The Official Network Thread

[ravenus]

I saw Ipcress File on the Network blu-ray.

Based on a novel by Len Deighton (which I haven't read), the protagonist Harry Palmer (Michael Caine young and dashing, a far cry from the desultory valet of the Dark Knight series) is a secret service agent, but grittier and working class compared to James Bond (the comparison is valid since the film was produced by regular Bond series co-producer Harry Saltzman). While Bond's adventures have him traipsing around exotic foreign landscapes, Palmer (at least in this story) is mostly restricted to London and the nearby countryside. Bond can afford to gulp down Beluga caviar and Bollinger champagne without worrying about the expense account, but poor Harry earns only 1300 quid a year and hopes that a promised raise will allow him to buy a coveted infra-red grill to satisfy his gourmet-on-a-budget whims.

The script involves the usual convolutions of red herrings and double agents any self-respecting spy caper would feature and they are done well. I must admit here that I am quite biased towards the old-school Brit "stiff upper lip" tone. Visually the film is quite stylish (DoP Otto Heller of Peeping Tom fame), sometimes to an extreme, with for example shots from the POV of a ceiling lamp or a outdoor fight sequence captured from inside an empty phone both. But director Sidney Furie ensures that it's all good pacy fun and never ceases to be interesting. Caine is in top form here and has strong support from a stellar British cast, including an uber-manly Nigel Green. The film has more intrigue than action or spectacle so don't expect outrageous stunts but that's intentional - Palmer's world is designed to be an antithesis to the ultra-glamorous Bond-verse, and makes a forceful impact. The success of the film led to stardom and bigger roles for Caine (Italian Job, Get Carter), and though I suspect it will be a case of diminishing returns, I am tempted to try out the further installments of the franchise, including Guy Hamilton's Funeral in Berlin and Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain.

Network blu features a very good transfer of the film (of course, the intended look is muted and dingy). Two lossless audio tracks - original mono (which sounded good to me) and re-purposed 5.1 surround. A whole bunch of extras including director's commentary, some contemporary interviews, a vintage piece on Michael Caine, slew of promotional trailers and photo galleries, and yes, a booklet with essay. Recommended for gritty spy thriller fans.

[SymbioticFunction]

Originally Posted by ravenus

...and though I suspect it will be a case of diminishing returns, I am tempted to try out the further installments of the franchise, including Guy Hamilton's Funeral in Berlin and Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain.

Funeral In Berlin is a great sequel. Funeral In Berlin is actually notably superior to Ipcress File - it's a shame that the second film apparently isn't available on blu-ray.

[HotRats]

Funeral In Berlin is very good and Billion Dollar Brain is entertaining if a bit OTT but the US blu contains the cut version where nearly a minute is hacked out to dodge music rights for the Beatles. Both are worth seeing for Oskar Homolka as Colonel Stok. In Deighton's books the agent's name is never given and he's from Burnley (it was really strange hearing Ian Hart doing the accent in a Radio 4 adaptation of IPCRESS).

[Aclea]

Harry Saltzman said they needed a common, nondescript and boring name for the spy to set him apart from James Bond when they were developing the film, and, according to Michael Caine:

"I made a rather bad social blunder, because, he said, 'What's the dullest name you can think of?', and I said, 'Harry', and he said, 'Thanks very much.' And then he said, 'What's a dull surname?', and the most boring boy in our school was called: 'Palmer', 'Tommy Palmer'. So, he said, 'All right, we'll call him Harry Palmer.'"

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by SymbioticFunction

Funeral In Berlin is a great sequel. Funeral In Berlin is actually notably superior to Ipcress File - it's a shame that the second film apparently isn't available on blu-ray.

I wouldn't say "notably superior" but I'd agree it's the better film. Although I love The Ipcress File.

Agreed. A crying shame that Funeral in Berlin is not on BD in any region.

Originally Posted by HotRats

Funeral In Berlin is very good and Billion Dollar Brain is entertaining if a bit OTT but the US blu contains the cut version where nearly a minute is hacked out to dodge music rights for the Beatles. Both are worth seeing for Oskar Homolka as Colonel Stok. In Deighton's books the agent's name is never given and he's from Burnley (it was really strange hearing Ian Hart doing the accent in a Radio 4 adaptation of IPCRESS).

