The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

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General		Extras
Category	Fantasy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1970
Running Time	88:36
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Basil Dearden
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Roger Moore Hildegarde Neil Alastair MacKenzie Hugh Mackenzie Kevork Malikyan Thorley Walters Anton Rodgers Olga Georges-Picot Freddie Jones John Welsh Edward Chapman Laurence Hardy Charles Lloyd Pack
Case	?
RPI	$14.95	Music	Michael J. Lewis

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.66:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Harold Pelham (Roger Moore) is a director of a shipping and maritime company. He has a wife (Hildegard Neil) and two boys, lives in a quiet house, wears the same tie every day, dresses in conservative clothing, and drives a functional but unimpressive car, which he never drives over the speed limit. One day on the way home, his expression changes. He loosens his seat belt and starts speeding, imagining he is in a flashy sports car. In attempting to overtake a slower vehicle, he crashes into a construction site.

    Cut to the hospital, where a semi-conscious Pelham is wheeled into the operating theatre. During the operation, his heart stops. Working frantically, the surgeons revive him. The electrocardiogram machine seems to malfunction, as it shows two heartbeats instead of one.

    Weeks later, Pelham has fully recovered and returns to work. But strange things start to happen. People are adamant that they have seen him the week before, when he was on holiday in Spain. Someone appears to be impersonating him, including taking a photographer mistress (Olga Georges-Picot). Is he going mad? Is someone impersonating him, or does he have a doppelganger?

    A lot of critics seem to think that this is one of Roger Moore's best performances, and I am inclined to agree with them. Rather than his usual acting technique, which revolves around the elevation of his left eyebrow, Moore develops the main character from a rather staid and unemotional chap to a nervous wreck. He is not always convincing, but he does show a greater range than you would have thought possible from his James Bond role.

    This was director Basil Dearden's final film. In one of those bizarre twists that come along every so often, the year after this film was released he was killed in a car crash. His direction is striking in some scenes, particularly with odd camera angles. When Pelham consults a psychiatrist (played with his usual eccentricity by Freddie Jones), Dearden has Pelham sitting on a swivel chair while the psychiatrist walks around him in a continuous circle, turning his chair every so often. Dearden films this from a low angle, following the movement of the psychiatrist, which gives a striking effect.

    This is not a particularly exciting film. In fact, there are long boring stretches. The pacing seems a little off, and the editing is choppy, which upsets the rhythm of the film. The storyline is also padded out with unnecessary exposition, so that it seems longer than its 88 minutes. The film was based on a short story which was also the basis for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and probably this would have worked better if the running time was shorter.

    Still, if you are a disciple of Roger Moore, or want to see something a little different, this film is worth at least one viewing.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. I am not sure that this is the original aspect ratio. Most British films of this period were shot in 1.66:1, and this film has the look of being cropped. Some of the close-ups look too close, and there are numerous occasions where the tops of actors heads are cut off.

    The film is reasonably sharp and looks good for its age. Shadow detail is not very good though. Most of the cast wear dark suits, and you can rarely see any detail unless the clothes are directly lit. Roger Moore is usually wearing a dark pinstriped suit, but most of the time you cannot see the stripes. It is the same with the striped tie he wears throughout most of the film.

    The colour of the film is quite good, with some bright colours faithfully rendered and with no evidence of colour bleeding. Flesh tones also look accurate. Blacks are very dark, though there is some low level noise present.

    Film to video artefacts are prevalent, unfortunately. Aliasing is present throughout, though it is very mild and limited to car grilles, door frames and patterned drapes. Motion blurring occurs throughout. This means that even when you can see the pinstripes on Moore's suit, if he moves the stripes disappear. I only noticed this later in the film, which suggests that the effect is not extreme. There is also some chroma noise present in many scenes, most noticeably at 42:15. There are some flecks from time to time, but otherwise there are no noticeable film artefacts.

    The film is presented on a single layered disc with no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The single audio track is English Dolby Digital 2.0, though it appears to be a mono mix and there is no surround encoding.

    The audio track is functional, with dialogue clear and sound effects distinct. The mono sound is of course restricted in dynamic range, without any great depth of body, but it does the job.

    The music score is by Michael J. Lewis. I found this score to be quite poor for the most part. The theme music is banal. The music sounds like standard background music as used on thousands of TV shows of the era.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    No extras are provided, which is disappointing compared to the Region 1 release.

    This film has been released on DVD in Region 1 by Anchor Bay. In comparison to the Region 1, the Region 4 misses out on:

• audio commentary with Roger Moore and co-producer/co-writer Bryan Forbes, moderated by Jonathan Sothcott.
• theatrical trailer
• Roger Moore biography

    The Region 1 misses out on nothing in comparison.

    Reviews suggest that the transfer is much the same as the Region 4, so this is a clear winner for Region 1.

    A fairly boring film for the most part, this does have one of Roger Moore's best performances.

    The video quality is about average.

    The audio quality is reasonable.

    No extras are provided.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall