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The Chairman [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
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Our Price: £9.24 (subject to change)
Opportunity, oppression and an explosive opportunity
Review date: 2007-01-15 Rating: 10 out of 10
We are in the middle of the cold war. Too bad because we ar also victims of increasing population and decreasing farmland.
Looks like Professor Soong Li (Keye Luke, of Charlie Chan fame) has invented an enzyme to produce extra cheap food. Unfortunately he is behind the iron curtain in Red China. The formula cannot come out so someone capable of understanding it must go in; Dr. John Hathaway (Gregory Peck) a scientist with scruples.
Naturedly incase he can not get out they fitted his head with a micro-transmitter so he could relay the formula. They seem to have forgotten to tell him the transmitter was also a bomb large enough to take out anyone standing near.
We see how ruthless and conniving the red's are and how they humiliate Soong Li for being a professor.
Should we take revenge and a perfect opportunity as Dr. John Hathaway stands next to the Chairman (Conrad Yama?)
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Reviews
Not exactly a bomb but certainly no classic
Review date: 2006-12-12 Rating: 6 out of 10
The Chairman (aka The Most Dangerous Man in the World) starts off with an amazing photomontage title sequence by Paul Brown Constable dealing with overpopulation and the rise of the Red Guard in Mao's China accompanied by the increasingly strident tones of Jerry Goldsmith's superb score that sets the scene for a much better film than you get. Any hope of a serious political thriller is quickly lost as soon as Arthur Hill's cycloptic general turns up and it turns out the bug implanted in Gregory Peck's skull is also a bomb. What you get instead is a fairly glossy, fashionably cynical shot-on-location thriller that briefly touches on humanistic issues in a couple of scenes before getting back to the spy stuff that's neither James Bond nor John Le Carre but pure Hollywood hokum in the 60s mould. Ironically, although the producers harboured the notion of filming in China in a monumental fit of delusion, it was the Hong Kong and Taiwanese authorities that really objected to the subject matter (as either too defamatory or deferential to Mao as the prevailing mood would have it). J. Lee Thompson's direction is occasionally visually ambitious, but seems to have suffered in the editing, with several very obvious edits to alternate takes interrupting what were clearly intended as continuous camera moves. It's a shame that Fox's DVD is the US version, relegating the racier scenes to the extra features - who'd have thought there'd ever be a movie with Gregory Peck having his trousers undone by a naked woman on her knees?
Fox have done an excellent job on the Region 1 NTSC DVD - aside from a good 2.35:1 transfer and trailer, it also includes two alternate scenes and a 17-minute promotional cutdown of the feature (clearly put together before the climax was shot and featuring Burt Kwouk's own voice - in the feature he's dubbed by Robert Rietty) that includes some deleted footage. There's also a historical audio commentary that could have benefitted from a little more time in the archives and a selection of trailers for other recent Fox titles such as The Quiller Memorandum, the Flint films and Deadfall.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Gregory Peck
Alan Dobie
Conrad Yama
Arthur Hill
Anne Heywood
Creators:
Gregory Peck (Primary Contributor)
Anne Heywood (Primary Contributor)
John Wilcox (Cinematographer)
Ted Moore (Cinematographer)
Arthur P. Jacobs (Producer)
Mort Abrahams (Producer)
Pepi Lenzi (Producer)
Ben Maddow (Writer)
Jay Richard Kennedy (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
EAN: 0024543381327
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Colour, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC,
Release date: 2006-11-07
Universal product code (UPC): 024543381327
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 93 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1969
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)
Language: French (Subtitled)
Language: English (Dubbed)
Language: French (Dubbed)
Language: Spanish (Dubbed)