Inglorious Bastards (1978)

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General		Extras
Category	War	Interviews-Crew-Quentin Tarantino and Director Enzo G. Castellari Audio Commentary-Director Enzo G. Castellari Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Madman Propaganda
Rating
Year Of Production	1978
Running Time	99:29
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Enzo G. Castellari
Studio Distributor	Capitol Films Madman Entertainment	Starring	Bo Svenson Peter Hooten Fred Williamson Michael Pergolani Jackie Basehart Michel Constantin Debra Berger Raimund Harmstorf Ian Bannen Flavio Andreini Peter Boom Vito Fornari Manfred Freyberger
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$24.95	Music	Francesco De Masi

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    France 1944. When a truck transporting convicted US Army prisoners is attacked by the Germans, 5 soldiers escape and decide to head for neutral Switzerland. In the group are grounded pilot Lieutenant Robert Yeager (Bo Svenson), African American Private Fred Canfield (Fred Williamson), red neck racist and con man Tony (Peter Hooten), scrounger and forger Nick (Michael Pergolani) and coward Berle (Jackie Basehart). As they travel through a “warscape” littered at every turn with destroyed buildings and wrecked and burnt out vehicles, they pick up a German deserter (Raimund Harmstorf) and encounter diverse German troops including patrols, SS soldiers and naked female Germans bathing in a river!

     Their plans for Switzerland are forced to change, however, when they accidentally kill a squad of Americans dressed as Germans and are captured by the French resistance lead by Veronique (Michael Constantin). They learn that the American squad was on a special mission to capture a German train carrying V2 rocket plans and parts, including the gyroscope. In a deal with Colonel Charles Buckner (Ian Bannen) the group take over the mission assisted by the French resistance. Further complications ensue, not least the presence of the beautiful French resistance fighter Nicole (Debra Berger), until the mission reaches its explosive conclusion.

     Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds has nothing in common with Inglorious B******s. The situation, plot and characters are all very different; the only thing that Tarantino lifted was the title! That said, Inglorious B******s is a lot of fun. It is true that the dialogue is trite and the acting basic; there are no nuances here in the performances or anything subtle. It was also a very low budget effort. Some of the model work, such as the explosion at the station, is fairly obvious, matte paintings are frequent and explosions and action shots are used and reused. The resistance attack on the train, for example, repeats one shot four times! However, the film never takes itself seriously and moves along at a frenetic pace with frequent shot outs and explosions until the final train assault. But while there is loads of action and the body count is high, blood is seldom seen.

     So is Inglorious B******s the “original war-sploitation classic” the promotion claims or a film best left forgotten? While not a classic, Inglorious B******s never pretends to be other than an old fashioned entertaining Saturday afternoon B action picture. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Video

    Inglorious B******s is presented in a ratio of 1.85:1, which is the original ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced. For a B film made on a limited budget over 40 years ago it looks pretty good for its age. Except of the psychedelic opening and closing credits, where colour bleed is apparent, the colours are drab and sharpness lacking. Blacks are however good and shadow detail reasonable. There is also grain, minor blemishes and some aliasing but there is nothing that detracts from one’s enjoyment of the film. One has only to look at the trailer to see how bad the film might have looked.

     There are subtitles for the non-English dialogue. However, when selecting “set up” be sure to turn on the English subtitles. If they are off, the non-English dialogue is not subtitled. In the subtitles I noticed no obvious spelling or grammatical errors.

     Lip Synchronisation is occasionally off. On my equipment there was a slight pause for the layer change at 80:34.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Audio is an English mono track at 192 Kbps and an English audio commentary track, also at 192 Kbps. The movie audio sounds as one would expect but it gets the job done in a satisfactory way. The explosions and gun shots are fine, if tame by modern standards, and the dialogue is clear. There is no surround or sub woofer use.

     The music by Francesco De Masi is martial and cheesy and supports well the tone of the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Conversation Between Quentin Tarantino and Director Enzo G. Castellari (38:24 minutes).

Audio Commentary – Director Enzo G. Castellari.

Theatrical Trailer (1:26 minutes).

Madman Propaganda.

    The Region 1 Three Disc Explosive Edition seems to have similar audio and video options and includes the Tarantino conversation and Director’s commentary on the first disc. The second disc has two featurettes. The first, “Train Kept-A-Rolling” (75:21), is a documentary that contains new interviews with just about everyone involved in the film and covers the production in detail. The second, “Back in the War Zone” (13:01), has Castellari revisiting some of the filming locations. The third disc has 18 minutes of soundtrack.

     In Region 2 there is also a 3 disc edition, containing the film, the soundtrack and, on the second disc, interviews with the Director (20:16) and composer Francesco De Masi (51:30).

     On the basis of the above, the Region 1 SD seems the best choice.

     There is also a Region A Blu-ray that includes all the extras on the Region 1 SD, plus two other featurettes: “Enzo’s 70th Birthday Celebration” (7:15) – a reunion with a couple of the film’s stars – and “Inglorious Reunion at the New Beverly” (11:24) – footage shot at a special screening of the film in Los Angeles.

    This film has nothing in common with Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. The situation, plot and characters are all very different and the only thing that Tarantino lifted was the title! That said, Inglorious B******s is a lot of fun. It has acceptable video and audio and if the extras are not as good as the Region 1, they are still not too bad. Inglorious B******s is an entertaining old fashioned Saturday afternoon B action picture. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall