Extras : Interactive menus, 'Facts and Figures', Trailer for DVD 'Cool
Spies and Private Eyes' from Carlton, Picture of original ITC brochure cover
Word up.
Carlton DVD is unleashing a torrent of budget 60's "classics" onto the Region
2 market. The likes of "The Champions", "Danger Man" and "Jason King" are even
now nestling on the impersonal shelves of your local Virgin Megastore. I must
admit to being partial to this kind of thing, and my favourite has to be
'The Saint', starring acting hero Roger Moore.
(DVDfever Ed:"I was more of the Ian Ogilvy era" :)
So, what do you get for your £10? Well, you get the first two episodes
of 'The Saint' in black and white. The picture is at least as sharp and clear
as broadcast standard and the sound is in digital mono. You get chaptering, a
few facts and figures and a picture of a brochure with Mr Moore's handsome
mug on it.
Is your cash worth the 96 minutes on offer? Actually, yes, if you're into
this sort of thing.
'The Saint' is essentially a gentleman adventurer to whom things happen,
weekly. Leslie Charteris created the character in the 1920's, when gentleman
adventurers were two-a-penny. When the Bond-inspired craze for modern day gent
adventurers arrived in the early 60's, the Saint was resurrected for
television.
In the first episode of this DVD, the Saint/Roger Moore explains why he is a
handsome righter-of-wrongs: "It's very simple, I don't like being a cog in
the machine. Being one of the millions of ants that devour the dragon is all
very noble- but, it's not half as much fun as being St. George, is it?"
Hang on, I hear you say, do ants devour dragons? Anyway, you get his drift -
it's all very simple stuff. Like the portly Edward Woodward in 'The
Equaliser', Roger Moore is a modern-day St. George, slaying
two-dimensional dragons.
The plots are simple. In episode 1, 'The Talented Husband' the Saint
investigates failed thespian John Clarron in a sleepy English village. In
episode 2, while taking a holiday in Rome, a blazered Moore bargains for the
release of a kidnapped American girl. It's all simple, cartoonish hokum, set
in a studio-bound 60's, but then that's the fun, isn't it?
The picture and sound are at least comparable to broadcast standard - the
sound being the original mono - and if you take my advice you'll take
advantage of Virgin's "two for £15" at once, and enter a kind of
Cult TV paradise.
Extras :
Chapters :
8 Chapters for both episodes.
Languages/Subtitles :
English for hearing impaired.
And there's more... :
Bloody crikey! Carlton DVD actually has some extras shocker! Well, there are
two pages of text, one of which has a few facts. Then there's a picture of an
ITC brochure and a trailer for Carlton's 'Cool spies and private eyes'.
Hmmm. At least it's a step forward from the lazy bastards at Carlton DVD.
Menu :
A static menu with two animated televisions showing excerpts from the
episodes. Not bad 007, er... I mean Mr Templar.
Overall, if you're a Roger Moore completist or the campy spy television
sixties thing is your bag, then buy it, baby.
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
