The Electric Horseman (Universal) (1979)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1979
Running Time	115:50
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Sydney Pollack
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Robert Redford Jane Fonda Valerie Perrine Willie Nelson John Savage
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$19.95	Music	Dave Grusin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired German Dutch Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Sydney Pollack has made many excellent films for his day, and although this isn't going to top anyone's all-time action list, The Electric Horseman is light and airy and a pretty decent movie that is still as entertaining today as when it was made. Pollack was also blessed by getting a couple of decent performances out of his two major stars (Redford and Fonda). It should be noted that he seems to have been Robert Redford's favourite director (he had made a couple of movies with him before this and made several after), which is a fair indication that they worked well together. He had also directed Jane Fonda previously in They Shoot Horses Don't They?.

    You could call this movie the epitome of a feel-good movie with lots of wide open spaces, cowboys, horses, TV reporters who become a little more human and big corporations that finally get their comeuppance. Okay, so that's condensing it down a little far, but all things considered, if you weren't interested in knowing a lot more about this movie that would cover things pretty well.

    Robert Redford is Sonny Steele, a former five-time world rodeo champion who has taken on corporate sponsorship which has changed his life. Instead of being a hero, he's been reduced to the 'Ranch Breakfast Champion - Sonny Steel', all the while being forced to wear an electric outfit, complete with cabling and riding around on a horse holding up the cereal. Unfortunately, this has affected him and he's begun drinking, which is causing problems with his guest appearances and half-time football game encores.

    During a visit to Las Vegas to assist his sponsors Ampco (whose new logo is a galloping horse) take over a major bank and promote their new logo, he discovers that their $11 million dollar stallion is being mistreated and fed tranquillisers and steroids instead of being treated with the respect a champion deserves (almost like he feels) and it annoys him. After a run-in with Hallie Martin, a reporter for a major TV station (played by Jane Fonda) who makes it obvious that he's a liability, he decides that his life needs to change.

    While waiting to appear at the casino to promote the company's breakfast cereal on the doped horse, he realises what he must do. Sonny steals the horse and rides him out of the casino and into the desert. Hallie in the meantime smells a great story and tracks him down and tries to find out his motivation for stealing the horse.

Video

    This was not a movie I expected anything great from in terms of quality, and to be honest that's precisely what I got - nothing great. Compared to a VHS tape, it would rate only marginally better given the fact that the picture can't deteriorate to any worse shape than that presented here.

    The picture is presented close to its theatrical release of 2.39:1 at 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced

    Let me say from the beginning that this is as soft and blurry a presentation as I've seen in a long time. At no stage does the picture become more focused or more sharply defined, although your eyes eventually adjust to what's on the screen. Background detail is a mess, with frequent ill-defined shapes and blurry images. There is no evidence of edge enhancement and shadow detail is average at best. There was no noticeable blooming in the blacks but little separation either. Grain is persistent throughout but it doesn't get too bad, even at its worst.

    This is as washed out and almost colourless as I can remember a movie being. Okay, slight exaggeration maybe, but what attractiveness there may have been is long gone. Skin tones are fine, although there were many scenes where predominant reds discoloured the entire shot. The palette used may have been quite adequate, but it's obvious that this transfer has been taken from a well worn source and what is left is only mediocre.

    You can take your pick of the number of film artefacts on show in this transfer. Basically every second has a blip or blemish, a smudge or a fleck missing. The most obvious was probably at 79:30 with a nice big fleck taken off the bottom of the picture. As for film-to-video artefacts, take your pick. Most straight lines will break up at times, with car grills, fences, and so forth constantly shimmering. There were also plenty of moiré effects too, with the best example at 13:43 on the sign for Caesar's Palace which exhibits both aliasing and moiréing in the same shot.

    The subtitles were fairly accurate and occupy the last line of the film and part of the black bar below the picture.

    This is a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    A Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack didn't bode too well when I first saw the specs, but it turned out better than I thought. You have a choice of English or German, both at 192 kilobits per second, but there didn't seem to be any difference between them. Basically my equipment ported this through the centre speaker exclusively and since there didn't seem to be a lot missed by separating the channels, I left it as is.

    The dialogue was very crisp and clean with zero problems with syncing.

    The music is by Dave Grusin who was another Pollack regular, having worked with him on such movies as Bobby Deerfield and Three Days of the Condor. For the most part this is fairly uplifting stuff, but regulation. The addition of incidental music from Willie Nelson helps it along considerably.

    There is no surround or subwoofer usage on this disc.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Theatrical Trailer

    The Region 1 version of this DVD misses out on:

• German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack
• Various subtitles
• Trailer

    The Region 4 misses out on nothing.

    The Electric Horseman is a nice, entertaining movie with a good cast and reasonably sanitised storyline that I found very watchable from a plot point of view. The video is marginally better than VHS only, with plenty of problems. The audio was solid, if unspectacular and fairly thin. The extras were almost non-existent but the price is about right if you look around.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall