Clockwise (1985)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer-1:22
Rating
Year Of Production	1985
Running Time	92:06
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Christopher Morahan
Studio Distributor	Thorn EMI Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	John Cleese Penelope Wilton Alison Steadman Stephen Moore Joan Hickson Benjamin Whitrow Geoffrey Palmer Michael Aldridge Sharon Maiden
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	George Fenton

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

It's not the despair; I can stand the despair. It's the hope!

    Mr Stimson (John Cleese) is happy. It's not too easy to tell, because he is a strict authoritarian, but he really is happy. He is headmaster of a smallish high school (called a "comprehensive" in another example of that dialect that is British Education — the strange dialect that calls a private school "a Public School"). He is very well organised, with timetables and schedules adorning the walls of his office. His office is placed to give him an excellent view of the school yard, and he uses binoculars to keep a sharp eye on everything, and the public address system to administer instant rebukes. He is strict, but clearly not disliked, because he can make a joke at school assembly and get a genuine laugh from the students. He knows the names of the students, and their failings, a sign of a good headmaster. His primary obsession is time and most particularly being on time. Punctuality is almost the only virtue he recognises.

    He is happy because he has just been made the chairman of the Headmasters Conference, a prestigious organisation mostly comprised of the headmasters of the elite schools of the land, schools like Eton, Harrow, and Winchester. He is the first headmaster of a government school to get the honour, and he is acutely aware of how big an honour it is. He has written a suitable speech, and has organised a perfect itinerary to get himself to Norwich (a matter of 163 miles away) in perfect time. He is quite an intelligent man, and has allowed for mishaps — he even insists that his wife park the car in case the train isn't running. Unfortunately, he lets himself be momentarily distracted by the sight of two truant students, and consequently gets on the wrong train. It is at this moment that his tightly-scheduled well-organised life starts to unravel.

    Mr Stimson is about to be afflicted by Murphy's Law in the extreme. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, in the worst possible way.

    Mr Stimson is not like Basil Fawlty — he's an intelligent man, and quite reasonable; his only flaw is a tendency to say "right" instead of "OK" while giving directions. He does reasonable, logical things, but today they all turn out wrong. As his life disintegrates, he gets more and more distraught, more impatient, more irritable, and starts to resemble Basil. It's quite understandable how he changes during the course of the film.

    This film was made in 1985, prior to the spread of mobile phones, which explains some of the problems they have — it's interesting how much difference mobile phones have made.

    A good deal of what happens is basically a set up for the ending, but it's still entertaining. In the end, this is an old-fashioned farce, and quite a good one, too. There are some big laughs in the climax of this film. Recommended for a time when you want something amusing, but not a big brain strain.

Video

    This transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. That's close to the original 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio.

    The image is fairly soft, but clear enough. Shadow detail is not too good, but it's mostly adequate because everything is reasonably well-lit. The softness could be film grain, but it's not easy to judge. There's no low level noise.

    Colour is not consistent, but it looks like this is source material related, rather than a poor master. It looks like some of the outdoor shots (of which there are many) were shot in bright sunshine, yielding good strong colours, and some in overcast conditions, resulting in dull and lifeless colours. There are no specific other colour-related artefacts.

    There are lots of film artefacts of all sorts: a plethora of spots and specks, chips and flecks. There's a nasty white blotch at 38:34; a yellow fleck at 49:34, and a red one at 49:35; and a white thread at 59:32. There are fine vertical scratches at 63:03. These are just the most noticeable artefacts, and the ones I wrote down. The film artefacts are nearly continuous, but most are fairly small.

    There's next to no aliasing, but there's occasional moiré on fabrics. There's some mild background shimmer, but no other MPEG artefacts.

    There are no subtitles, which is a shame.

    The disc is single-sided and single layered. Given the length of the film, and the lack of large extras, the single layer seems adequate.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is only provided in English, so that's what I listened to. It is Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, and it's essentially mono. Later in the piece, there's some light hiss in the sound.

    The dialogue is clear and easy enough to understand. There are no audio sync problems.

    The score comes from George Fenton. It's a nice bit of fun, with occasional sardonic references — better than I'd expected for this relatively low-budget film.

    The surrounds and subwoofer aren't used by this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static and silent.

Theatrical Trailer (1:22)

    This trailer gives away far too much of what happens — definitely not one to watch before seeing the film.

    The Region 1 disc, released earlier this year, looks, initially, quite similar to this one. The transfer is just as soft, with the same issues with colour consistency. However, the Region 1 disc is almost completely free of film artefacts — that's a notable difference. The R1 disc has a couple more extras, too: it has a featurette called Clockwatching with Mr Cleese (13:29), which is quite entertaining; and a lengthy bio for John Cleese (15 pages of bio, 3 pages of filmography).

    All things considered, I think we have to award the platinum cucumber to the Region 1 this time.

    An entertaining farce given a fairly poor transfer to DVD.

    The video quality is fairly poor, but it is still possible to enjoy the film.

    The audio quality is not bad — it's more than adequate for this film.

    The extra is negligible.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall