Becky Sharp

I just had the pleasure of seeing the restored version of "Becky Sharp", and, like others who had taped this back in the bad old days of nearly monochromatic, public domain copies of this title, the improvement amounts to seeing an entirely different film. The use of color was striking and surprisingly well considered. As a writer, I found the dialogue delightfully rich in the manner of what were admittedly more sophisticated films of the 30's. Make no mistake, other than the admirable use of 3-strip Technicolor on its first feature film outing, this is no masterpiece--Mamoulian's name in the credits notwithstanding. But compared to today, with dialogue now largely dismissed as unnecessary to filmed "entertainment", it was brilliant. I could finally hear 90% of it, whereas in the old Cinecolor print, most of it was unintelligible. What pains me is that audiences seem unable (or unwilling) to enjoy dialogue that was meant to be listened to and appreciated on its own account. I heard nary a chuckle during any the witty ripostes of which Beck Sharp has its(and her) fair share of. A shame.