iTunes HD Review
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A review of the 1958 classic camp comedy Auntie Mame, which isn't available on Blu-ray, so I look at the HD iTunes version.
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Not on Blu-ray
Auntie Mame is a 1958 classic camp-comedy staring Rosalind Russel. It has yet to be released on Blu-Ray, so I thought I’d give the iTunes HD version a look.

Not well known outside the US, I came across it when I heard an interview with Elizabeth Banks, who described her portrayal of ‘Effie Trinket‘ in the Hunger Games films as being heavily influenced by the Rosalind Russel version of Auntie Mame.

The film itself is probably love it or hate it. I hadn’t seen it before doing this review, and a few of the one liners made me laugh out loud, but the plot is a bit slow, and episodic, but I can see how it could be charming to the right audience. Certainly Rosalind Russel’s performance goes up to eleven.

The film was a commercial success, becoming the highest grossing film of 1959 (since it was released late in 1958), with a gross of 23 million dollars on a budget of approximately 2.25 million. It also gathered a half-dozen Oscar nominations, but lost out, primarily to Gigi.

Auntie Mame iTunes 1080p Download

The 1080p version of Auntie Mame on iTunes clocks in at around 5.1 GB, with an average bitrate of 4.9 Mbps, with a peak bitrate 11.6 Mbps. A stereo AAC audio track is provided carrying the monophonic soundtrack. Total runtime is two hours, twenty three minutes and twenty nine seconds and the aspect ratio is approximately 2.35:1.

Presentation quality is fair with an appropriately period color scheme and grain present. Despite the respectable bit rate, and the slightly reduced pixel-count of Cinemascope it sometimes looks a little artifact-y during pans. This may be due to a combination of the pastel production design, with huge expanses of careful color gradients and the faint patina of grain in the source material overloading the available bit-rate.

At this point I have to say that I think a Blu-ray from the same mater would look noticeably better from typical viewing distances. But the iTunes version is definitely a lot sharper than the DVD version, and the textures of the over-the-top interior decorations are palpable in the iTunes version.

Also worth mentioning is that there is some print damage that could have been touched up relatively easily. Interestingly the same glitches are not present in my NTSC DVD copy, suggesting that the iTunes version is from a different master. However colors between the two are very close. Perhaps the SD master was cleaned up but the HD one wasn’t ?

Conclusion

Four out of Five. The iTunes version of Auntie Mame represents a definite upgrade over the DVD version, however: the eventual Blu-ray is likely to look better. Given there is no Blu-ray release scheduled yet – if you want to enjoy this campy classic, I’d strongly recommend giving the iTunes version a spin.

iTunes 1080p Screenshots