Why So Blu?

The Double (Radiance Films Limited Edition Blu-ray Review)

Sometimes you get in your car and drive home, and sometimes you get shot before you drive away. Which is exactly what happens to poor Giovanni. But not shot just once. Multiple times! He falls beside his car, bleeding out while a warning light blinks nearby, and his mind starts digging through everything that brought him there. These memories don’t arrive in order. Maybe some didn’t even happen at all! A face appears, a moment repeats, fantasy slips into something that looks like fact. Director Romolo Guerrieri isn’t presenting a mystery solve; he’s exploring the head of a dying man who can’t admit what kind of person he truly is.

 

Film ★★★☆☆

Jean Sorel plays Giovanni, an architect whose family’s money keeps him comfortable, but renders little of what he’s accomplished entirely his own. He’s in Morocco with his much younger wife, Lucia (Ewa Aulin), though the marriage looks exhausted. Lucia enjoys getting a rise out of him, which doesn’t take much.

Then her mother Nora (Lucia Bosè) turns up, and Giovanni starts chasing her while acting wounded whenever Lucia gives another man so much as a glance. He wants everybody but can’t stand the thought that they might want somebody else.

That somebody is Eddie (Sergio Doria), an American drifter who catches the interest of both women. He has none of Giovanni’s money or status, but he’s relaxed in a way Giovanni will never be. Soon Giovanni is reading betrayal into every look and conversation. 

The tricky part is that we only know Eddie, Lucia and Nora through Giovanni’s damaged memory. Maybe Lucia really was taunting him. Maybe Nora encouraged him. Maybe Eddie was sleeping with everyone. Or maybe Giovanni has rearranged the whole thing so he can keep thinking of himself as the injured party.

When the family factory is threatened by financial trouble and angry workers, his brother begs him to get involved. Giovanni can barely be bothered. He would rather brood over Eddie and follow Nora around Rome. His idea of freedom only applies to himself. Other people are expected to stay where he puts them, particularly women. 

Eventually his behavior moves past jealousy and adultery into assault, which makes the film’s treatment of him much darker, though Guerrieri’s camera sometimes lingers so eagerly on women that it blurs the line between criticism and exploitation.

Carlo Reali’s editing keeps tearing away from the Moroccan beaches and dropping us back beside Giovanni’s body in the garage. One of the best transitions begins with a photograph burning at the corner. A cut follows, and suddenly Giovanni is holding that same picture in front of a wall of fire.

Aulin and Bosè give the movie much of its pulse. Lucia has a reckless spark, while Nora is calmer and harder to read, which only makes Giovanni more obsessed with her. Sorel’s blank expression reveals a man who has never questioned himself. 

The supporting characters don’t get enough room, and the mystery’s answer isn’t nearly as interesting as the way Guerrieri hides it. 

Giovanni spends his final moments looking for proof that somebody ruined his life. What he finds, whether he understands it or not, is that he did most of the work himself.

Video ★★★★☆

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Clarity/Detail: Although the restoration work was completed at 4K, this is a standard 1080p disc rather than a UHD release. Bright Moroccan exteriors reveal the strongest texture, bringing out facial detail, clothing, architecture, and the surrounding terrain.

Depth: Carlo Carlini’s expansive location photography has convincing dimensionality, with people standing cleanly apart from distant landscapes and open skies. Sunlit wide shots fare especially well, while interiors and deliberately hazy passages look flatter by design.

Black Levels: The garage shooting and other subdued passages deliver firm blacks alongside bright points of light, giving the SDR image a healthy contrast range. Shadowed photography is less pristine than the daytime material, with heavier grain occasionally reducing separation near the darkest end.

Color Reproduction: Morocco’s sun-baked scenery supplies the richest warmth, while clothing, water, and outdoor surroundings retain persuasive saturation without looking digitally intensified.

Flesh Tones: Complexions appear natural through most of the presentation.

Noise/Artifacts: The underlying grain remains intact and usually resolves with a convincingly organic texture.

Audio ★★★☆☆

Audio Format(s): Italian LPCM Mono; English LPCM Mono

Subtitles: English

Dynamics: The Italian lossless mono track handles Armando Trovajoli’s shifts between lush romantic writing, lively jazz, and more unsettling passages with the stronger balance and cleaner upper range.

Height: N/A

Low Frequency Extension: Bass remains restrained, with no dedicated subwoofer channel.

Surround Sound Presentation: N/A

Dialogue Reproduction: Because the multilingual production was voiced after filming, neither soundtrack offers conventional location-recorded speech, yet the Italian dub sounds more articulate and evenly integrated with the other elements.

Extras ★★★★☆

Audio commentary by Tim Lucas (2026): Film historian Tim Lucas follows The Double from Libero Bigiaretti’s source novel through its production and eventual place within Italian genre cinema. There’s discussion around Romolo Guerrieri’s career, the performers and technicians, Armando Trovajoli’s music, the Italian and Moroccan locations, and the psychological questions hiding beneath the mystery.

Archival interview with director Romolo Guerrieri and star Eva Aulin, newly edited for this release (2026): Combines separate archival conversations with Guerrieri and Aulin. They discuss filming intimate material, using authentic locations, and collaborating with the cast and crew.

Appreciation by author Stephen Thrower (2026): Thrower’s thoughtful examination covers the title’s layered implications, the difficulties of reshaping the novel for the screen, the film’s fractured construction, its unsettling marriage of sound and imagery, and some dated attitudes within Italian genre filmmaking.

Easter egg (2 mins)

Reversible sleeve featuring artwork based on original posters

Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Nathaniel Thompson: Thompson contributes a newly commissioned essay placing Guerrieri’s work alongside Michelangelo Antonioni while considering how The Double both participates in and resists familiar giallo conventions.

Summary ★★★★☆

Radiance Films have released a wonderful blu-ray for this hidden gem. There’s a lot to unpack with The Double, which will no doubt lead to long, insightful conversations between established fans and first time viewers.