Smile Before Death appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The movie came with an erratic presentation.
Overall sharpness appeared positive. At times, the image could be a little on the soft side, but it usually boasted fairly appealing delineation and clarity.
I saw no issues with jagged edges or shimmering, and edge haloes remained absent. Grain seemed natural.
Print flaws turned into the main concern here, as more than a few examples of nicks, marks, lines and specks cropped up during the film. Though never heavy, they created distractions.
With its fairly low-key palette, the colors of Smile didn’t leap off the screen, but they worked fine. The hues came across as reasonably full and well-depicted.
Blacks were fairly dark and dense, while shadows displayed solid smoothness. Outside of the various source defects, this was a good image.
I thought the film’s PCM monaural soundtrack seemed typical for its era and origins. Music lacked a lot of range, but the score seemed fairly full and well-rendered.
Effects followed suit, with tones that came across as acceptably accurate, if a bit thin an occasionally rough. The dubbed nature left the lines as a bit unnatural, and speech tended to sound somewhat sibilant and edgy. I felt this was a mediocre mix for a cheap flick from the 1970s.
Note that the comments above addressed the film’s Italian version. This disc also included an English edition.
Given that the original looped all the lines – as was the tradition in Italian cinema – the English version didn’t suffer from speech that appeared less natural. Also, the actors performed the lines in English, as their mouth movements matched that version better than the Italian one.
This creates a dilemma about which to choose. Normally I’d go with the “native” Italian, but since the lines were performed in English, that made the English version more acceptable.
I also thought the English performances weren’t notably worse than the Italian ones. Often the English dub comes from terrible voice actors, but those involved here did okay. I’d probably still go Italian because I thought the voice acting seemed a bit better, but the English dub is more appealing than expected.
Note that if you choose the English version from the main menu, it will offer alternate credits with the text in English. The movies remain identical otherwise, and you can still flip from one language to the other as you watch no matter which you select at the start.
A few extras appear, and we get an audio commentary from film scholars Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and crew, genre domains and production notes.
Howarth and Thompson are commentary veterans, and they interact well as they cover the movie. Granted, one shouldn't expect a ton of traditional "film historian" content, so we don't learn a lot about the movie's creation. Nonetheless, they reflect on it in a compelling way and give us some worthwhile insights.
Smile of the Hyena brings us 23-minute, 25-second chat with film journalist/director’s son Silvio Amadio. He discusses… I don’t know.
Amadio speaks in Italian and the program lacks English subtitles. This may stand as a defect for the screener copy I got from Arrow and the retail version hopefully will come with translated text.
Unsurprisingly, Extended Nude Scenes delivers exactly what that title claims. We get silent footage of Jenny Tamburi and Rosalba Neri as the former poses nude for the latter and then both get romantic. I heartily endorse this compilation.
Finally, an Image Gallery presents a whopping 11 publicity shots. It seems like a waste of time.
As a psychological thriller, Smile Before Death manages a few intriguing moments. However, these prove unable to overcome the movie’s slow pace and general aimlessness. The Blu-ray comes with erratic but acceptable picture and audio as well as a few bonus features. This becomes a watchable but lackluster genre entry.
Note that this Blu-ray of Smile Before Death comes as part of a 3-movie package called “Giallo Essentials”. It also includes 1972’s The Weapon, The Hour, The Motive and 1974’s The Killer Reserved 9 Seats.