of course, for Criterion’s Bluray team to never “bump” anything up — they always deliver the film precisely as it looked when projected at a first-rate house on opening day. That worked out fine with their Sweet Smell of Success Bluray, but the Criterion dweebs are notoriously queer for grainstorms. And statements like “brightness and contrast levels appear to have been slightly toned down,” “there are absolutely no traces of problematic degraining corrections” and “compromising sharpening adjustments also have not been applied” (all of which appear in Dr. Svet Atanasov‘s Bluray.com review) scare the living shit out of me. I’m also concerned by his observation that “debris, cuts, scratches, flecks, and stains have been removed as best as possible.” A similar qualifier was used by the Criterion folks to describe their notoriously awful Bluray of Stagecoach. It sounds as if the Rififi Bluray might be sullied with a few scratches, flecks and stains.
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