Another reissue disc that we wish were revived in an extras-laden 4K edition. Roman Polanski’s exceedingly rewarding thriller gives us Harrison Ford at his very best as an American doctor trying to recover his wife kidnapped at the outset of their Parisian getaway. Was the appeal more for middle-agers than kids?  Not funny enough?  Not ‘Indy’ enough?  If you skipped this one back in the day, you’ll now find it an intense, richly rewarding experience. The soundtrack is one of Ennio Morricone’s best of the 1980s. It’s on a double bill disc, with another Harrison Ford mystery drama.

Frantic
On a ‘Thriller Double Feature’ with Presumed Innocent
Blu-ray
Warner Bros.
1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 120 min. / Street Date July 15, 2025 (?) / Available from ?
Starring: Harrison Ford, Betty Buckley, Emmanuelle Seigner, Djiby Soumare, Gérard Klein, Stéphane D’Audeville, John Mahoney, Laurent Spielvogel, Alain Doutey, Jacques Ciron, André Quiqui, David Huddleston, Alexandra Stewart, Yorgo Voyagis.
Cinematography: Witold Sobocinski
Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy
Costume Design: Anthony Powell
Film Editor: Sam O’Steen
Composer: Ennio Morricone
Written by Roman Polanski, Gérard Brach and uncredited Robert Towne, Jeff Gross
Produced by Tim Hampton, Thom Mount
Directed by Roman Polanski

The status of this disc is in a strange situation. A reissue copy was sent out for review with a release date of July 15. Forty days later, it seems to have been withdrawn. But we like it and are reviewing it anyway …

Among the ‘new’ reissues offered by Warner Bros. is this 2010 double bill with a title we couldn’t resist. Roman Polanski’s Frantic is a picture we can re-watch once a year. Polanski’s direction is superb; Harrison Ford plays outside the boundaries of his star persona and arguably gives his best screen performance. The film’s tension is unique in that it refuses to jump to escapist dimensions with Big Action or bring in major thriller clichés. Emmanuelle Seigner is an arresting presence, part of a convincingly cheap Paris club scene from the late 1980s. And the entire enterprise is topped by a moody, tone-perfect Ennio Morricone music score that gets better with every viewing.

Around 25 years ago, Frantic had the bad luck to be a WB title released on DVD in a frustrating format — basically a cable-TV encoding slapped onto a disc with no remaster, and reformatted scene by scene for flat television. It was a very good thing when the 2010 Blu-ray arrived.

The intelligent screenplay is a modernized, deglamorized version of the kind of story that Alfred Hitchcock filmed at least 7 times — the high-jeopardy spy chase in which a ‘civilian’ is pressed to match wits with professionals. In this case the amateur is an American doctor on vacation in Paris, probably using a medical conference to write off some of the cost. His loyal wife wants the trip to be a second honeymoon. They have teenaged kids back home; they need a break really badly.

The actual story is a first-person ‘what happens next’ ordeal suffered by doctor Richard Walker (Harrison Ford), a professional who normally doesn’t like to be bothered by details. Jet-lagged on arrival in Paris, he emerges from a shower to find his wife Sondra (Betty Buckley) missing under highly suspicious circumstances. He’s suddenly alone and he doesn’t speak the language. The hotel staff are polite but can’t help him very much. Both they and the police are slow to believe that something’s wrong; only Richard knows that his wife wouldn’t just disappear or run off with another man or whatever. The American Embassy is no help at all — although the State Department people will later come begging him for cooperation and appealing to his sense of patriotism.

Richard has to piece together what has happened from a mess made of a luggage mixup, some missed phone messages and a report by a street person that Sondra was taken away by men in a car. Only slowly does he realize that criminals are threatening Sondra’s life over something in the swapped suitcases. The owner of the other suitcase is a flighty young Parisienne named Michelle (Emmanuele Seigner). Has he gotten tangled up with drug traffickers?  With no sleep, Richard must convince Michelle to go out on a limb to help him get Sondra back. It’s not easy to motivate Michelle to do anything, let alone risk her life. But an uneasy bond grows between them.

