Damn the Defiant! (H.M.S. Defiant) (1962) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Adventure	Gallery-Vintage Advertising Filmographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer Trailer-From Here To Eternity; The Guns Of Navarone Trailer-The Bridge On The River Kwai
Rating
Year Of Production	1962
Running Time	96:45 (Case: 99)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Lewis Gilbert
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Alec Guinness Dirk Bogarde Anthony Quayle
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$24.95	Music	Clifton Parker

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 3.0 L-C-R (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    D*** The Defiant!, or H.M.S Defiant, as I remember it being originally titled, is a great adventure movie, that provides a very romantic and stirring image of the Napoleonic Wars, and the Age of Sail.

    Based on the novel Mutiny, by Frank Tilsley, the plot concerns the drama that unfolds on board the British vessel, H.M.S Defiant. The very decent and heroic Captain Crawford (Alec Guinness) finds his leadership being undermined by the cruel, ambitious, and totally ruthless, Lieutenant Scott-Padget, (Dirk Bogarde). Meanwhile, in this age of press gangs, floggings, and privation, some of the ship's company plan to seize the vessel in a mutiny. To make matters worse, the Defiant might be unwittingly sailing into a French trap.

    D*** The Defiant! is a lavish production that features wonderful performances from its cast. Guinness, as always, brings dignity to any movie that he's in. Bogarde and Anthony Quayle seem to absolutely relish their roles as the gripping drama unfolds. Apart from the drama, the movie features some fantastic sea battles, between the British and French forces, with very realistic, and impressive, visual effects.

Video

    The transfer is limited by the aged source material, and the quality is variable.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The sharpness is reasonable for the movie's age, but the shadow detail is awful. For example consider the scene below deck at 46:20.

    The colour seems to have darkened a little with age, and flesh-tones have a slightly brown/grey appearance.

    There were no MPEG artefacts to really complain of.

    Film-to-video artefacts are present - there is slight telecine wobble throughout.

    Film artefacts appear throughout, and some are quite large and nasty. At times there also appeared to be some edge enhancement, but it was not too distracting.

    Twenty one sets of subtitles are present. The English subtitles are simplified, but accurate.

    This is a single layer disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio reveals its age, and there is a slight background hiss throughout.

    Apart from the English Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono) audio track, there are four other Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono) audio tracks: French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

    The dialogue quality and audio sync are reasonable on the default English audio track.

    The musical score is credited to Clifton Parker, and it is a romantic and rousing orchestral score, well suited to this movie.

    As a Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono) audio track, there is no surround presence or subwoofer activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are a few interesting extras.

Menu

    A very simple menu, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. It is static and silent.

Theatrical Trailers

    Original trailers for H.M.S Defiant, From Here To Eternity, The Guns of Navarone, and The Bridge On The River Kwai.

Filmography

    Text information

Vintage Advertising

  Original marketing stills from the production.

    The Region 1 and Region 4 discs appear to have the same features.

    D*** The Defiant!  is an enjoyable and exciting movie, set in a bygone era.

The video quality is slightly disappointing but still very watchable.

The audio quality is reasonable, considering its age, and the mono source material.

The extras are enjoyable.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall