Customer Reviews

Sleep, My Love ( Sleep My Love ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Spain ]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sleep My Love is a movie that many wish would be available in the USA, I had read some reviews & I rolled the dice & bought the import. The print for the most part is very good. You wont be able to play this on a R1 player as it clearly says PAL format in the description. The seller that I bought this from sells import DVDs and lists as such.
The film is a very well done Noir/thriller chiller in a plot that basically is ' man wants to dump wife by driving her mad and replace her with a hot babe '
Claudette Colbert was great as the accursed wife that is being drugged and told to things in her sleep to start her downfall. Robert Cummings was also great as the concerned friend who finds out what is going on.
There are some creepy tense scenes as well as a little tongue in cheek humor thrown into the mix. The cast is great not just the stars but in small roles we have Raymond Burr, Key Luke , Ralph Morgan around in this.
On a personal note the 'hot babe' Don Ameche is looking to start a life with had such a lousy brat-like personality that I wonder what he saw in her besides her looks. She was a great example of beauty being only skin deep. It was a great role and kept wondering if he would have been better off having an affair with a woman of substance.
It kind of reminded me a movie called Diabolique (a french noir) actually. Some compare it to Gaslight as well..
Don't expect an all time classic but at the same time , to me it was a good, solid picture & worth owning..for others that are on the fence, rent it first..it is worth checking out..especially if you like classic Noir films
Only get the DVD if you have the equipment to play it as it is an import.

This was Sirk's fifth studio picture film after his 1939 Hollywood arrival from Europe. The first five minutes or so on the train have an attention-grabbing, sub-Hitchcock quality that is nonetheless effective. "Sleep, my Love" prefigures some of the director's most familiar themes ('blindness'/'not seeing' in the form of the heroine's obliviousness to the true circumstances of her marriage and in the device of the photographer's glasses; the use of photography as a plot element; the prevalence of mirrors and glass; the director's satirical approach to the presentation of Claudette Colbert's social set; and the ambivalence and ambiguity that are key to Colbert's character and overall situation). Supporting performances are amusing (particularly those of Robert Cummings as a playboy who is smarter than he likes to let on and the sultry nastiness of a gold-digging femme fatale as played by Hazel Brooks in sheer negligées). George Coulouris, Rita Johnson and Queenie Smith are all wonderfully entertaining, while Don Ameche's part is thankless and routinely acted. For die-hard Sirk fans only.

Anyone who is familiar with "Gaslight" will come into "Sleep, My Love" already informed as to what is going on, but even so, the film is a well-made entry in the "Let's-Drive-the-Rich-Wife-Nuts" subgenre. Claudette Colbert plays a middle-aged socialite with a lounge-lizard husband, who starts experiencing strange blackouts, including one in which she allegedly shoots hubby. She is also haunted by a weird man in coke-bottle glasses. All of it is a plot, of course (I'm not really giving anything away that won't be obvious fifteen minutes into the movie), but the question is, will savior Robert Cummings be able to rescue Colbert before she's offed, or not? Colbert contributes a star turn, and Don Ameche plays the lizard husband in understated, oily fashion, and he's quite good. Cummings demonstrates that he was perhaps too subtle and natural for his time to be considered a really fine actor, which he actually was. Hazel Brooks paints the femme fatale with a heavy--almost laughably so--brush, but offsetting that is a nice turn by Raymond Burr as a policeman. Burr at this time was a film noir staple, usually on the darker side of the law, so it's nice to see him play an affable good guy. Directed with broad strokes by Douglas Sirk (and produced by Mary Pickford!), this is by no means a great film, but it's entertaining, and well-shot, and shows that Ameche possessed more skill as an actor than he was usually given credit for at this point in time.

A great cast in a very good Noir thriller. While the story eventually escapes the bounds of credibility, it holds together much longer that it seems it should have - and even when it gets away, it's a quick sprint to the end so it doesn't diminish the movie much. For most of the movie it's great fun watching these characters plot and scheme and maneuver and manipulate and to watch Claudette Colbert come to pieces.

Sleep My Love is a great Film Noir Classic with Don Ameche,Claudette Colbert,Raymond Burr,Robert Cummings,George Coulouris,Rita Johnson,Hazel Brooks,Keye Luke,etc
This 1948 classic is long overdue on DVD.

product came as directed on time however I did not realize you could not play in USA even thou stated in description. Seller although not required was good enough to give me money back. I would buy from seller again. good customer service