Fury at Smugglers Bay (1961)

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General		Extras
Category	Adventure	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1961
Running Time	82:14
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	John Gilling
Studio Distributor	Regal Films Icon Entertainment	Starring	Peter Cushing Bernard Lee Michèle Mercier John Fraser William Franklyn George Coulouris Liz Fraser June Thorburn Katherine Kath Maitland Moss Tommy Duggan Christopher Carlos
Case	?
RPI	$14.95	Music	Harold Geller

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.00:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This story takes place in 1789, on the coast of Cornwall where smugglers are everywhere. One particularly nasty group of smugglers led by Black John (Bernard Lee) lure unsuspecting ships to crash on the rocks, whereafter they rob them of their cargo. But Squire Trevenyan (Peter Cushing) seems unable to prove anything against the evildoers. He has little trouble in bringing the merchant Lejeune (George Coulouris) to justice for smuggling, and sentences him to be transported to Australia.

    It is unfortunate news for Lejeune's daughter Louise (Michèle Mercier), who happens to be in love with the Squire's son Chris (John Fraser). Menacing one and all in his charming, merry way is highwayman The Captain (William Franklyn). All of these characters find themselves on a collision course with the redcoats.

    This is a fairly innocuous movie with not a great deal to recommend it. There was a mini revival of pirate movies in the early 1960s, together with the related smuggling mini-genre which is generally set sometime in the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries, and this is one of the latter. It is not dissimilar in some ways to the Hammer film Captain Clegg, which also starred Cushing, made the following year. That movie was a semi-remake of Dr Syn, which Disney also remade a couple of years after this present movie. The whole exercise allows the actors to dress up in olden costumes and race about, bodices in various states of disarray, waving pistols and swords at each other. There is a lot of action in this film (although without much of the bodice stuff) and it has a short running time, but often it feels pedestrian and formulaic.

    Cushing is fine as always, and this film again pairs him with a Lee. It might have been more interesting had it been Christopher rather than Bernard, though the latter can be equally as menacing in his own way. The supporting characters are barely sketched out, the ladies being merely decorative, especially Mercier and the buxom Liz Fraser. Also in the cast is the ill-fated June Thorburn as the Squire's daughter and inveterate scene-stealer Miles Malleson, playing his usual cameo as a doddering old fool, this time in the guise of the Duke of Avon.

    A lot of the film is set outdoors, which does help a lot. While not a Hammer film it looks and plays a lot like one, albeit a lesser one. If you are a fan of Cushing or of the genre you might get something out of it.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.38:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. The film was the first shot in the anamorphic Panascope widescreen process, and the original aspect ratio was actually 2.00:1. I did not notice any scenes where I thought that the framing was tight, but I also did not know about the aspect ratio issue when I watched it. A quick sample shows a couple of close-ups where the tops of heads were missing.

    For casual viewing this is an acceptable transfer, but it has a number of faults. It looks slightly out of focus at times, especially during a scene at 59:44. There is a general softness suggestive of it being a duplicate print. The aspect doesn't always seem right, as if the image was slightly squeezed so that the actors look taller and thinner than they should.

    The colour is also not the best. It is faded and lacking in vibrancy. Some reds are bright but generally it is lacklustre, with flesh tones either a ruddy brown or unnaturally pale. Shadow detail is quite poor, and although nothing serious is lost there is a murkiness to the night scenes, not helped by the day-for-night shooting.

    On the plus side there are not so many film artefacts. There are some occasional flecks, dirt, dust and faint scratches, with one or two minor splice marks.

    Film to video artefacts include aliasing (on the first appearance of the Squire's home) and some Gibb Effect. There is macro-blocking apparent on the crashing waves, noticeable during the scenes of the ships being wrecked. These scenes are obviously taken from another movie which was shot in black and white, but with a bluish tint here. There is some telecine wobble, for example during the opening credits.

    No subtitles are provided, and this is a single-layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio is English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono.

    The audio is good for a film of this vintage. Apart from some stridency in some of the music, and a boxy sound to some of the dialogue, the audio is clean and clear. I had no trouble understanding any of the dialogue. In all this is a good presentation of a mono soundtrack.

    The music by Harold Geller is a little over the top, with the lighter sequences having bouncy, jaunty tunes and the dramatic scenes wildly overdramatic music, in each case hammering the musical point home. He has included much music that sounds idiomatic to the period and the genre, so it works from that perspective.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The menu is static and no extras are included.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    This is also available as a Region 2 release in the UK. By all accounts this new Region 4 release is a direct port of that release.

    A genuine B picture of the early 1960s, not terrible, just ordinary in most respects.

    The video quality is not bad as most of the issues seem to be with the source materials.

    The audio quality is good.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall