8mm Forum: The Naked & the dead. 4x400ft

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Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 05, 2012, 03:08 PM:

The Naked and the dead, 4 x 400ft spools b/w sound. Purchased from mountain films years ago.

In brief, the film is set on an island in the South Pacific where the American Army under General Cummings is trying to drive out the Japanese, The Naked and the Dead focuses on a single reconnaissance platoon. The film contains several short combat scenes and a great deal of description of Army protocol, as well as detailed descriptions of the many trials and agonies of the enlisted man. The film deals with the difficulties of the campaign, the danger posed by the Japanese, the conflict between officers and regulars, each man's own internal conflicts and fears, and the aggression between squad members. Everyone, from the General down, has character flaws, and there are few depictions of lasting happy family life or of good male-female relations. Later in the film, Hearn becomes the Lieutenant of the squad, to the ire of Croft, the ruthless Sergeant previously in command, who withholds information from Lieutenant Hearn, leading to Hearn's death in combat.

This super 8 release I think, is an underrated one, the original full movie runs for over two hours and was in cinemascope and Technicolour.
This super 8 release runs for just one hour and fits on 2 x 600ft spools with no problems. The editing is generally pretty good with excellent sound throughout. The picture quality itself is as average as any mountain film went, slightly soft and blown up to full 4:3 ratio from the original 2.35:1 so a few scenes have the annoying pan and scan but it is very watchable movie and for the time of its release (1958) its actually quite a vicious film in places. The music is by the brilliant Bernard Hermann and in places it’s so similar to Jason & the Argonauts I keep expecting to see Talos walk around the mountains.

All in all a very good war film which unfortunately doesn’t appear too often on the lists any more but if it does I would recommend it highly for any war movie fans. Ive only seen this movie on TV once and it’s a great shame that it wasn’t a colour release on 8mm. Having said this some of short battle sequences use real war footage so the fact this version is in b/w actually makes these scenes more realistic, when watched in colour the real footage stands out so much.
Another great title in our collection is a rare mountain colour feature of Flying Leathernecks, (perhaps the naked & the dead does exist on 8mm in colour, can anyone confirm this?)

Posted by Hugh Thompson Scott (Member # 2922) on July 05, 2012, 04:45 PM:

I have this film myself Tom in std 8mm on two overfowing 600'
spools and you're absolutely right,a damn good film,well acted
by all concerned,especially Aldo Ray.A far cry from some of the
modern warfare themed films.As you say quite a rarity now,and
would make a nice companion piece to another Mountain release
"Retreat Hell" which featured I believe the war in Korea.

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 08, 2012, 03:56 PM:

Your right Hugh, the acting is very good and for once there isnt any corny Hollywood dialouge in this one, considering it was made in the late 50s some of the sequences would fit well into snything done today. With all the digital TV channels of today im surprised this one never makes an appearence, its star packed.

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