Frantic was a major release in 1988, a real movie at a time when thrillers were dominated by action blockbusters like Die Hard and innumberable action vehicles for stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal. Fans expecting Harrison Ford to kick some ass in Paris were sorely disappointed; he didn’t make clever quips or act cavalier while stealing some priceless artifact. Polanski instead makes him a casual tourist suffering a nightmarish dilemma. To recover his wife Richard must summon skills he hasn’t used in a while — getting strangers to trust and help him, where credit cards don’t solve all problems.

The film has style without flaunting stylishness; this Paris can be dark and lonely. Its bartenders and hotel staff want to help but aren’t jumping up to cater to a lone American out of his element. Polanski’s direction is flawless. His signature scenes are handled with precision, discretion. The actual disappearance of Sondra is given a restricted view through a doorway in their hotel. Just as in Polanski’s  Rosemary’s Baby, we’re twisting our heads in frustration at not being able to see what’s happening just out of sight in the next room.

Richard and Michelle must go out on an unstable tilted roof at least 3 floors above ground, to recover items spilled from her purse. It’s a standard Hitchcock ‘jeopardy from a great height’ moment, but with the escapist ‘fun’ subtracted. People do slip and fall to their deaths, and in a Polanski film anything can happen.

This isn’t the kind of picture that tips its hand with ‘director’s touches.’  Polanski’s first-person audience identification technique is impeccable. He doesn’t suddenly cut to a ‘random’ telephoto view indicating that Richard or Michelle are being watched (an effect currently in massive over-use in Netflix crime and mystery shows).

The story stays believable when Michelle and Richard must invade the Paris nightlife to contact Sondra’s kidnappers. It’s not a hip or trendy club, but an overpriced place catering to wealthy foreign businessmen, where the women are just arm candy. In a break from the Morricone soundtrack, Michelle dances to Grace Jones’ I’ve Seen that Face Before. The way she handles the Middle-Easterners, Richard realizes that she’s had rougher experiences than she’s let on.

Michelle thinks she can handle the crooks that paid her to carry contraband in her luggage, and doesn’t know that the ‘McGuffin’ is an item of international importance. She and Richard go to extreme lengths to get Sondra back, but their bond of trust only goes so far. The finale on the banks of the Seine takes place below the Statue of Liberty at Pont de Grenelle, which could be an intentional echo of Hitchcock’s penchant for staging intrigue and excitement at iconic tourist sites.  When Frantic is over, we feel like we’ve been through a real experience, not a confected adventure.

The co-feature on WB’s 2010 disc is Harrison Ford in Alan J. Pakula’s more conventional mystery-intrigue thriller Presumed Innocent. I’ve seen it at least three times and don’t remember much about it. Much of Frantic plays out in posiitive memories, and Ennio Morricone’s music has in itself been a good reason to re-watch.

Warner Bros’ Blu-ray of Frantic is a reissue from 2010; we wish that it and other Warner Bros. gems like  Fearless would be given a fancy 4K treatment — aren’t they the kind of pictures that Criterion should take on?  The HD image is reasonably rich and detailed, more than adequate. Some darker scenes clog up in the shadows a bit, something that a new scan would fix right up, we’re sure.

The double-bill format leaves no room for extras, making us want to go back and see why the reviewers of 1988 didn’t proclaim Frantic a masterpiece. To me it’s as good as any of the celebrated hits from 1988: Midnight Run,  Cinema Paradiso,  A Fish Called Wanda,  Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,  The Accidental Tourist,  Beetlejuice,  My Neighbor Totoro,  Die Hard,  Bull Durham.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Frantic
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Very Good
Sound: Very Good +
Supplements: none.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: August 16, 2025
(7378fran)

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