Bronco Bullfrog (1969/BFI (British Film Institute) Flipside Blu-ray w/DVD/Region
Free/Zero Import)
Picture:
B- Sound: C+ Extras: B- Film: B-
PLEASE NOTE: This Blu-ray
is only available in the U.K.
from our friends at BFI and can be ordered from them at the website address link
provided below at the end of the review or at finer retailers. This is a Region Zero/Free Blu-ray and will
only play on all Blu-ray players, so make certain yours is before
ordering. All the supplements are also
in 1080p High Definition. The DVD is in
the PAL format.
While
biking films were B-movie fodder in the U.S.
until Easy Rider changed Hollywood for a long time
to come, the British cinema had many youth films haunted by gangs and
disaffected youth with bikes and the result is as big a love for the motorized
vehicles, even if it is in a different way.
BSA and Triumph models were among the most popular and there were
others, but the culture was as much a British phenomenon as anything, which is
on full display in Barney Platts-Mills’ counterculture film Bronco Bullfrog from 1969.
A time
capsule that also plays well as a drama, the film involves a couple (Del Quant
and Irene Richards) who are unhappy with their life and possibly no future, so
they turn to the title character who is not exactly an upstanding citizen, but
they want to go somewhere with their lives and decide to turn to him. This means breaking the law and getting
crazy. For the 87 minutes it is on
screen, it is interesting enough to watch and seems more like the earlier
monochrome films from the late 1950s to early 1960s that Oliver Reed might turn
up in and could be seen as the end of that cycle.
The
couple’s dilemma plays like a non-political variation of Michelangelo
Antonioni’s underrated Zabriskie Point
from about the same time, as the couple decides to become lawless because they
want to be with each other, want their own space and wonder if their
counterculture ways can create space that will make them happier to be in. The couple here in Bullfrog has made a more direct deal with the devil, but it adds up
to the same thing in many ways. It also
shows an East London that at least is partly
gone forever and the film takes us somewhere we have not been before and might
never be able to go back to again. With
non-professional actors, the other common denominator it has with Antonioni and
his film is Italian Neo-Realism, even if it is by way of the British Angry
Young Man cycle that you could say was still alive enough at this point, even
as it was transforming into something else.
All that
makes Bronco Bullfrog a film all
serious film fans will want to see at least once.
The 1080p
1.33 X 1 black and white digital High Definition image shows its age with some
grain and more than a few shots that are not as sharp and clear as expected,
though you can expect this from a short with a low budget, but it was shot in
35mm and this comes from a 35mm negative, so gray scale and Video Black are a
plus. The Director of Photography was
Adam Barker-Mill (The Great Rock ‘N’
Roll Swindle) and his early work here impresses. The shorts are also 1080p 1.33 X 1, from
filmed elements and transferred from the best materials available.
The PCM
2.0 48/24 Mono is not bad for its age, likely coming from optical monophonic
elements, but can sound good and other times sound a little limited. This was not as compressed as it could have
been and the audio survived better than usual, including the score by the band
Audience that may exist in stereo. Too
bad those elements were not available for this Blu-ray. The DVD is in Dolby Digital 2.0 320 kbps 320
Mono.
Extras
include the PAL DVD, a booklet inside the case with text that includes
technical information, stills and poster art with essays by Ian O’Sullivan,
Sarah MacGregor, Nigel Andrews and biography/filmography on Platts-Mills by
Shona Barrett, who produced this disc, while the Blu-ray adds Platts-Mills’
1968 documentary film on theater director Joan Littlewood called Everybody’s An Actor, Shakespeare Said
(30 minutes), a Littlewood interview from the same year (21 minutes) and Eric
Marquis’ 1975 short film Seven Green Bottles about seven juvenile delinquents,
played by non-professional actors.
You can
order this Blu-ray/DVD release at this link:
http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_17404.html
- Nicholas Sheffo
