Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted January 19, 2018 12:00 PM
Yet again, super 8 optical sound features has delivered yet another “lost” treasure; in this case , one of the first HBO feature films made by HBO … “Brady’s Escape”, which was also released as "The Long Ride".
In the case of most World War 2 films, they’re all heroics and explosions left and right, (especially by the 80’s). In this case, we have a somewhat quiet, subdued and thoughtful film that builds well as it goes.
It begins in the present day on a farm in Ohio, as a young boy finds his favorite horse dying and the grandfather (played by John Savage), is forced to shoot him, not wanting too as he says to the horse, “Cmon, get up!” and has no choice but to shoot the horse to end it’s misery.
We then slip back into World War 2, 1944, as a U.S. bomber is in a fire-fight and hit badly.
The pilots parachute out, (the rest of the crew is already dead), and one of the two is terribly wounded in the jump. The bomber crashes and explodes and the bomber and the pilots are witnessed by a sadistic German officer. They have parachuted into Nazi occupied Hungaria.
Our young pilot (Savage), is welcomed by the native horsemen tribes and they hide him. His fellow pilot dies shortly thereafter, but they know that they can’t keep him there so they begin to devise a plot to get him over to the Russian occupied portion of the country, (for those who don’t know, during WW2, the Russians were our allies).
While with the native horsemen, our young pilot is taught to speak the Hungarian dialect (by a lovely young lady), and also is given a horse to train. He also befriends a young man/teenager, played by Kelly Reno (in his only non-black Stallion film, but curiously, in a film that revolves around horses once again).
The German officer is on the march to find the pilot and kills all that get in his way and they realize that there is no more time, Brady has to escape now or be killed.
They begin they’re journey on horseback, traveling to a distant town, (in order to get on a train), first by horse and then by bycycle. But when they get there, it is also occupied now by Nazi’s and they are rounding up all the Jews and other "undesireables" to ship to concentration camps, as well as confiscating all horses for the war effort. (by now, Brady is in the garb of a horseman and can pass for one). Brady escapes for the moment and we think he might get away, but the German officer has tracked him down and in fact shot him. But loses Brady in the tall brush.
After the German officer goes back to round up more men for the search, Brady tells his horse to leave him, (as he feels he has no hope), which the horse does but in one of the films great moments, the horse gallops back to the horsemen people and they quickly realize that something has happened to Brady, and the horse leads them right back to Brady.
Now Brady and the young man (Reno), travel together, getting very close to the Russian border. Meanwhile, the sadistic German officer goes to the ranch of the horsemen and kills them all off, but not before one of the horsemen rides up and catches him with his whip, dragging him by the neck to his death before that horseman also dies.
Brady and Micki (the young man) have but one last obstacle, a bridge patrolled by Nazi’s before freedom in Russian territory. They gallop together on theyre one last horse but Micki is terribly shot to the back. Brady then carries the young man across the waters, led by the horse, talking to each other but by the time they reach the other side of the river, Micki has died. He made it to freedom. THE END
I really liked this film, which is more about characterization than lots of bloody fights. There is action of course, but it doesn’t overtake the characterizations and that’s good. There is a brief love story between Brady and the woman teaching him Hungarian, but fortunately it is short and doesn’t distract from the main storyline. Both Savage and Reno do a fine job with they’re parts.
I'm not quite certain, but I think that the horse that Brady has to shoot at the beginning of the film, is the very horse that bright him to safety, which might be why he pleads for the horse to get up. Horses can live for quite a few years and it's plausible that it could have been the same horse that Brady might have brought back with him to the U.S., but that is conjecture on my part.
Condition …
This is, of course a super 8 optical sound feature and I was very happy to see a very sharp print, as per usual. There were some scenes with horsemen very far off in the frame and yet they were very sharp. You couldn’t ask for better from a super 8 print.
The optical sound was a very nice crisp mono with very little popping or hiss at all,
better than average.
The ebay seller I bought this from said that is had a little color loss and that’s true, but it turned out that there was very little. The first half of the film takes place on the largely barren, brown plains, but you get to the second half of the film where the terrain is now green forests and actually, the color isn’t bad at all. I’d say that the color is about a 7 out of 10. Also, the color loss on this film isn’t you’re average reddish or brownish fade, but just a gradual complete color spectrum fade, so while there is color loss, it really isn’t that bad at all. This a case where a nice cyan filter with a slight lean towards a more greenish caste works absolutely perfect for projection!
So, a very enjoyable film and I once again had the pleasure of discovering another “lost” film that certainly didn’t deserve to be lost.
… and, as always …
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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