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Author
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Topic: CONDUCT UNBECOMING!! Super 8 optical snd.
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted November 20, 2009 09:03 AM
It surprises me that I have never gotten around to doing a review of this fine film. It has a personal spot in my heart, along with just being a great film!
It is ... CONDUCT UNBECOMING!! (1975)
It has a who's who of British cinema to start with ...
Sir Richard Attenborough (Jurrasic Park)
James Mc Donald (Great Eascape)
Trevor Howard (The Third Man)
Micheal York (Logan's Run)
Christopher Plummer (Sound of Music)
Susannah York (A Christmas Carol 1984)
as well as Persis Kombatta (Bald woman in Star Trek: Motion pic)
The story is as follows ...
During a dance party, the prominent woman in the community (widow of the regiments hero) is violently raped, by sword point, no less. A young new officer, cocky and obnoxious, is pointed out as the rapist. They then have a British army courtroom trial. Micheal York is assigned as the defense lawyer to defend the very young man he came to the post with. James Mc Donald plays the posts's doctor, and Sir Richard Attenborough, Trevor Howard and Christopher Plummer play senior officers.
Susannah York plays the victim of the violent rape, and she does an excellent job with her role. Persis Kombatta plays an earlier victim of the rapist. No one phones in they're performance and they all do a very good job. It's a pleasure to watch them.
The question is, who is truly the rapist?
The young cocky officer, (who doesn't even want to be assigned to this outfit), or someone else?
Though made in the 1970's and taking place in the early 1900's,
(I might be off on the century), this trial is as modern as you could ask for, (it could be a "CSI" episode) and has a number of twists and turns that keep your attention to the very end. In the end, it's about what honor truly is, and the lack of it. How far does honor extend and when do you lose it?
This print is a wonderful example of just how good an optical sound super 8 feature can be. This is presented in the letterbox format that it appeared in, in the movie theater.
The print is pin sharp with great grain levels and, as with all the optical features, no wash-outs or blacked out scenes.
Now, anyone who has collected this feature in the past know that it is notorious for being faded, to a greater or lesser extant. I was lucky enough to have two very good prints, (one of which is on ebay right now), and I can verify that you can find a good color print if you search diligently enough.
The sound is in-between. It's not too quiet, but not booming as well. Of course, as with all optical sound features, the less faded, the more robust the sound will be.
One caution however ...
Approximately, the first twenty minutes of this feature have a somewhat muted color scheme. I at first thought that I had run into bad faded prints, but even on a very unfaded print, this first twenty minutes has that aspect to it, so don't judge the whole film by that first twenty minutes. It's not faded, its just rather muted.
As I stated earlier, this film is one of the special films in my collection. This was the first optical feature that I bought, both times that I have collected Super 8 (in the late 80's and then again in 2003). It was what impressed me about the possible quality to be offered by optical super 8. It took me awhile to find good prints of this. In fact, one of my "archive" prints was compiled from different source prints to come up with the best color possible, but it was worth it.
It's probably one of the few times that you'll find so many great british actors all in one film, at least, on super 8.
LONG LIVE SUPER 8!!
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted November 21, 2009 02:00 PM
I just thought of that two Micheal.
I was using the measurements of my old Sharpvision projection TV, cuz it does sound silly.
What I meant must mean that same measurement for the screen size in inches, not feet. My screen is made up of a very shiny silk full size bed sheet, connected to two wood dowels, and it merely rolls down. I just measured it. Nine feet across and usually six foot from top to bottom. There, that's better.
So, at a full nine feet across, (and it being a non scope print, but letterboxed), it still looked fabulous, being a very sharp optical print. It was projected on a "souped up" CHINON 9500.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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