I enjoy Billion Dollar Brain but you've hit the nail on the head in describing it as "OTT." Definitely a bit of an oddity next to the first two.

I didn't know about the rights issue, and the US BD version being cut.

[Aclea]

The going rate for 30 seconds of any Beatles song that they performed themselves is $250,000. With home video still only in the theoretical phase at the time, UA only cleared theatrical and TV broadcast rights for the song, which they got really cheap at the time. Much like Toho and their Kurosawa and Godzilla films, after years of practically giving them away the rightsholders wildly overcompensated in later years.

Billion Dollar Brain doesn't seem that OTT these days in light of more recent events. As a Harry Palmer movie it still disappoints, but taken on its own terms its an entertaining spoof of the 60s spy movie, from its OTT title sequence (where Maurice Binder ruthlessly sends up his own Bond title sequences) to its Alexander-Nevsky-with-oil-tankers finale on the ice. At no point does the film ever expect you to take it seriously, which is just as well - after all, who on Earth would believe that a far-right evangelical Texas oil millionaire would start a pointless war based on phoney intelligence? Definitely a film that reality has finally caught up with...

[Indiana Jonezzz...]

Is it likely Network will eventually release Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain, or do they not own the rights in the UK? It seems unusual that nobody has released them here.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Indiana Jonezzz...

Is it likely Network will eventually release Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain, or do they not own the rights in the UK? It seems unusual that nobody has released them here.

Not a chance - all three films were produced by separate studios.

The IPCRESS File was Rank/Universal, but when Rank dropped out of making Battle of Britain Saltzman took the series to Paramount, who promised to make Battle. Rank tried to fill the gap by creating another spy franchise with The Quiller Memorandum, which shot in Berlin at the same time as Funeral in Berlin - Michael Caine and George Segal even ran into each other filming on the same locations:



Paramount dropped out of Battle (partially due to problems on Funeral: Thunderball co-writer John Hopkins' original script was rejected, original leading lady Anjanette Comer refused to do any work, literally treating it as a paid holiday and charging her weekend flights back to her boyfriend in Hollywood to the company, causing delays and recasting, Akim Tamiroff fell sick and had to be replaced by Oskar Homolka and a plan to covertly shoot in East Germany caused diplomatic problems after they very uncovertly announced it in the press), and Saltzman then took Billion Dollar Brain to United Artists when they agreed to do Battle.

The last two movies, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St Petersburg, were produced by an even dodgier Harry, Harry Alan Towers, and ended up being picked up by Disney in the US as straight to video and cable TV titles. There's a better chance of those turning up, especially since the DVD sales for Berlin were surprisingly dismal.

[Indiana Jonezzz...]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Not a chance - all three films were produced by separate studios.

The IPCRESS File was Rank/Universal, but when Rank dropped out of making Battle of Britain Saltzman took the series to Paramount, who promised to make Battle. Rank tried to fill the gap by creating another spy franchise with The Quiller Memorandum, which shot in Berlin at the same time as Funeral in Berlin - Michael Caine and George Segal even ran into each other filming on the same locations:



Paramount dropped out of Battle (partially due to problems on Funeral: Thunderball co-writer John Hopkins' original script was rejected, original leading lady Anjanette Comer refused to do any work, literally treating it as a paid holiday and charging her weekend flights back to her boyfriend in Hollywood to the company, causing delays and recasting, Akim Tamiroff fell sick and had to be replaced by Oskar Homolka and a plan to covertly shoot in East Germany caused diplomatic problems after they very uncovertly announced it in the press), and Saltzman then took Billion Dollar Brain to United Artists when they agreed to do Battle.

The last two movies, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St Petersburg, were produced by an even dodgier Harry, Harry Alan Towers, and ended up being picked up by Disney in the US as straight to video and cable TV titles. There's a better chance of those turning up, especially since the DVD sales for Berlin were surprisingly dismal.

Fascinating, thanks for the info! . That reminds me, I still have to watch my Blu-ray of The Quiller Memorandum.

[Aclea]

When you do, just bear in mind that contrary to all those white dots you'll see floating around on the screen, the film does not take place in a snowstorm, it's just a really, really crap transfer. Oh, and along with the density issues, the brightness fluctuates wildly.

[ravenus]

My last night's viewing was the 1952 adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest.

The film is based on Oscar Wilde's famous satirical play, which spoofs the morals and manners of upper-crust Victorian society. Two eligible bachelor pals John and Algy (played here by Michael Redgrave and Michael Denison), who lead double lives to manage their social calendar, take on the name of Earnest to win over their respective romances, and the resultant confusion leads to much in the way of verbal pyrotechnics. What I liked best about the play was Wilde's hilarious and biting dialog, which is very faithfully reproduced in this film. Director Anthony Asquith (whose father was apparently one of those who brought a criminal charge of homosexuality against Wilde, which led to his imprisonment and social disgrace) does not shy away from the stage-bound origins of the work, nay, he celebrates them. The picture opens and closes with stage curtains, and the credits are displayed on a theater program. Most of the locations are indoor sets, and Asquith favors long static takes, giving center-stage to the clever repartee and interplay between the actors. It's a good decision because Wilde's dialog has a unique theatrical cadence which would sound out of place in a more realistic milieu. At 44, Michael Redgrave seems a little old for his character but it's a passable flaw and everything else is spot on, especially Edith Edwards imperious performance as the snobbish Lady Bracknell.

From the screenshots I've seen on the internet Network's blu-ray is an appreciable upgrade over the Criterion DVD. This is not one of the most striking Technicolor films, with a more muted pastel vibe, but it can be vibrant when called for (Redgrave's green dressing gown is a marvelous example). For a dialog oriented film as this, the clear LPCM mono is more than adequate. The major extra is a 20 min look back at the film's making with critics and relatives of the film's crew, and the package also includes a booklet with essay.

[Indiana Jonezzz...]

Originally Posted by Aclea

When you do, just bear in mind that contrary to all those white dots you'll see floating around on the screen, the film does not take place in a snowstorm, it's just a really, really crap transfer. Oh, and along with the density issues, the brightness fluctuates wildly.

Yes, unfortunately I’d read this before purchasing it. But I hoped it was at least marginally better than any DVD version, even if it still looks very poor for a Blu-ray.

[Aclea]

‘From the cellar clubs of London… to the opening nights in Paris… to the wild way out world of the continental swingers… comes a story as different and exciting as the music of the man called Ray Charles’ screamed the American poster for 1964’s Ballad in Blue (or Blues for Lovers as it was called there, though it was called Light Out of Darkness when they shot it), and it couldn’t be more misleading if it tried. There are no swingers, continental or otherwise – when a trio of audience members in what is meant to be London but is actually Ireland get out of their seats and start to dance, the other audience members immediately stop them – and the film is very definitely good, clean respectable family entertainment, playing like one of those sentimental Forties movies where Bing Crosby played a priest, only without the nuns.

From the producers of Superman, directed by Ingrid Bergman’s husband from Casablanca and starring Ray Charles as himself, films don’t come with a much odder pedigree. There’s a great title sequence with a black screen giving way to Charles, only his face and the keyboard visible in the darkness as he sings Let the Good Times Roll. It’s a stylish start that hints at the hipper film Charles said it could have been if the producers hadn’t run out of money, but that immediately gives way to Charles leading a school of awfully well spoken blind English children in an awfully genteel rendition of Hit the Road Jack, and it’s there that he runs into Mary Peach and her recently blinded son Piers Bishop. In next to no time he’s giving Peach’s struggling composer boyfriend Tom Bell a job as his new arranger, persuading him to turn his cantata into a hit song and trying to persuade her to stop smothering the boy (though some viewers might want to smother the tyke themselves) and let him have an operation that has a one-in-a-hundred chance of success. We’re not quite in Viva Knievel territory here – unlike Evel, he doesn’t make crippled children throw away their crutches and walk again just by being in the same room: Charles may be a saint here, but at least he’s not Jesus, only even better – but we’re a world away from the Free Cinema and kitchen sink drama movements that had taken British cinema by storm just a few years earlier, something a fleeting glimpse of a cinema marquee for A Hard Day’s Night only underlines.

