Coogan's Bluff (1968)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1968
Running Time	90:25
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Don Siegel
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood Susan Clark Tisha Sterling Lee J. Cobb Don Stroud
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Lalo Schifrin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Arabic Czech Greek Hungarian Turkish Romanian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Landing on a helipad on top of a skyscraper in New York City couldn't contrast more to the type of landscape which Coogan is used to, but he doesn't have time to be distracted as there is work to be done and the faster he can get out of New York the better. But all doesn't go to plan. Coogan is informed by Detective McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) that the prisoner has taken a trip...a bad acid trip, and until the prisoner is cleared by a doctor to be fit for travel, no one is going anywhere. Trapped in New York for an indefinite period of time, Coogan attempts to learn a bit more about his prospective prisoner. In doing so, he meets up with Julie Roth (Susan Clark) who happens to be the parole officer of his prisoner's girlfriend.

    Growing impatient with the slowness of the locals to transfer the prisoner to his care, Coogan takes matters into his own hands and after a little creative bluffing, he soon has his man in custody. But things don't go quite to plan as on the way to the airport to extradite his man back to Arizona, Coogan is ambushed and knocked out and his prisoner escapes. Now, our Coogan is between a rock and a hard place with his man on the loose and the New York Police Department no longer recognizing his law enforcement credentials. Enlisting the help of the parole officer and the criminal's girlfriend, Coogan begins to make inroads into the far out underworld of New York youth culture. This is a far cry from the wilds of Arizona, but Coogan will have to work fast to get his man before his man gets him!

    This film was an interesting look not only at the career of star Clint Eastwood, but at the whole youth culture of the the late 60s as well. Despite period references to things being 'far out' and people going on 'acid trips', this film doesn't seem to have dated as much as it should have. This may very well be due to the fine direction of Don Siegel whom has since worked with Eastwood (on the 1971 film Dirty Harry) and also some very competent cinematography. While not really a 'Western' in the strictest of terms, this film is partly that and also a police thriller as well. We have both the elements of the Dirty Harry films along with some to the western style we have become accustomed to with Eastwood's pictures. All of this ends up working quite well and is both a precursor to Eastwood's later pictures and also the television series McLeod starring Dennis Weaver which ran from 1969 to 1977 and was partly inspired by this film.

    For any fan of Eastwood's films, this is a must see. Here we have him at the beginning of his prime and in a role which would point to both his police and western films. Recommended.

Video

    We have this title presented in the 1.75:1 aspect ratio, 16x9 enhanced. The original theatrical aspect ratio of this film was 1.85:1.

     This transfer suffers from excessive grain which may have been present in the original print or only present in the film stock used to transfer this title to DVD. Whatever the case, grain is overly prevalent here and image sharpness suffers as a result. Still, given this, the image is still watchable and a reasonable image clarity is present once the viewer gets over the abundant graininess of the image. Shadow detail, while not of any sort of benchmark standard, is still reasonable given the age and condition of the film used to transfer this title to DVD. Low level noise seems to have been kept at bay and no issues of note were noticed by this reviewer.

    Colour use during this feature is reasonable, again given the age and condition of the print used in the transfer of this title. There seems to be some issue with the colour being faded or 'washed out', but this is obviously due to the age of the print and without some major care and restoration of this title, sadly for now this is indeed as good as it gets.

    MPEG artifacts are not overly present with this title, although there is some slight pixilization visible at 2:15. As stated before, this title suffers badly from excessive grain inherent in the film stock used to transfer this title to DVD. This artifact is present from the word go and at times hampers the clarity of the image. This could have been the result of poor film stock used in filming this title, but we will probably never know. Alaising is no real issue with this title as the poor image resolution almost renders this artifact invisible. There are quite a few film artifacts visible with quite a few nick and flecks visible during the feature.

    There are numerous subtitle options available with this title with the English option offering a reasonable translation of the spoken word, while not being word for word.

    This title is formatted single layer and as such, layer change is not an issue.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one audio track available with this title, that being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono mix.

    Dialogue quality is quite reasonable considering the condition of the transfer we have on offer. Despite the many faults, dialogue is for the most part not a real problem with the spoken work easily understandable at all times.

    There is some problems at times with the audio being a bit out of sync at times with a standout example being at 53:36. This is not a huge problem with this title, but this audio artifact is noticeable at times.

    Music is composed by Lalo Schifrin and is fairly dated and in keeping in the style of the era in which this film was produced. Despite this, this music for the film works quite well and the 'dated' sound serves the film well.

    Because of the audio mix being of a mono nature, there was no surround presence at all. Also, because of the limited range of the audio present with this title, the subwoofer gets virtually no work at all. What little activity we do get is during the musical passage of the film's soundtrack and are only of a limited quantity.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

• Play
• Scenes
• Subtitles

    The Scenes Menu offers us 4 static images of four (out of 18) available chapters. These images are presented with a number on each image only and not the actual chapter's title, therefore limiting the menu's use. The background for this menu is the black outline image of Coogan standing, hands clasped in front of the same yellow cityscape background. This menu is presented silent and static and is 16x9 enhanced. If no selection is made after  1 minute from this menu, the disc defaults to Main Menu, which in turn eventually defaults to Play.

    The Subtitles Menu offers a fairly comprehensive selection of subtitles which are presented on a menu similar to the ones above. This time, the outline image is of Julie, the parole officer. She is shown on the same yellow cityscape background as the other menus. As with the other menus, if no selection is made after 1 minute from this menu, the disc will default to the Main Menu which in turn will default to Play.

    The video is fairly bad with way too much grain and a rather ordinary image viewable throughout.

    The audio is quite ordinary with an audible hum at several times during the title. The dialogue is reasonable though occasionally the audio sync is not quite spot-on.

    The extras are none existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall