Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Still runs rings around the junk they turn out today!, 13 Feb 2008
I was always reluctant to take the plunge and buy this DVD after reading a review of it on, if I remember correctly, DVD Savant, that mentioned an annoying flaw in the centre of the image throughout the film. The result of a faulty DVD transfer. Well, I decided that this probably only applied to the Region 1 disc and not to the Region 2 disc, as there is no mention of this fault in the DVD Times review, nor on the customer reviews here on amazon uk. So I bought it off amazon uk and it arrived this morning.
Well, as I suspected, there's nothing wrong with it, save for being a little unnecessarily cropped. The print used was a well preserved 35mm exhibition print. You can tell that by the queu marks at the end of each reel. The top quarter of the queu marks are cropped off. This is also quite obviously a British print, as the credits read "Colour by Technicolor", instead of the "Color by Technicolor" used on US prints. In fact, this is the same print as used by the BBC on a number of occasions.
I'm quite happy with the DVD, although the trailer included seems more like a teaser trailer to me than what would have been the regular trailer shown in cinemas the week prior to the film's screening. Oddly, there are no scenes or dialogue from the film, only lack lustre black line drawings on a dark red background. I don't think this was the main trailer for the film, but perhaps it was the only one they could get.
As for "THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION" itself, it's fifty years ago now since I went to see it at the now long gone Alhambra cinema here in Stoke-on-Trent in March, 1958. I had already bought the Movie Classic comic of the film and was determined to go to see it. I was ten, going on eleven at the time and thought it was very impressive and that the music was fantastic (I'm lucky enough to have the soundtrack LP). Such a pity that I will never again be able to see it on a big screen in a proper cinema. None of these modern box-like multiplexes could do it justice. It runs rings around what they churn out today. The colours are bright and vibrant, while today's colour films are all yellowy-brown and miserable looking. The cinema has definitely lost the knack of making good films since the days when The Pride and The Passion was made.
Today, the spectacular shot of the real, seven ton, runaway cannon crashing down a Spanish hillside, snapping off full grown trees in its path as though they were matchsticks, would probably be achieved using CGI. But here, you know that this is a real effect using a real seven ton cannon and not one worked out in a laboratory.
I give it four stars out of five. I knock one star off for the day for night scenes of the attack on the French camp and pontoon bridge. The flaming balls of hay rolling down the hillside would have looked far more impressive filmed at night, where they would have lit up the screen, instead of being filmed in bright sunlight with a dark blue filter over the lens.
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5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Reminds me of El Cid, 16 April 2005
Maybe this reminds me of El Cid because they are similar stories with Sophia Loren in both.
Based on a novel by C.S. Forester, a shoemaker (Frank Sinatra) and a misaligned woman who has a tendency to sleep with anyone (Sophia Loren) get their hands on a big gun. They are loaned a Captain from the English military (Cary Grant) to help point and shoot the gun at the bad guys. In this case the bad buys are French that occupy Spain. Through the movie the woman bounces back and forth between these two gentlemen each with his strengths and weakness.
C.S. Forester must have never been in the military as both sides in the conflict make the most stupid blunders. Come to think about it C.S. Forester must never have been in love and this ménage a trios make the most stupid blunders. Actually Forester did write a few good books as "The African Queen," Not as good as the movie.
Mean time back at the ranch the bad guys (French occupiers) run around like a chicken with its head rung off. The good guys (Spanish) with the help of local peasants intend to blow up a fort held by the French.
Will they succeed or be cut off at the pass?
Can anyone help Frank Sinatra get over that horrible accent?
The African Queen [1951]
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2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Pride and the Passion of owning this dvd, 11 Jan 2007
This film is extremley underated 3 stars it has been given on amazon and 2 stars by whats on TV magazine.
It should be a 5 star film and it looks like becuase someone said this was rubbish when it came out and people are jumping on the band wagon the same as deer hunter if it neer got such critical praise it wouldnt be so great would it.
The story is nice and simple.
Carry Grant potrays an english soldjear very well and frank sinatra has a spanish accent which he loses from time to time but all in all a briilaint film.
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