PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Get Carter (1971)

Get Carter (1971)

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Released 9-Oct-2000

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Thriller Trailer-3
Audio Commentary-M Hodges (Dir), W Suschitzky (DOP) & M Caine (Act)
Listing-Cast & Crew
Isolated Musical Score
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 1971
Running Time 107:01 (Case: 121)
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (65:40) Cast & Crew
Start Up Programme
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Mike Hodges
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Michael Caine
Ian Hendry
John Osborne
Britt Ekland
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI $24.95 Music Roy Budd


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Isolated Music Score Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
Arabic
Romanian
Bulgarian
English for the Hearing Impaired
Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Get Carter starts off with Jack Carter (Michael Caine) talking with his underworld bosses about him going to investigate the death of his brother. It seems that Carter's brother got drunk on whisky and then crashed his car into a ravine. The strange thing is that Carter's brother did not drink whisky. Even after his bosses warn Jack off, he jumps on a train bound for Newcastle where his brother lived and he grew up, to find out who killed his brother.

    He quizzes the people his brother associated with and starts putting the clues together. Unfortunately, you have to be a mind reader to understand what the short, cryptic conversations mean. I was none the wiser until one of the characters spelt it all out for me about fifteen minutes from the end of the film.

    I am surprised that this film does not have a MA 15+ or R rating considering all the nudity in the movie. There isn't anything particularly graphic, just plenty of bare breasts, bottoms and bed scenes, but for the time I'm sure it would have raised quite a few eyebrows. I know it raised mine on a couple of occasions!

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Transfer Quality

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The picture is extremely clear and sharp at all times, with plenty of detail. No low-level noise, edge bleeding or excessive edge enhancement was noticed and the shadow detail was very good.

    The colour amazed me on many occasions. You would hardly think you were looking at a film made in 1971 - its quality puts many films of half its age to shame. Skin tones are natural and never appear washed-out.

    The opening scene suffers from some very noticeable background grain, but fortunately after the opening scene this all but disappears. Following this scene, I only noted four other scenes that suffered from some minor grain. These were at 7:00, 15:22 - 15:29, 27:00 and 63:55.

    No MPEG artefacts were noticed and only one trivial instance of aliasing was seen at 96:13, which was on a car's chrome grille.

    There was a light sprinkling of minor non-disruptive film artefacts throughout the course of this film, with only two slightly larger ones noticed at 18:13 and 26:30. I was surprised at the lack of film artefacts in this film.

    This disc is an RSDL disc with the layer change occurring mid-scene in Chapter 18, at 65:40. There was only a short pause which was not really disruptive to the flow of the movie. It occurs between sentences in one of the dialogue-driven scenes. It is quite well-timed, but I think Warners could have found a better place for the layer change, such as on a scene change.

    Packaging Errors: The running time is incorrectly stated as 121 minutes.

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

Audio

    There are three audio tracks on this disc. The main soundtrack is an English 192kb/s Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack. The other soundtracks are an Isolated Musical Score and an Audio Commentary. Both of these are 192kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtracks. I listened to the default English soundtrack in stereo mode, which gave me the mono soundtrack from both the left and right front speakers. This created the illusion that the sound was still coming from the centre speaker but two speakers delivered the sound instead of just one.

    The dialogue was mainly clear and easy to understand, with only a couple of occasions where it became a little harder to understand. I comfortably listened to the soundtrack 3dB louder than I normally do.

    No audio sync problems were noticed with this transfer, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was no hiss present in the soundtrack.

    Roy Budd's musical score is simple and it certainly dates this movie. I couldn't help laughing at its corniness on a couple of occasions, but this is to be expected from a film of this era.

    Since this was a mono soundtrack the surround channels were silent, however, the subwoofer did receive a light work-out, much to my surprise.

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

Extras

    There is a quite a good selection of extras on this disc.

Menu

    The Menu is 16x9 enhanced, but it lacks the flags to indicate that it is, so it appears full height and stretched on non-16x9 enhanced TVs. The Main Menu selections are; Play Movie, Scene Selections (11 + Credits), Special Features and Languages.

    Note: There are actually 34 chapters on this disc. The scene selections are grouped in threes - i.e. 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and so forth, which is a little inconvenient.

Cast & Crew

    This is just a single page, listing some of the main Cast & Crew members.

Commentary - Mike Hodges (Director), Wolfgang Suschitzky (Cinematographer), and Michael Caine (Actor)

    This commentary features Mike Hodges (Director), Wolfgang Suschitzky (Cinematographer) and Michael Caine (Actor). They appear in both channels speaking over the film's Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack. The commentaries are informative and interesting, with information given about the film itself and about some of the technical aspects of making the film. There are only a few gaps, which are always very short in duration. Mike Hodges has the most to say and Michael Caine has the least to say.

Music Theatrical Trailer (3:41)

    This trailer is of great quality, and is equal to the quality of the movie. It is presented in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.78:1, with a Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack.

International Theatrical Trailer (2:36)

    This trailer is of very good quality, with only some minor grain degrading its quality slightly. It is presented in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.78:1, with a Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack.

Michael Caine Theatrical Trailer (0:50)

    This trailer is of good quality, but it does suffer from some noticeable grain. It is presented in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.78:1, with a Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack.

Isolated Musical Score

    The Isolated Musical Score is a 192kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack. Since the music is really sparse in the movie, this soundtrack is also sparse, with minutes upon minutes of silence.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    None of our regular trusted R1 review sites have reviewed this film, so I was again forced to look elsewhere. The few reviews I did manage to locate were short on transfer quality information and the extras content information was far from concrete. Nonetheless, given that the video quality is so good, and  we appear to have all the extras, I seen no reason not to recommend the R4 version, especially since it will have about 20% more picture resolution and will not suffer from 3:2 pull-down artefacts.

Summary

    I thought Get Carter was an OK film, presented on a surprisingly good DVD.

    The picture quality of this movie is great. It puts many films that are only half its age to shame.

    The audio quality has been flawlessly transferred onto this disc, with no hiss or dropouts. It's a shame that it is only a Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack, but that's what the original theatrical version would have been, so I guess we can't complain too much.

    There is quite a good selection of extras on this disc.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Paul Williams (read Paul's biography)
Sunday, October 15, 2000
Review Equipment
DVDSony DVP-725, using Component output
DisplaySony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationOnkyo TX-SV919THX
SpeakersFronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1)

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