An American in Paris Blu-ray

Warner Bros. | 1951 | 114 mins | Not rated | Mar 31, 2009

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Video Video codec: VC-1 Video resolution: 1080p Aspect ratio: 1.37:1 Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1 Audio English: Dolby Digital Mono French: Dolby Digital Mono Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono German: Dolby Digital Mono... (more) English: Dolby Digital Mono French: Dolby Digital Mono Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono German: Dolby Digital Mono Italian: Dolby Digital Mono (less) Subtitles English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish (less) Disc 50GB Blu-ray Disc

Price List price: $28.99  Amazon: $17.49 (Save 40%) Third party: $14.96 (Save 48%) Usually ships in 24 hours Blu-ray rating Users 4.3 Reviewer 4.0 Overall 4.0 Based on 2 user ratings Playback Region free

An American in Paris

I may not have been smitten with the film itself, but I was quite taken by the results of Warner's extensive, Ultra-Resolution restoration efforts. Presented with a gorgeous, accurately-framed 1080p/VC-1 transfer, An American in Paris joins a handful of other notable Warner classics as one of the best-looking catalog releases on the market. Lush colors, vivid primaries, deep blacks, and revealing delineation give the picture a stable, three-dimensional appearance. Contrast is bright and inviting, noise and artifacting are non-existent, and the film's mild grain field is consistent and unobtrusive. Detail is excellent as well -- edges are well defined (without any significant edge enhancement on hand to detract from the integrity of the original presentation), on-screen text is crisp and clear, and textures are quite refined considering the age of the print. Sure, some soft shots pop up throughout the flick, but each one struck me as the product of the filmstock rather than the technical transfer. Likewise, skin textures are a bit indistinct every now and then, but it appears to be due to overzealous makeup applications rather than the use of digital noise reduction. If I have any complaint, it's that fleshtones sometimes look slightly flushed and oversaturated.

Minor gripes aside, I can't imagine An American in Paris will ever look much better than it does here. Faithfully restored, wonderfully detailed, exquisitely colored, and meticulously presented, Warner has once again proven they have the ability to completely transform withering classics into rejuvenated masterpieces.

An American in Paris Blu-ray, Audio Quality

Similar to Warner's recent release of Quo Vadis, the Blu-ray edition of An American in Paris only includes a standard Dolby Digital presentation of the film's original mono track -- there aren't any lossless, uncompressed, or 5.1 surround remixes to be found. Still, it's not necessarily a bad thing... especially when Warner's restoration process has been applied to the film's audio as well. Even though its single-channel presentation doesn't create any semblance of a soundfield or immersive experience, dialogue is intelligible and well prioritized, bass tones still sound somewhat decent (albeit without the assistance of the LFE channel), and the various musical numbers are deceptively fuller than I expected. Granted, there are leveling inconsistencies and instabilities scattered throughout the track, but I found myself shrugging off such shortcomings the moment I considered the film's age. Ultimately, An American in Paris isn't going to convert anyone with its sonic prowess, but it will please purists looking for an authentic restoration of the film's original audio.

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