Shout At The Devil (1976/Umbrella Entertainment DVD/Region Zero/0/PAL
Format)
Picture: C Sound: C Extras: C- Film: C+
PLEASE NOTE: This DVD can only be operated on
machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Zero/0/PAL format
software, and can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the
website address provided at the end of the review.
After the unfortunate commercial failure of the great James Bond
film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,
Peter Hunt kept trying to have another big hit and his ambitions led to some
very interesting filmmaking. This
included several films with Roger Moore in the early years of his James Bond
tenure. Besides the interesting Gold, they made Shout At The Devil (1976) with Lee Marvin as a drunk who is living
up the Colonial life in Mozambique doing poaching on the side. When a visiting Englishman (Moore, between
the production of The Man With The
Golden Gun and The Spy Who Loved Me)
shows up, he shakes up everything, including falling fore the man’s daughter.
They
don’t like each other very much, but things are about to get much worse when the
German Navy, hell bent for power, show up with plans to win the upcoming Great
War. Unfortunately for them, they are
about to get in the way of the conflict already in action and all hell is about
to break loose.
What I
did like about the film was its attempt to do a comparatively modern version of
what we have seen in 1930s British cinema of Colonial adventures, the kind Raiders Of The Lost Ark would revise
with the most fun. However, despite its
comedy, this is a far more mature, adult approach and Moore is particularly
able to shed bond effectively. Sadly,
this is the short 114 minutes cut of the film versus the original 144 – 147
minutes, which I would be happy to screen if it made the film any better. You can see the hard work here and if you
even watch the Bonds often, see the immense amount of behind-the-scenes talent
involved. If you have never seen it,
this copy is serviceable, but the film deserves much more and someone will
hopefully give it its due. Barbara
Parkins, Ian Holm, Maurice Denham, Bernard Horsfall, Jean Kent and Renu Setna
also star.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is weak, looks like it is a digital generation
down, lacks detail, depth, has some haloing, problematic color and is just not
what this film should look like. This
was shot in real anamorphic Panavision by Michael Reed, B.S.C., (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, McKenzie Break, Z.P.G.) and some British prints may have been three-strip
Technicolor. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
is also a few generations down and if the dialogue does not indicate that, you
can hear it in how weak the decent Maurice Jarre score is. The film needs a restoration project and
maybe Jarre’s original score is in stereo or enough tracks exist that it could
be upgraded as such.
Extras
only include a trailer for this and four other Umbrella DVD releases, despite
the fact that more extras can be found on another version of the film, though
we doubt the playback is much better.
As noted
above, you can order this import exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
- Nicholas Sheffo
