Mary Arden is featured in this gorgeously restored frame grab from Arrow’s Blu-ray of Mario Bava’s BLOOD AND BLACK LACE.
is how much blue had been allowed to diminish these areas. The very specific color scheme Bava and his production team achieved by combination of lighting, gels and set design would be seriously compromised if you didn’t allow for the blacks to be as rich as the reds.
“Tim’s contribution was crucial here, he knows more about Bava and what his films should look like than pretty much anyone else walking the planet, so I wanted our presentation of B&BL to have his full approval. He responded to our first grading pass with a comprehensive set of notes and sug- gestions which proved incredibly valuable and ended up improving our grade in many ways.” Inevitably, there’s still been some muttering on-
together. Even if I hadn’t confirmed this with Tim, I
line, with comparison to the German Anolis Blutige Seide DVD revealing slightly more image content on all four sides of the frame, but White is quick to nip those quibbles in the bud.
“The German transfer is actually incorrect as it clearly shows more image area than Bava intended and results in an overall unbalanced composition,” he explains. ”Basically, the German disc included the entire film image, including the bits you’re not supposed to see. With regards to the 1.66:1 fram-
ing, I relied on Tim’s technical listing in [MARIO BAVA] ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK for this. We also discussed it when we worked on the grade
6
would certainly have expected BLOOD AND BLACK LACE to be framed at 1.66:1, given its production date and its pan-European production origins. Like many films of the period, however, it’s quite likely that prints may have been projected with both 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 mattes, depending on where they were being shown. But even a correct and balanced 1.85:1 framing would not include the dead space seen in the German DVD. 1.66:1 represents the original and correct framing for this title. Sure, we could have included the entire negative image with no framing/masking at all, but that wouldn’t be his- torically accurate, nor fair to Bava, who clearly de- signed each elegant composition with such skill and craftsmanship.”
BLOOD AND BLACK LACE was intended to be Arrow’s second US/UK release and was encoded as a Region A/Region B disc. Though US release rights have evidently been challenged and thus post- poned, the disc’s standard and deluxe SteelBook editions are obtainable from UK outlets including
Amazon.co.uk at very reasonable prices. Now available on both sides of the Atlantic: Arrow’s fully restored Blu-ray of Walerian Borowczyk’s oft-
censored THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MISS OSBOURNE (1981) with Udo Kier, Howard Vernon and Patrick Magee.
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