Years ago, this movie played on American Movie Classics, where I was able to record a VHS copy and put it away for almost 25 years. While going through a box of VHS tapes in my garage recently, this movie surfaced and I watched it again to see what my reaction would be. This review is for the UCLA Restoration Print, which is what AMC played the day I recorded it. The first half-hour or so seems very fuzzy and occasionally out of focus, and the colors are so glaring that I often felt as though I was viewing a black and white movie that had been colorized(the yellows are especially off-putting). After this period of discomfort, the color seemed to stabilize and I was able to actually get into the plot of the film, which truth be told is pretty predictable once you realize that it basically involves a woman who uses whatever means necessary to advance her station in life. Miriam Hopkins is actually very good in a broad, humorous sort of way, and if you look at this as a star vehicle for her the movie succeeds. I also noticed that close-ups were consistently beautiful, so maybe the inconsistent color issues were related to the difficulty in shooting color scenes in long-shot.
Review of Becky Sharp
