It's "Tea at four, dinner at eight, and a murder at midnight" when Arrow Academy gives Robert Altman's award-winner GOSFORD PARK the Blu-ray special edition treatment.

William McCordle (Michael Gambon, THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE, AND HER LOVER) and his wife Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas, BITTER MOON) are having a weekend shooting party, and the whole money-grubbing family is invited: Aunt Constance, Lady Trentham (Maggie Smith, MURDER BY DEATH) whose lifetime monthly allowance he wants to cancel, Sylvia's sister Louisa (Geraldine Somerville, THE HIPPOPOTAMUS) and her husband Raymond Stockbridge (Charles Dance, BLOOD ORANGE) who is jealous of his wife's past affair with William, Sylvia's other sister Louisa (Natasha Wightman, V FOR VENDETTA) and her husband Anthony Meredith (Tom Hollander, PRIDE & PREJUDICE) whose business will be ruined when William tells him he is pulling out of funding, jobless cousin Freddie Nesbitt (James Wilby, MAURICE) who married his wife Mabel (Claudie Blakley, SEVERANCE) for her merchant father's money and his now looking to romance William's daughter Isobel (Camilla Rutherford, PHANTOM THREAD), distant cousin actor Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam, MIMIC) is along for entertainment (and derision for his career pandering to the working class) and has brought with him American producer Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban, PARENTS) who is researching his next Charlie Chan flick set inside an English country house, Lord Rupert Standish (Laurence Fox, son of PERFORMANCE's James Fox) who was invited to court Isboel but spends more time shooting billiards with tag-along buddy Jeremy Blond (Trent Ford, THE ISLAND). The weekend is ripe for murder. Someone takes a shot at William and wings his ear during the hunt, one of the kitchen knives has gone missing after the first night's dinner, and the camera notes that there are plenty of bottles of various poisons throughout the house, upstairs and downstairs.

Downstairs, the battle for authority between head cook Mrs. Croft (Eileen Atkins, WOLF) and housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren, THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS) is derailed by the promiscuity of scullery maid Bertha (Teresa Churcher, BEING JULIA) and Mrs. Wilson's recognition of Stockbridge's valet Parks (Clive Owen, CLOSER) from an undisclosed past. The Scottish accent of Weissman's valet Denton (Ryan Philippe, CRUEL INTENTIONS) may fool the producer, but no one is buying it downstairs, least of all Lady Trentham's new maid Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) who looks to Sylvia's maid (and William's lover) Elsie (Emily Watson, BREAKING THE WAVES) for guidance in service and then for advice when she starts experiencing romantic feelings for Parks. With the last world war fresh in the national conscience as well as talk of another coming war, head butler Mr. Jennings (Alan Bates, WOMEN IN LOVE) is ashamed of his past as a conscientious objector and takes to drinking, and still-room maid Dorothy (Sophie Thompson, EMMA) is willing to do anything to protect him. Sir William's valet Probert (Derek Jacobi, DEAD AGAIN) is devastated by his master's death and paranoid about the investigation after overhearing Weissman making note for his film that the valet would have easy access to commit the crime. Footman George (Richard E. Grant, HENRY & JUNE) has no intention of moving up to butler, and Meredith's valet Barnes (Adrian Scarborough, THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE) may have heard too much. Pompous Inspector Thompson (Stephen Fry, JEEVES & WOOSTER) is so unobservant, and dismissive of the observations of his constable Dexter (Ron Webster), that the case may never be solved.

Using the conventions of the classic British country house murder mystery to examine the class system of the period – November of 1932 just before the British could no longer ignore the war in the rest of Europe – GOSFORD PARK cares little for the whodunit aspect, setting up reasons for everyone wanting to kill Gambon's industrialist and dropping a few possibilities for the how but drawing the audience in with the study of contrasts between upstairs and downstairs. While a few early scenes demonstrate the disregard the wealthy have for their servants – when Isobel and Freddie discovered in a clinch by George, he is dismissed as "nobody" which has an entirely different meaning than Elsie's "don't worry about her" in regard to roommate Mary when Isobel comes to her looking for a confidante – the family are money-grubbers with long-suffering spouses, and Weissman is looked down upon as a producer of entertainment and suspect for his vegetarianism while attitudes towards his being Jewish are evident even as they are unspoken. The exploration of the servants' realm is more interesting with the visiting maids and valets having their individual identities disregarded by the house staff who refer to them by the names of their employers for the sake of convenience. The servants are not only seen to take on some of the prejudices of their employers but also have the negativity felt by the others conferred onto them; with poor Mary singled-out for the head of the table as the servant of the guest with the highest aristocratic rank, and Denton before he is exposed seen as haughty for the "special treatment" required of Weissman for his vegetarian diet. The solution to the mystery is underwhelming even though it highlights the real ugliness of the exploitation of the lower classes that makes possible the lifestyles that the wealthy characters are grasping to maintain. The film was the first feature of actor Julian Fellowes (THE HAUNTING OF JULIA) who had previously written for television. He would later create the series DOWNTON ABBEY (also with Smith) which was initially intended as a spinoff to GOSFORD PARK. Technical credits are top-tier with people behind the camera one expects of British prestige pictures like cinematographer Andrew Dunn (THREADS), costume designer Jenny Beavan (THE KING'S SPEECH), and composer Patrick Doyle (INDOCHINE). The location of Gosford Park is Wrotham Park which had served as Villa Diodati in Ken Russell's GOTHIC but also Wragby not only in Just Jaeckin's LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER for Cannon but also Russell's miniseries version LADY CHATTERELY.

Released theatrically by USA Films and on special edition DVD by Universal Films with a two commentary tracks and featurettes, GOSFORD PARK has made the rounds on television and streaming services with an HD master that was presumably what Alliance used for their barebones 2010 Blu-ray and Studio Canal for their German Blu-ray earlier this year which ported over the Universal DVD content; however, Arrow Academy's dual-territory 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.40:1 widescreen Blu-ray is derived from a new 2K master of a 4K scan supervised and approved by cinematographer Dunn exclusively for Arrow, and it is a stunner. Low-lit scenes that could look downright murky on Universal's soft, edge-enhanced transfer (its low bitrate to accommodate the other extras not helping matters) now boast strong detail and textures while the softness looks more glamorous than smeary. Audio options include DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 Stereo. The 2.0 option is serviceable given the dialogue-heavy nature of the film, but the isolation of the score and effects tracks from the centered dialogue on the 5.1 track give a better sense of Altman's practice of individually-mic'ed actors and how their position in the frame affects the volume of their dialogue. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included.

Extras start off with a trio of commentaries: the first carried over from the DVD with director Altman, production designer Stephen Altman (NEAR DARK), and producer David Levy (THE PLAYER); the second with screenwriter Fellowes also carried over from the DVD, and a new track with critics David Thompson and Geoff Andrew. The film's credits state that the film is based on an idea by Altman and Balaban, and the track suggests that this is entirely accurate as Altman's comments about the film's literary antecedents does not seem to extend beyond UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS as he seems to reach at random for references when discussing the setting. The track is most informative in delineating the job of production designer Stephen Altman who minimally-dressed the exterior and interiors while the entirety of the downstairs set was a Shepperton studio set (which Fellowes reveals was necessary because that area would be the most-altered in country houses during modernization). The Fellowes track is a much more satisfying listening experience, not only discussing how he drew from experience of such class prejudices among his elder relations from the period of the film – including an "unconscious anti-Semitism" that kept the English from getting involved in the war for so long and that he believes many felt badly about in the aftermath – but also better delineating the functions of each of the characters than Altman, including the three sisters and their unsuccessful marriages, how the upper class shunning of popular entertainment disconnected them for their own time, and some of the reasons that money motivates many of their interactions. Andrew had been on the set of the film while Thompson had directed a documentary on him for the British TV series OMNIBUS as well as the book "Altman on Altman". They shed additional light on the film throughout, from its origins with Altman initially approaching UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS' Atkins and Jean Marsh (THE CHANGELING) to write the script before settling on Fellowes who had been working on an Anthony Trollope adaptation for Balaban. They discuss the funding difficulties – particularly with criticism of the UK Film Council giving millions of dollars to an American director – how Altman was determined not to make a "heritage film" despite consulting Merchant-Ivory's Ismael Merchant (A ROOM WITH A VIEW) and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (HOWARD'S END), as well as the film in contrast to the his other large cast films like A WEDDING or NASHVILLE, and the controlled chaos of an Altman set.

Also included are a pair of newly-recorded interviews. In "Executive Service" (20:46), executive producer Jane Barclay (Cronenberg's SPIDER) recalls being inspired to get into film as a world traveler during her school days in which she was in the Amazon and stumbled upon the crew of Werner Herzog's FITZCARALDO. She recalls getting into distribution and then being introduced by producer Jeremy Thomas (NAKED LUNCH) to production partner Sharon Harel (BYZANITUM) and founding Capitol Film. They started producing action films like COVER-UP and developed a reputation for eclectic output with Roman Polanski's DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, DANCING AT LUNGHANSA, and the likes BEOWULF (with Christophe Lambert) before being called in to fund GOSFORD PARK when another funder pulled out and Altman was in danger of going bankrupt from the money he spent on the film's pre-production, noting that a name actor had been cast to prop up what was felt by investors as a very "theatrical" cast only for that performer to pull out. "Acting Upper Class" (10:57) is an interview with Wightman who trained in ballet as a child and describes Altman's approach to direction as the closest thing to choreography she has encountered as an actress. While she also mentions improvisation, it appears to be more of a "see what comes of it" approach by Altman with Fellowes always nearby to provide information on slang as well as facts relating to cultural and social elements of the period to be referenced.