A Day at the Beach [DVD] [1970]

The packaging for Code Red Releasing's DVD edition of A Day At The Beach bills it as "The Lost Roman Polanski Masterpiece," but that stretches the truth on two levels -- while Polanski wrote the screenplay, which was adapted from a novel by Heere Heeresma, the picture was directed by Simon Hesera, and though there are a few interesting moments scattered through its eighty-four minutes, it's by no stretch of the imagination a masterpiece. However, since the film was never released in the United States and had fallen out of circulation in Europe, this at least gives fans of the great Polish auteur an opportunity to check out one of his most elusive credits. A Day At The Beach has been given a widescreen transfer to disc, letterboxed at 1.75:1 on conventional televisions and enhanced for anamorphic play on 16x9 monitors; the cool and purposefully muted colors of Gilbert Taylor's cinematography are rendered with pleasing accuracy, and while some light speckling is visible at the beginning and ends of reels, for a movie this rare the source materials look clean and presentable. The audio has been mastered in Dolby Digital Stereo, retaining the original monophonic sound mix, and the fidelity is good for the period if not outstanding. The dialogue is in English, with no subtitles or multiple language options. The only bonus materials are trailers for five other Code Red releases, some of which look seriously worse for wear. This is little more than a bare-bones release, but given the obscurity of A Day At The Beach, Polanski completists will at least welcome the opportunity to see a good quality print of this film at a reasonable list price.