Filmed on the cheap, with Dublin standing in for London and Paris to save money and the Salkinds apparently still leaving a few unpaid bills behind them, the script wisely avoids giving Charles any of the dramatic heavy lifting, which does tend to reduce him to a bit of a fairy godfather figure, though he does have one good scene to get his teeth into near the end where he lays down the law to Peach about how she’s crippling the boy by making him overdependent on her. His presentation as a man without sin is a bit at odds with the stories that emerged from the shoot of Charles and many of his musicians being hooked on heroin and having such a tough time scoring drugs in Dublin that withdrawal symptoms were at times only narrowly averted, but he’s a sincere enough screen presence. But, despite a part pretty much limited to guiding him through rooms and describing objects or people, it’s his manager Joe Adams who is the real screen natural, which is less surprising when you discover he won a Golden Globe as Best Newcomer for Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones before, like so many other winners of that particular award, he found his screen career grinding to a sudden halt.

Director and co-writer Paul Henreid does try to keep the saccharine count down even if the film does feel a decade or two out of date, but while the British supporting cast try to keep it real it’s with the plentiful musical numbers that, one medley where Bishop’s face is superimposed over every shot aside, he does his best work. It’s fair to say this is more for Charles’ fans than the average audience, with enough songs evenly spaced throughout the film to make it worth their sitting through the melodrama. For others it’s a painless, decently made film that doesn’t stand out as either particularly good or particularly bad. Network’s UK Blu-ray offers a very good 1.331 black and white transfer with a stills and poster gallery the only extra.

[ravenus]

Couple of old British flicks which I'd got as part of the Network sale, not great but decent.

Young and Innocent (1937) - Picked this up because it's supposed to be one of Hitchcock's favorite films from his British period. This story of a man accused of murder escaping to bag evidence that may clear him (one of Hitch's most used movie themes) has a frothy feel which is mostly nice, but there's not enough tension or sense of real danger to give it bite. Also, without the benefit of Hollywood budgets, some of the miniature work is all too obvious. The chemistry between leads Nova Pilbeam (lovely, if rather young to be a romantic lead) and Derrick de Marney is the major lure here, but Hitchcock also displays some early chops including an audacious crane shot that traverses an entire dance floor, finally zooming into the face of the real criminal (it has been called a single shot but I believe there's an in-between dissolve).

Video quality is not top-tier restoration but quite reasonable and without digital manipulation. Extras include a decent 24min featurette on Hitchcock's early years, from the silent era till he left for Hollywood.

Unearthly Stranger (1963) - British cinema in the 50's and 60's made some notable SF including the Quatermass films, The Day the Earth Caught Fire etc. Unearthly Stranger, whose plot mixes a Nigel Kneale style plot about mind travel with Invasion of the Bodysnatchers type paranoia, hinges on some hoary contrivances, like when people who see something strange inexplicably keep silent about it till a specific point in the script, or randomly veer between open-mindedness and pooh-poohing disbelief. Still, it has some moments and is attractively shot in widescreen B&W (A spiral stairwell is repeatedly milked for visual value). Also nice to spot Brit actors one remembers from their appearances in the Granada Sherlock Holmes series, and Baron Munchausen himself, John Neville.

Again, video is decent. Although film damage is apparent, especially in the beginning, the basics are good, with healthy contrast and an organic look.

[CrockettandTubbs]

There's another sale on, even though their homepage doesn't say so!

Here's the link:

http://networkonair.com/103-the-brit...Brand-Blu--ray

Most of the 58 titles are £5.51, but Robbery is still £9 (and the excellent Hell Drivers is £6)

Getting to the sale page is a bit of a chore from their homepage:

1) on the homepage, click on 'The British Film' link (top left)
2) tick the 'filter blu-ray' box
3) press enter.

[Ben_C]

Decided to finally buy Hell Drivers for 6 quid. Don’t know why it’s taken me this long really, as the general consensus is that it’s rather good.

[lzx]

Homepage finally updated, and the prices have been further decreased.

[ajabrams]

Having problems checking out - Guess I'll try later....

[Aclea]

Problems on Network's site during a sale? Why, that's practically unheard of!

[trombone dixie]

Countess Dracula, Hands of the Ripper and Twins of Evil for £22.55 ($31.20 USD) shipped to the United States. How do these transfers compare to Synapse Films?