Derek and Clive Get the Horn (1979)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1979
Running Time	88:48
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Russell Mulcahy
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Peter Cook Dudley Moore
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	Dudley Moore

    Warning: this review is rated M, for Mature audiences only. Contains frequent strong sarcasm, and occasional brief full-frontal irony.

    I thought when I volunteered to review this DVD that it was just going to be a simple comedy disc, featuring performances of the well-known characters Derek (Dudley Moore) and Clive (Peter Cook). I thought I might get a few laughs, nothing special. What I got was so very different. Rarely have I witnessed such a tour de force. The genius that went into this production is difficult to explain. The subtlety, the brilliant understatement, the delicacy of touch. It's just mind-blowing.

    This was a sublimely luminous public announcement. It went on longer that the usual 30 seconds you might expect for a public announcement, but that's understandable. They couldn't present their message in a single short appearance. No, it took the hour and a half for them to convey the full horror of the depths to which drugs can take you. Masterful work, and so brave. It would be normal to expect two respected comedians to shrink from making themselves look so pathetic, so crass, so unfunny, but not these two. You would swear that they really were under the influence of recreational pharmaceuticals (possibly of the herbal cigarette variety), and that these substances were making them behave stupidly.

    Of course, the impact is heightened by the skilful use of cinematographic techniques to make the film look like amateurish documentary footage. The inspired lighting design, giving a blue cast to all the images. The use of high-grain film stock in the camera filming Peter Cook. The occasional camera shake, momentary loss of focus, and the vast quantities of film artefacts - all part of the mise en scene. This is the work of a great auteur. And the production design! Such an incredible idea to have a blow-up sex doll continually in-shot - sheer genius. The casting agent who chose the stripper for the closing moments must also be recognised - casting an actress who can act such a bad job must have taken many casting sessions.

    But the real credit belongs to the stars. Peter Cook, with his continual insinuations of homosexuality on Dudley Moore's part. Dudley Moore's obsession with fruit, particularly French figs (such a clever choice). The punctuation of every sentence with obscenities of the worst kind. The improvised songs - so vulgar, so unfunny. The rambling dialogue that leads nowhere, without including the slightest thing that was remotely funny, but demonstrating utter obsession with matters sexual. The carefully chosen wordplay, managing to offend as many people as possible - who else would have thought to suggest that a dead pope, lying in state, was cause for an erection, let alone masturbation?

    If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought this was a pathetic piece of drivel, fit only for use as prosecution evidence in a trial for possession of illegal substances.

Video

    The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and is not 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio, as this was made for television in the seventies, well before the advent of widescreen TV.

    The picture is soft and grainy, with the level of grain depending on the camera. The camera focussed (the term is used loosely) on Peter Cook seems to show more grain for no apparent reason. Shadow detail is poor, partly due to the lighting. It's hard to distinguish between grain and low-level noise, but I believe there's more grain than noise.

    Colour is quite poor. Whether this is because the film is faded (there were some nasty problems with film stocks of this era), or whether it should be attributed to the lighting conditions is really a moot point.

    The film is rife with film artefacts. Most of the standard catalogue of film artefacts is on display, with lots of spots (love the bright magenta spots at 58:28, and the plethora of white blobs at 4:34), flecks, blobs (large white blotch at 35:19), scratches (there's a spider web of white scratches at 40:07), and so forth - I could continue at great length, but I think you get the idea. There is light moire on things like the microphone covers. There is not a lot of aliasing, mostly because the image is fairly soft. There's striation, rippling down the screen. There's background shimmer, too. This film has not been well-preserved.

    There are no subtitles.

    The disc is single sided and single layered, so there's no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack, in English Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded; it sounds mono. There's a continuous background hiss, but it is not obnoxiously loud.

    The dialogue is mostly clear and comprehensible, unfortunately - the obscenities are generally quite audible. A few words are obscured, and one of the songs is incoherent, but I doubt we're missing anything of significance. Audio sync is not a problem.

    The music (using the term loosely) is the responsibility of Dudley Moore. The only music is improvised songs.

    Your surrounds and subwoofer are mercifully silent with this soundtrack - shame about the fronts.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras.

Menu

    The menu is a single static image, with one button marked Play. One wonders why they bothered.

    This disc is not released in Region 1. It has been available in Region 2 for some time. The Region 2 version sounds as though it is identical to this one.

    I cannot recommend Derek And Clive Get The Horn.

    The video quality is poor.

    The audio quality is not good.

    There are no extras on this disc. There isn't even chapter selection.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall