Conduct Unbecoming (1975)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1975
Running Time	102:35
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Michael Anderson
Studio Distributor	British Lion Films Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Michael York Richard Attenborough Trevor Howard Stacy Keach Christopher Plummer Susannah York James Faulkner Michael Culver James Donald Rafiq Anwar Helen Cherry Michael Fleming David Robb
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Stanley Myers

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.75:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Conduct Unbecoming is adapted from a stage play by Barry England. This film version from the mid-1970s has a stellar cast bringing this story of the English Raj to life.

    The locale is a border outpost in India during the 19th Century. Two new officers, Drake (Michael York) and Millington (James Faulkner) arrive to join the regiment. As new officers,  they are not to speak to the senior officers unless spoken to. Drake is young, naive and determined to uphold the regimental values. Millington is more worldly and an unwilling recruit - he wants to get out of the regiment as soon as possible.

    On arrival, the senior subaltern acquaints them with the rules, and warns them about Mrs Scarlett. Mrs Scarlett (Susannah York) is the widow of Captain Scarlett (no Gerry Anderson jokes please) who was killed during a border skirmish. Now she is somewhat generous with her favours. Millington sees an opportunity to get himself dismissed from the regiment.

    At a soiree, Mrs Scarlett is assaulted and accuses Millington as the perpetrator. The officers decide to avoid a public court-martial and instead hold a subaltern's court-martial in secret. Millington chooses the reluctant Drake as his defence counsel. A number of surprises are in store for all concerned.

    The cast assembled for this film is very good. The Colonel is played by a ruddy-faced Trevor Howard, and his wife by his real life spouse Helen Cherry. Christopher Plummer, Richard Attenborough, Stacy Keach and James Donald appear as the other officers. Keach does a reasonable job of hiding his American accent. The director is the veteran Briton Michael Anderson, who does a pretty good job with the sort of material he used to work with before he became a big budget film director in Hollywood after the success of Around The World in Eighty Days.

    I have not seen the stage play, so I do not know how faithful the film adaptation is, but from what I have found in my researches the play went more deeply and critically into the "old boys" attitudes it portrays. "A gentleman does not question the honour of another gentleman", as the Colonel remarks with unintended irony. The story is fairly predictable; I had seen the film before about 25 years ago and had only a dim recollection of the plot, but it all seems to fall into place quickly. You can see the twists coming although there are enough red herrings to keep you guessing about the outcome. This is the sort of film that provides 100 minutes of easily digested entertainment, but it is best not to think too much about it afterwards.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The original aspect ratio seems to have been 1.75:1.

    The transfer is grainy but reasonably sharp. Shadow detail is quite good, though not much of the film is anything other than well lit.

    The colour saturation seems a little too much on this transfer. The uniforms of the officers are far too red and look as if they are about to leak out all over the screen. Otherwise the colour is reasonable, with flesh tones looking realistic.

    There is some edge enhancement throughout, though the consequent haloes around objects are thin. Most of the time this would not be noticeable unless you were specifically looking for it, a couple of the more noticeable examples being at 72:30 and 76:00. There is some severe telecine wobble a couple of times during the film, at 31:00 and 80:00, and this is quite distracting.

    There were numerous small nicks and marks on the print used for the transfer, with some dirt also present.

    The film is presented on a single layered disc without 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 and does not have any surround encoding.

    Dialogue is clear and easy to understand throughout, provided you have the volume turned up. Most of the film was shot indoors in a studio, and being a dialogue-driven film, there is little in the way of extraneous noise and there are no poorly recorded sections. Audio sync is very good. The only problem I have with the sound is that there is a high level of hiss present, which becomes more noticeable in some sequences, such as at 50:45 and 53:25. This is exacerbated by the audio being transferred at a relatively low level.

    The score is by Stanley Myers, and as usual with Myers the music is appropriate and well-integrated into the film. Apart from the opening theme, I did not notice much of the score, which is generally a good thing.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    No extras are provided.

    As far as I can tell, this film has not been released on DVD in any other region.

    A reasonable film version of a stage play, this might be worth a look.

    The video quality is average.

    The audio quality is slightly below average.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall