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Having researched this film in depth, I found a Region 2 copy on Amazon.Fr. What a find!! The DVD includes the original trailer, which is very clear and well defined. There is also a nice extra about the director, which I haven't yet see in its entirety, but I can tell you that a very young Peter Ustinov is in it, a gallery of stills, and an opening sequence before you actually play the film that features the music score and it is shown embellished in red. The film itself is much clearer than the VHS, except for a few frames that are unexplainedly grainy. The DVD jacket itself is very classy, in a beautiful gatefold style with a picture of Ryan as Ohlrig lying on the floor with Barbara Bel Geddes standing over him. Inside of the DVD jacket is a nice little pamphlet (in French) and pictures of Bel Geddes and Curt Bois at the piano, and the scene in Ohlrig's viewing room when he says to Bel Geddes, "Now I know why they install love seats in movie balconies, but please remember Leonora that you're not sitting there now." It's a classic line. By the way, the film reaches brilliance in Ryan's performance alone.

Most people remember Nicholas Ray for his most famous films, Rebel Without A Cause and Johnny Guitar being the ones most talked about . Born To Be Bad is ensconced in the category reserved for ignored treasures and guilty pleasures, since Director Ray's characteristic "signature" as a director was just as canny in this film as in any of his lesser discussed works, On Dangerous Ground (which also featured Robert Ryan) being another example. This reviewer sees the same sophistication in Born To Be Bad as in another 50s Ray piece, In A Lonely Place; Born To Be Bad is just as cynical in its own way, guised as a superficially lighter "high society" melodrama. Although there are no dark staircases, ominous shadows or oblique camera angles here, Born To Be Bad has subterfuge and alienation at its core in Joan Fontaine's central character, Christabel Caine. The misery depicted here is the type that afflicts the rich and the venal, where wealth, not poverty, is the variable behind their alienation, and their betrayals are carried out in swank apartments and elite mansions instead of typical "noir" territory. The stylistic dimensions of the film aside, Born To Be Bad also features Robert Ryan and Joan Fontaine together romantically. For Ryan devotees searching for the few romantic roles that came his way, they should certainly see the film: the chemistry between Ryan and Fontaine simmers in furtive trysts that were somewhat risque for cinema of that era (a comparable romance between Ryan and a female lead can also be found in the 1952 "noir" masterpiece, Clash By Night). Still available on laserdisc, Born To Be Bad features a crystal clear video transfer worthy of any film buff.