DVD COVERS

This page is not so much about a memorable incident as it is about 3 DVDs which I purchased at the same time. At the time of writing this, in Singapore there is a range of classic films on sale at very reasonable prices. I was browsing one such collection at the Carrefour hypermarket at Suntec City.

I picked up a copy of "The Barefoot Contessa", turned it over and read the write up on the back. It started off "The Barefoot Contessa is one of those movies that one remembers as being better than it actually was". I was pretty astonished that the text on the DVD box seemed to be trying to discourage people from buying it. I decided to check some of the other boxes.

I soon came across Alfred Hitchcock's "Under Capricorn". This box bore the enticing synopsis "An ill-conceived and muddled costume epic that cost (and lost) a fortune. Casting Bergman as an Irish girl and Leighton as an evil housemaid are just two of the many flaws in this heavy production that came in at nearly $2.5 million and failed to recover from the yawning reception given by critics and public". Wow!

Finally I found "Taras Bulba". Here the description printed on the DVD cover started "Taras Bullba was doomed to fail from the start. First, producer Harold Hecht wanted to cut costs, so he..............".

The funny thing is that I bought all three DVDs despite the damning descriptions printed on their box covers. I just wanted them so I could prove to people in future that these DVD covers had not been a figment of my imagination. Were the distributors using clever reverse psychology to sell the movies? or had they just got hold of some reviews, and because they themselves were non English speakers had not understood what it was they were printing. A subsequent search of Google revealed that the text on the boxes had been copied directly from reviews on IMDB. So my second conclusion seems to be the most likely.