Harrad Experiment (Force Video) (1973)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1973
Running Time	91:07 (Case: 95)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ted Post
Studio Distributor	Cinema Art Prods Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	James Whitmore Tippi Hedren Don Johnson Bruno Kirby Laurie Walters Victoria Thompson
Case	C-Button-Version 2
RPI	$19.95	Music	Artie Butler Michael Lindsay

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The taming of Stanley, whose motto seems to be "if it moves sh*g it", the awakening of sexual awareness in Sheila and the loosening up of Harry form the core of the film. In a curious real-life parallel, Stanley attempts to seduce the Professor's wife (Tippi Hedren) - in real life Don Johnson is alleged to have seduced his babysitter when he was 12 and later had an affair with a college tutor. He also made the acquaintance of uncredited extra, 14 year old Melanie Griffith (Tippi Hedren's daughter) to whom he was married 3 years later.

    It's a curious film, easy to dismiss as inconsequential American tripe as socially relevant as The Waltons, but it obviously occupies a key niche in American social history. It was an enormous box-office success and even now video bootleg copies are circulated around colleges and form the basis for lively debate. It's certainly an interesting snapshot of social history and in some ways light relief from today's conservatism and prudishness - it probably also has a use in clearing the home theatre of noisy teenagers who, no doubt, will take one look and head off in disgust (probably to the bedroom!). It is also entertaining to spot who succeeded and who fell by the wayside - Tippie Hedren's career continued unabated, Bruno Kirby excelled as the dork in When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers and the two gorgeous girls made a few TV appearances and ... disappeared.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The detail of this transfer is limited by the low bit rate whereas the focus is sharp and on the whole well illuminated. Shadows are few and far between but where present, detail is limited. There is mild low level noise seen in some of the black backgrounds.

    The colours are bright and clean but the lack of contrast results in some posterization, particularly of some facial features, which results in some unnaturally reddish flesh tones.

    Pixelization is present throughout the feature in plain background scenes and is quite distracting on the large screen. Mild telecine wobble is present throughout the whole feature, most evident, as usual, during the credits. Aliasing is just about completely absent which is a plus of the low bit-rate transfer. Film artefacts are also present throughout the feature. At times, there is a fine shower of black flecks and a few scratches but on the whole these are not too distracting and quite reasonable considering the age of the feature

    There are no subtitles.

    The disc is a single sided, single layered DVD-5.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is one English soundtrack encoded in mono Dolby Digital 2.0.

    The spoken words are very clear which is just as well as this is a dialogue-heavy movie. Audio sync is on cue.

    The movie is scored by Artie Butler and his scoring is as corny as some of the acting but generally in keeping with genre. The final song during the closing credits is sung by Don Johnson (don't give up the acting job).

    There is no surround nor subwoofer activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    Quite a nicely designed static menu giving choice of chapter selection or movie play. And that's yer bloomin' lot!

    This multi-region DVD appears to be of the same basic content as the R1 NTSC Platinum Disc Corporation version which is currently not available. However, user reviews strongly deprecate the R1 version for its lack of nude scenes and removal of swear words for television broadcast. If this is indeed the case, then this current production by Force Video would seem to be more complete.

    The video quality is decidedly mediocre although no doubt better than some of the well-worn videos in circulation

    The audio quality is very basic but adequate for the job.

    The extras are non-existent which is a shame as some bios or a retrospective by some of the actors would have been of real interest.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall