Bride of Vengeance

During the Italian Renaissance era of the 16th century, Cesare Borgia (Macdonald Carey) plans to expand his domain by claiming the region of Ferrara as his own. He sends an assassin after Alfonso I d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara (John Lund), who evades demise. The Duke has a feeling that the Borgia is behind it—or, if not directly involved, certainly knows who may be responsible for the political hit job. There, Cesara, known as “The Bull,” offers a peaceful compromise: To simply allow him access through Ferrara, on his way to Venice. The duke remarks that Cesare is sounding an awful lo like Caesar these days, and we all know how that ended.

Cesare, bless his ambitious heart, does not accept defeat. He just recalibrates his scheme. He sees that the duke is infatuated with his sister, Lucrezia Borgia (Paulette Goddard), so he has her husband murdered. He frames the duke for the murder and implores his sister to remarry with the framed man, to get close to him, and seek her vengeance. The problem is that she and the duke begin having feelings for each other, genuine feelings, and it doesn’t take long for her to start to suspect that this is a sneaky cover-up for something else.

Bride of Vengeance sounds awfully dry on paper, but it’s an exciting, witty picture that wisely eschews the kind of self-seriousness that sinks these kinds of stories. It’s a costume drama, but with a then-modern sensibility. The three leads speak and act like an average American in the 1940s, and ditch the quasi-Shakespearean prose you might expect from this genre. It’s also quite funny and quite grisly for its time, with severed limbs spurting blood. In that regard, it almost feels like a precursor to a Coen Brothers movie: A political thriller set in 16th-century Renaissance Italy that’s less interested in the politics of assassination, but more interested in the human relation to it. Bride of Vengeance is tickled by how absurdly funny this business of murder can be, because it’s never a clean job.

While I’m not always keen on updating classical stories or giving them modern sensibilities, it does work for Bride of Vengeance because there’s deliberate intention behind it. It shines a light on how little has changed with human behavior in the hundreds of years that have passed. People are about the same now as they were then, particularly people in positions of power. We can learn from the past, but it feels like destiny that we’re consistently doomed to repeat it.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Bride of Vengeance comes to Blu-ray in a single-disc release, housed in a standard case with a removable slipcover with an opening on its side. The slip and the case contain alternate pieces of poster artwork that date back to the film’s original release, rendered in the classical oil painting style from the era.

For its Blu-ray release, Bride of Vengeance is presented in 1080p, from a 4K scan by Paramount Pictures. It doesn’t appear to be sourced from the film’s original camera negative, as it’s not as sharply detailed as films sourced from the OCN tend to be, with some scratches, dirt, and other debris. Overall, though, the movie looks quite good. Though “not as sharp” as it could be, the detail of the picture is well defined, with a slight layer of film grain throughout the presentation. Black and white contrast during nighttime and other low-light sequences looks terrific.

For listeners, there is only one audio option: LPCM 2.0 mono. The audio mix sounds great. This is a talky picture, propelled through dialogue, so that is given priority. Although there are other effects, like loud musical swells during dramatic scenes and a number of explosions, they’re all integrated and leveled appropriately. This is not a particularly robust sound design, with wall-to-wall ambient effects, but it doesn’t need to be. It knows when to pack a wallop, and it knows when it needs to be subtle.

Bride of Vengeance comes equipped with two supplemental features—but for a relatively obscure film from 1949, I couldn’t ask for much more. We have an audio commentary track, plus a featurette that dives into the career of director Michell Leisen, who began his career in Hollywood through the art and costuming department, before finally directing his own features.

• Audio Commentary - Film historians Daniel Kremer & David Del Valle
• A Flair to Remember - An Appreciation of Mitchell Leisen by Allan Arkush (HD 24:12)
• Trailer

I’m always grateful for the opportunity to see movies like Bride of Vengeance, which almost serve as a small history lesson in the world of cinema. Through its special features, I learned about the life and career of a once-prolific filmmaker and experienced a modern-feeling story about revenge and murder in a costumed drama. Bride of Vengeance isn’t “great” but it’s very good, and through an attractive video presentation, it’s worth seeing. Bride of Vengeance, from Via Vision and Imprint Films, is Recommended.

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