High Crime (1973)

[McCrutchy]

I just watched this tonight and loved it. I am really glad that I got the filmArt edition because it is the only disc so far that has the longer version of the film (103 minutes) as opposed to the English export cut (93 minutes) that is on the French Blu-ray and slated to be the only cut on the upcoming UK BD.

I was apprehensive about watching this disc because I didn't know if the "best" way to watch it was in Italian or if it could be watched in English. I'm pleased to report that the film is almost entirely in English, with Franco Nero definitely speaking all his lines in English and--along with James Whitmore--obviously looping himself in English, too. Fernando Rey and Delia Boccardo are also speaking their lines in English (it's slightly surreal to see Nero and Boccardo conversing in English), but I can't be certain if they are looping themselves because I don't know their voices well enough. In any event, this, in my mind, means that the "best" way to watch this particular film first is probably in English, rather than Italian. I am disappointed that filmArt failed to subtitle the newspaper headlines and other Italian texts, there aren't that many and you can still follow the film, but it would have been nice to have full understanding. Near the end of the film, there are a group of workers protesting and the phrase they are shouting seems to be in Italian, but I couldn't grasp what it was. The French dialogue also comes in at the end, but is even more incidental than the Italian bits.

I thought the transfer was very nice. There may be a drop when the material in the export cut ends, which could be why some releases don't include the longer version. Perhaps it was not part of the 4K remaster that is touted on the French and UK editions, but honestly, I was so engrossed in the film that I only slightly noticed. The video encoding looked excellent, with the usual caveat that I am watching on a 50" HDTV from 2009. The English audio was a bit quiet and thin as I recall, but overall it got the job done for a film that features post-synced dialogue, anyway, Some of that post-syncing was not done too well, by the way, even in scenes that only have Franco Nero and James Whitmore. It's a shame they didn't do those scenes with live sound, but maybe they weren't certain if Nero would end up dubbed or not, or maybe it was just easier to shoot them without live dialogue.

Extras beyond the two cuts are minimal, but the so-called "International" credits actually have intermission cards in Italian, which is an interesting tidbit. The photo gallery is nice, but it was authored as a video and plays too quickly. I had to hit pause on every image to study it.

Overall, this is a great release and I'm glad I got it, even as the film was good enough in my view to merit picking up the UK BD for its exclusive (thus far) extras. I must say, I can't stand Blu-rays in DVD-sized cases and I wish filmArt would have offered their usual Blu-ray amaray follow up reissue much sooner, since this red case version appears to have sold out or be close to it. Otherwise, filmArt seem to have done a superlative job, considering the disc is intended for the German market.

One thing is for certain, having seen this "long" version, I would not want to watch the export cut first, so if you haven't seen the film before and the UK release doesn't include this "long" version, then I would strongly advise waiting for filmArt's unlimited amaray case edition, which should be on deck by next year, if previous releases are anything to go by,