Fulvue Drive-In.com
Current Reviews
In Stores Soon
 
In Stores Now
 
DVD Reviews, SACD Reviews Essays Interviews Contact Us Meet the Staff
An Explanation of Our Rating System Search  
Category:    Home > Reviews > Crime > Comedy > Medical > Drama > Domestic Abuse > Australia > Action > Adventure > Spy > British > Bones: The Flesh & Bones Collection (aka Complete Series/2005 - 2017/Fox DVD Box Set)/The Removalists (1975/Umbrella Region Free PAL Import DVD)/The Saint Double Feature w/Hugh Sinclair: The Saint's V

Bones: The Flesh & Bones Collection (aka Complete Series/2005 - 2017/Fox DVD Box Set)/The Removalists (1975/Umbrella Region Free PAL Import DVD)/The Saint Double Feature w/Hugh Sinclair: The Saint's Vacation/The Saint Meets The Tiger (1941/RKO/Republic/Warner Archive DVD)



Picture: C+/C/C Sound: C+/C+/C Extras: B-/C-/D Main Programs: C+



PLEASE NOTE: The Saint DVD is now only available online and can be ordered from our friends at Movie Zyng via the order button atop this review or on top of our right hand sidebar, while The Removalists Import DVD is now only available from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment in Australia, can only play on DVD and Blu-ray players that can handle the PAL DVD format and can be ordered from the link below.



Here's a new set of thriller dramas for you to know about....



Bones: The Flesh & Bones Collection (aka The Complete Series) is a nicely boxed set of all 12 seasons of the 'I-cannot-believe-it-ran-that-long' hit show (like Supernatural, for instance) with Emily Deschanel as the title investigator, though the name exceeds her and covers her situation and Angel/Buffy veteran David Boreanaz as Booth by her side each week. We have had three of our writers cover various seasons over the years and here is that coverage...


One DVD set

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4754/Bones+%E2%80%93+Season+One


Two DVD set

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6006/BONES+%E2%80%93+Season+Two


Six Blu-ray set

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11249/Beware+(2011/Maya+DVD)/Bones+%E2%80%93


Eight Blu-ray set

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12394/Bones:+The+Complete+Eighth+Season+(2012


Twelve DVD set

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14973/Bones:+The+Final+Chapter+-+Season+12+(2016



Not a big fan of the show, but neither were my colleagues, yet for what did work, it took the show a while to get started, then it peaked in the middle and dropped off quality-wise very quickly into a for-fans-only affair. The leads have some chemistry, but this always plays like a wanna-be imitator of the more successful likes of The X-Files or Hart To Hart. However, only fans would want to take on this set, unless you're doing deep research on the show for some reason.


Extras in this big boxed packaging include audio commentary tracks on select shows throughout the seasons and Gag Reels on most seasons, while each season adds at least one Behind The Scenes/Making Of featurette to be seen after watching that applicable season.



Tom Jeffrey's film adaptation of David Williamson's play The Removalists (1975) is not bad, though it has some limits in still playing like a filmed stage piece via too much time indoors. Still, the story of how a cynical older cop (John Hargreaves) and younger new cop mess up a volatile situation of a young woman (Jacki Weaver) accusing her husband of abuse, which they act on with no evidence gets more complicated when they get the title man (Chris Haywood) to help throw the suspect out of his house by storing his property 'temporarily' until his legal woes are settled.


The film is about a very serious thing, but is also trying to be darkly comic, though is not successful as a dark comedy, especially as that does not gel with domestic abuse whatsoever. If we take the film as politically incorrect, then it fails and is a dated relic, but the actors are good and this is a drama that serves a both a time capsule of sorts and holds its own as a raw piece of Australian Cinema of the time. In all this, it is definitely worth a look, so its good Umbrella Entertainment has issued is as a Region Free PAL Import DVD.


Trailers are the only extras.



The Saint Double Feature w/Hugh Sinclair is a decent set of B-movie actioners featuring the last new actor to play troubleshooter Simon Templar before Roger Moore made a huge hit of him in the 1960s on TV worldwide. Sinclair is a solid choice for the role in the last RKO film in their original series, The Saint's Vacation (1941), which has friends, the press and enemies alike trying to figure out where is off too before getting involved in another caper (RKO abandoned the series for The Falcon, which was cheaper to license, but Saint creator Leslie Charteris successfully sued over the switch) and then Sinclair returned for The Saint Meets The Tiger later that year at Republic Pictures from the very first Saint novel. That studio was hoping to pick up the series to be a kind of money machine, buy it did not work out.


Warner Archive has issued both on a single DVD and they are definitely worth your time, whether you've seen the other films, Roger Moore TV series, Ian Ogilvy TV revival or even heard the Vincent Price hit radio series. Pre-James Bond, the studios took this property seriously and did what they could to bring it to life, especially as the books continued to sell, along with comic books and the like. A shame RKO did not continue with Sinclair or he might have has the longest run with Templar there.


There are sadly no extras, but we have covered every film and TV adaptation of Simon Templar we could get our hands on, and then some, so you can look it up through out search engine or start with the link to the George Sanders Warner Archive DVDs at this link...


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12412/All+Hallow's+Eve+(2013/Image+DVD)/Bounty+Kill



The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Bones DVDs look good for the format, but they looked better on Blu-ray, with the first four seasons shot on 35mm Kodak Vision-series color negative film stocks, then HD for the remaining seasons, extending the show visually by default (though they never got to use Vision 3 film to their detriment) and it is just fine for what we get. The look is nothing memorable to me, but it is at least consistent.


It is also the best performer on the list, but that is only because the 1.33 X 1 color image on Removalists (which can reveal good color at times) and the 1.33 X 1 black & white transfers of the two Saint films are on the soft side, have some damage and could use restoration upgrades. Look and atmosphere-wise, they look as good as anything in Bones. They are watchable, but I know they can look better, maybe for Blu-ray as well?


As for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Bones DVD box episodes are about even with each other and sound the best here as expected for a recent recording, but they sounded better lossless on Blu-ray. All three films on DVD are here in lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, but they have flaws, hiss and sound a generation down. You can hear them just clearly enough, but be careful of high playback volumes or volume switching.



To order The Removalists Umbrella import DVD, go to this link:


http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/



- Nicholas Sheffo


Marketplace


 
 Copyright © MMIII through MMX fulvuedrive-in.com