Fox Home Video’s forthcoming Bluray of Sidney Lumet‘s The Verdict (May 7th) is way overdue. A near-classic. Great perfs from Newman, Mason, Warden, Rampling. But the greatest value is Andrzej Bartkowiak‘s cinematography. Those inky blacks, streams of sunlight, gentle ambers, bluish morning grays. A little prettier than The Friends of Eddie Coyle, but Boston through and through.

“So Pat says, he says, ‘They got this new bar…and you go inside and for half a buck you get a beer, a free lunch and they take you in the back room and they get you laid’ Mike says, ‘Now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Do you mean to say there’s a new bar and you go inside and for a half a buck they give you a beer, a free lunch and they take you in the back room and they get you laid?’ Pat says, ‘That’s right.’ ‘Have you ever been in the bar?’ And Pat says, ‘No, but me sister has.'”