Il visone sulla pelle

"That Touch of Mink" has its high points as well as its lows. The film's main theme revolves around undulating social morays of a cultural transition which, if one examines history, aren't all that transitional as they would appear to be. Day, Grant, Meadows and Young give some solid performances in an early 60's "sex" comedy. The humor is suggestive rather than explicit, which should create some fun for the more conservative minded. I can't say I laughed a whole lot (if at all), but I did enjoy the film on its own terms.

Regrettably the currant DVD offered by Artisan Entertainment is sub par. "That Touch of Mink" isn't the greatest film ever made, but, like so many other offerings of the period, it is a solid piece of cinema, and deserves a better visual release.

Currently Artisan Home Entertainment bolsters a "Digitally Mastered" disk, but the only mastering that was done was to put the film onto DVD format in the first place, and nothing more. I say nothing more because the film image is absolutely horrible. There's lots of video noise overlaying the film image, and where the film is shown in widescreen format, it's hardly an anamorphic transfer. Instead the consumer is given a low resolution transfer which, were it not for Day, would not be worth watching.

The audio is clear, even though its monaural. A remastered soundtrack really isn't required for a film like this, as there's really nothing more to listen to other than dialog and incidental music. That is there're no explosions, gun shots, rockets, bands or other things demanding a digital 5.1 mastered soundtrack. Still, having said all this, good clean audio should accompany a good clean image.

Too bad this disc is missing both.