All The Right Noises (1971) + Permissive
(1970/BFI Blu-rays)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C/C+ Extras: C+ Films: C+
PLEASE NOTE: These Blu-rays are only available
in the U.K. from our friends
at BFI (British Film Institute’s home video arm) in the U.K. and can be
ordered from them at the website address links provided below at the end of the
review or at finer
retailers. This is a Region Free Blu-ray
with all extras also in High Definition.
Continuing
their underrated Flipside series, BFI Home Video has issued two more
independent British cinematic gems on Blu-ray that deserve to be know much
better on both sides of the Atlantic.
This time we look at Gerry O’Hara’s All
The Right Noises (1971) and Lindsay Shonteff’s Permissive (1970), two dramas of the time that work like time
capsules, but offer more.
Noises wants to be a sort of subtle,
counterculture Lolita as a married
Tom Bell gets involved with an underage Olivia Hussey (the 1968 hit Romero & Juliet, the original 1974 Black Christmas) with his wife (Judy
Carne, a big hit on TV comedy classic Laugh-In)
not knowing what is going on at first.
Carne does well in serious acting, Hussey was always beautiful & the
camera liked her and Bell
can act. I liked the film, though it was
not great, it is a very competent small film worth rediscovering and O’Hara was
a decent director. Leslie-Anne Down and
Peter Burton also star.
Permissive was sold as a groupies gone wild
kind of counterculture sex film, but it is not that shallow or dumb. Instead, it is one of the more (and few
serious) looks at the phenomenon to date as Suzy (Maggie Stride) gets lost in
the Rock scene after a simple visit to London to see a friend. It becomes a serious-enough study of the
jealousies and tensions of the situation, as well as one of the more honest
look sat it without being exploitive, smug or condescending. Shonteff is usually known for Spy spoofs, but
this is an intelligent alternative, has some interesting editing and it is too
bad he did not make more films like this and less genre work.
The 1080p
digital High Definition image on both films show their age, but have good color
and look good overall, though I would have liked more detail and depth more
often throughout both and color can be limited and inconsistent. O’Hara actually photographed Noises himself, presented here in a
1.33 X 1 frame and some good restoration work has been done, but the original
elements had some flaws they apparently could not fix, but a DVD would not look
as good as this just the same. Permissive is here in a 1.78 X 1 frame,
though some sources are claiming it was a 2.35 X 1 Techniscope film, but that
seems highly unlikely. Color and detail
are also issues here too, yet a DVD would still not look as good and Director
of Photography John C. Taylor (who worked with Shonteff on Clegg and Yes Girls
among many others) delivers a good-looking film that makes you feel you are
there. Both have only one soundtrack, PCM
48/24 2.0 Mono and Noises suffers
from distortion, old recording fidelity issues and other sonic limits that the
cleaning done could not fix. Permissive
sounds better, including in its music score, but I wished for simple stereo as
I got involved watching both.
Extras on
both include thick, essay and illustration-loaded booklets inside the Blu-ray
cases. On the actual discs, Noises has The Spy’s Wife (28
minutes) is an amusing 1972 piece with Tom Bell and an interview (16 minutes)
with Hussey and Leonard Whiting about the film (among other things) from
Bernard Braden’s Now & Then, while
Permissive has its original
theatrical trailer, ‘Ave You Got A Male Assistant Please Miss? (1973, 4-minutes
long) Jon Astley short film, Stanley Long’s Bread (1971, 68 minutes)
about a group of friends trying to stage a musical and silent outtakes from
that later production.
You can
order each at their following respective links:
All The Right Noises
http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_13686.html
Permissive
http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_14957.html
- Nicholas Sheffo
