Graduate, The [French Import]

Trivia notes, courtesy of John Eastman in his book "Retakes" (Ballantine Books, New York, 1989): "Producer Lawrence Turman found Robert Redford too self-assured for the role of Benjamin Braddock, so he cast an awkward, nervous unknown. And the role made Dustin Hoffman a star. The bedroom seduction scene between Hoffman and Anne Bancroft proved difficult for both performers. Sensitive to Bancroft's modesty before scenes of undress became relatively common in movies, Nichols cleared the set and erected partition screens for her scantily clad sequences. (Doris Day had turned down the part because it offended her sense of values.) Young people, strongly identifying with the confusion that Hoffman projected, attended the film in droves, making it a blockbuster hit. Nichols won an Academy Award for Best Director, but his cynical final assessment also proved an accurate forecast of the yuppie Eighties: 'I think Benjamin will end up like his parents.'"

Video:
Studio Canal present the picture in a ratio that measures about 2.20:1 across my screen, very close to its 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio. The 1080 resolution is probably as sharp and clear as the original print, which was perhaps not all that sharp and clear to begin with but pretty good in any case. Where the HD DVD shines is in the presentation of its colors, which are quite realistic. On MGM's standard-definition disc, the colors often looked too dark, especially the skin tones. On the HD DVD, faces look vibrant and alive. What's more, even though the HD DVD delineation is not quite in the loftiest class, it is a distinct improvement over the sometimes fuzzy SD rendering, which has a touch of bleed-through in it. Most important, though, I noticed very little noise or grain on the HD DVD, except at the very beginning of the movie during the opening titles, making the high-def rendering a definite pleasure on the eyes.

Audio:
We've heard news recently about some European disc reproduction being sped up in comparison to their American counterparts, the result of some European manufacturers making 24-fps transfers from 25-frame masters. A few listeners have noticed this slight increase in playback speed mostly affecting the sound, especially music, which can appear higher pitched. So, the first thing I did with this French Studio Canal HD DVD, with its abundance of Simon and Garfunkel music, was compare its sound to that of its American MGM SD counterpart, as well as to the Sony compact disc of the singers' greatest hits.

The results were harder to determine than I expected, though, because the Studio Canal engineers recorded the sound on the HD DVD at a higher level than it is on the SD DVD (not so with the CD, however). After noting the volume discrepancy in the two movie discs and making proper adjustments, I found the HD DVD did not display any unusual sped-up qualities. And, in timings, the two discs began each song and ended each song in exactly the same spot; one was not shorter or longer than the other, even by a second. Unfortunately, the CD comparison came a cropper because the filmmakers abbreviated most of the songs and used the music behind other noises, like voices and car engines. As a side note, I have to admit that what I did hear of the music in this comparison sounded considerably better on the CD than on either of the movie discs.

This does not mean, however, that the sonics of the two movie discs were identical. The HD DVD uses a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track and the standard-definition disc uses an ordinary Dolby Digital 2.0 track. The DTS is much clearer, a little brighter, and more robust. Yet this does not mean that the sonics of the HD DVD are top-notch, either. The sound stage is narrow, the tonal balance is bright and forward, the bass is nonexistent, the rear channels get virtually no signal, and there is the tiniest bit of background noise, hardly noticeable.

Extras:
Studio Canal do not offer many--or any--extras on their HD DVDs beyond the basics. Here, we get sets of audio and video calibration tests; on-screen information; twelve scene selections but no chapter insert; a promotional trailer for a number of Studio Canal HD DVD titles; English, French, and German spoken languages; and English, Danish, German, French, Norwegian, Finnish, and various other subtitles.

Parting Thoughts:
Lest I forget, the film is also notable for a couple of peripheral reasons: The songs of Simon and Garfunkel, things like "Mrs. Robinson," "Scarborough Fair," and "The Sounds of Silence"; and Ben's bright-red Alfa Romeo Spider, such an incredible publicity boon for Alfa that the company later renamed one of its models "The Graduate." The film (and to a lesser extent the automobile) remains a classic and deserves its new lease on life via HD DVD.

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