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The Riddle Of The Sands [1979]
![The Riddle Of The Sands [1979]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ts8u3kOXL._SL160_.jpg)
RRP: £4.99
Our Price: £4.93 (subject to change)
I know the movie is good, what about the DVD?
Review date: 2008-01-27 Rating: 8 out of 10
All the reviews here are of the movie. They could apply to the VHS tape as easily as the DVD. What about the DVD? Are the video and audio quality better than a VHS tape? Is it good enough to justify paying to ship the DVD outside of the UK to replace a tape (since it is not available here on DVD)?
Update: I took a chance and ordered the DVD. The video and audio quality are certainly better than a VHS tape, but it is also hardly up to current standards for DVD. The audio is only stereo. A 5.1 audio mix would have made the atmospheric sound and the excellent music score even more vivid. Amazon.uk describes the video as 4:3 aspect ratio, which is technically correct, but what the disc actually presents is the 2.35:1 original aspect ratio in a 4:3 letterbox format. It is a disgrace that the video is not a widescreen anamorphic presentation. This obsolete format does not do the movie justice.
Still, with it's faults, and they are considerable, I'd still recommend this DVD for the quality of the movie and for the best video and audio available, even though it should have been better.
Similar Products
- The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service (Penguin Popular Classics)
- The 39 Steps [1978]
- Hannay - The Complete Series [2006]
- Kidnapped [1971]
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Reviews
Quite Beautiful
Review date: 2007-11-22 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is a wonderfully atmospheric film that deserves wider recognition. It's plot is engagingly simple and of it's time. But to regard it as simplistic is to miss the point. Two dashing Englishmen putting one over on the overstuffed, evil Germans. The locations are stunning and if you don't find the locations captivating you have no soul. I watch this film as a treat every time I want to slow down and work out what is actually important in life. Theraputic and simply wonderful
Really good exciting film!
Review date: 2007-10-05 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is a perfect Sunday afternoon film.
Great story, good cast.
Just perfect.
Beautiful, but...
Review date: 2007-04-30 Rating: 4 out of 10
Erskine Childers' 1903 novel The Riddle of the Sands may have given birth to the modern spy story, but cinematically it's a non-starter and was filmed at least forty years too late. Much of what made the novel so thrilling and controversial is either uncinematic (navigating hidden sandbanks and crosscurrents just doesn't photograph) or old hat (gee, the Germans were planning a war?), and so it proves in Tony Maylam's handsome adaptation. Michael York (reunited with his Logan's Run co-star Jenny Agutter in one of her few 70s films not to require nudity) and Simon MacCorkindale may be ideally cast as turn of the century Oxford chaps messing about in the river in the Frisian Islands, but they're not exactly oozing screen chemistry even if they can almost get away with lines like "Chuck it Carruthers" or "People just don't behave like that - not even Germans!" Worse, there's absolutely no sense of threat or momentum, with much of the action recounted in flashback or, in the final collision, apparently missed by the camera.
On the plus side, Christopher Challis' scope photography is lovely and Howard Blake's score is hauntingly beautiful, but it's all too cosy to hold the interest for an hour and three quarters. One of the Rank's last pictures, it's hard to dislike but equally hard to find engaging. This is one that really needed to have been made in 1939, not 1979.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Simon MacCorkindale
Alan Badel
Jenny Agutter
Michael York
Jürgen Andersen
Creators:
Michael York (Primary Contributor)
Jenny Agutter (Primary Contributor)
Christopher Challis (Cinematographer)
Tony Maylam (Writer)
Peter Hollywood (Editor)
Drummond Challis (Producer)
Erskine Childers (Writer)
John Bailey (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: ITV DVD
Manufacturer: ITV DVD
EAN: 5037115237538
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2007-01-15
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Audience rating: Universal, suitable for all
Region code: 2
Running time: 98 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1979
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: German (Original Language)