The film was shot in black and white and as well as many print flecks and
scratches, the picture is not anamorphic which is a shame, the widescreen
ratio being the original 1.85:1.
The average bitrate is 6.79Mb/s, often peaking over 8Mb/s.
The sound is basic mono. It's not at all outstanding, but then doesn't get
much chance to shine anyway.
Extras :
These consist of a near-two-minute Theatrical Trailer, eight minutes
of Interviews with Frank Sinatra, George Axelrod and John
Frankenheimer, or rather back-slapping discussions between the three,
mixed in with film clips, plus a feature-length Director's Commentary.
MGM DVDs usually contain 32 chapters, but this one only has 24. It's a decent
enough number though, given the running time. The main menu has subtle
animation and music.
Dialogue comes in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Italian.
Subtitles in 11: English (and hard of hearing), French, Italian, Spanish,
Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese and Polish.
This film appeared to set out with an enigmatic premise, but actually turned
out to be quite drawn out and boring until the last half-hour. The lack of
many extras nor an anamorphic transfer lead me to suggest a rental only if
you must watch it.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
