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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Scene Selection Animation Filmography - Cast Biography - Cast Gallery - Photo Trailer (3) Notes - Credits
Rating
Year Released	1942
Running Time	88:46 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Leslie Howard
Studio Distributor	Samuel Goldwyn  Sonart	Starring	Leslie Howard David Niven Rosamund John Roland Culver Anne Firth David Horne
Case	Blue Alpha Style
RPI	$19.95	Music	William Walton

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 224 Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Original Aspect Ratio	1.37:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	None	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Quote: "Avenue One has a policy of giving consumers real value for money. We source the best possible masters and add extras. This provides a total experience for our consumers." Robert Caisley, owner of Avenue One DVD, quoted in DVD Now, Volume 07, page 32.

    The fact that I had only just gone out and indulged in the latest issue of DVD Now really was rather inopportune as far as this review is concerned, for these quotes came very readily to mind when I sat down to watch the film. Why? Well, quite simply, this is possibly the absolute worst DVD that I have yet had the misfortune to review. In fact this is so bad that I reckon even a third generation VHS tape of a television broadcast would have to look significantly better than this effort. By general consensus, Dune is the worst Region 4 DVD ever issued. This surely cannot be far behind. If this is good enough to better the Avenue One DVD standard for release, then frankly Avenue One DVD may as well give up the task immediately. The only standard this could beat is if it were compared to a twenty year old VHS tape that had been stored in the dust bag of a vacuum cleaner run continuously for thirty days cleaning filings from an asbestos mine.

    Which is a really great shame for Spitfire (a.k.a. The First Of The Few) is a decent enough semi-propaganda film made during the middle stages of World War II, right after the Supermarine Spitfire and its contemporary the Hawker Hurricane had defied overwhelming odds and turned the tide of the war in the Battle of Britain. This is broadly the story of the creator of the Spitfire, Reginald Mitchell (Leslie Howard) from his initial revolutionary designs for a new plane that would eventually dominate the Schneider Trophy (a big racing competition in the post World War I period for seaplanes). The Supermarine S-series of seaplanes were the fastest and most revolutionary seaplanes seen at that time, and they pioneered some of the revolutionary ideas that Mitchell was to eventually incorporate into the immortal Spitfire. The film covers the trials and tribulations of Mitchell's time at Supermarine as his designs were overlooked for development for years as he toiled in the workshop, his return to the forefront of design at Supermarine, the initial troubles of his early design as his friend Geoffrey Crisp (David Niven) is injured in a crash of the plane, through the eventual triumph at the Schneider Trophy as Britain won the trophy in perpetuity for three wins in a row, to his eventual death prior to seeing what a legend his little design would become.

    Directed and produced by its star Leslie Howard, the whole film would hardly be considered a classic. The story is okay, the performances are decent enough and the direction works. But there really is nothing here that creates any distinction about the film. It is a typical example I guess of films made during the war on a restricted budget and to some extent the need to boost the morale of the British who were at that time suffering daily bombings across much of the eastern and southern parts of the country.

    I would not want to hazard a guess as to how many times I have seen the film on television, but it would certainly number in the dozens as it seemed to be one of those films that were the staple of the Saturday afternoon matinees. Despite all those times though, I really do not recall seeing the film in anywhere this sort of disgusting condition and this is a serious impediment to any sort of recommendation to buy this DVD. Simply, don't.

    Quote: "By Easter, Avenue One will have DVDs on the Australian market for $9.99, including GST." Robert Caisley, owner of Avenue One DVD, quoted in DVD Now, Volume 07, page 33. Take my word for it - even at $9.99, this would be an overpriced DVD.

Video

    Naturally for a film of its age, the transfer is presented in a Full Frame format, which is equally naturally not 16x9 enhanced.

    The cover slick for the DVD proudly proclaims that this was "Digitally re-mastered from original print". Yeah, right. Basically take the worst imaginable Very Hazy System tape and you have a rough idea of the quality here. There is virtually no sharpness in the transfer at all, with just about everything having a diffuse feeling to it. Detail is poor since there is virtually no differentiation between foreground and background detail for much of the film. Indeed, there are a couple of scenes during the film where images of writing on paper are displayed so that the viewer can read them - except you can barely see the writing at all. It gives the distinct impression at times of being a one dimensional water colour painting, without the colours. The image itself is quite murky at times and the only plus is that there does not seem to be any especially serious grain, just a consistent presence throughout the transfer. Shadow detail at times is as good as non-existent. There seemed to be a consistent degree of noise in the transfer, but it was hardly a distraction in an image that you could hardly call watchable. The most amusing aspect of the transfer was the alternate lightening and darkening of the image. Segments of the transfer are certainly far too overbright and wash out what little detail there is to be seen.

    The black and white colours are pretty ordinary and lack any real definition at all. Certainly there is no depth to the tones and the whole thing ends up being pretty much just a mass of dull greys throughout. There is certainly no vibrancy to the transfer and the grey scales are anything but natural looking.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer, although there is present during much of the film an unusual wavy effect that occasionally gets most off-putting. It is almost like the original print used had been slightly stretched vertically. You really would not know whether film-to-video artefacts were an issue here as the transfer simply lacks enough definition to be able to make any determination. However, there certainly seems to be a number of odd jumps in the transfer, indicative of either lousy edits or missing frames. But oh the film artefacts! This is such a rotten print that at times it gives the impression of watching the film through the bars of a prison cell. There are copious black lines throughout the transfer varying from being quite thin to being quite thick, to which you can add abundant white blotches, reel change markings naturally and a whole host of assorted other markings that would rank as the very worst I have seen. Around the 68:00 minute mark you get a very impressive display of black splodges that border upon unwatchable.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is just the one soundtrack on offer on the DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded soundtrack. Well at least it is indicated as being surround encoded, but I seriously doubt that it is. It sounds distinctly mono through the centre speaker.

    The dialogue is only moderately clear I guess and reasonably easy to understand in the soundtrack. There did not seem to be any serious problems with audio sync in the transfer, but there are certainly some sections that appear to be out of sync.

    The musical score comes from the sadly neglected William Walton, which is a great shame as this is quite a decent score. Mind you, understand that I am making that statement based upon the CD recording of the work and not upon what I cannot really hear here.

    So is the audio transfer any better than the video transfer? No! The entire soundtrack is blessed with a significant amount of hiss throughout, that gets just a little annoying. The opening ten minutes or so are especially bad as there are numerous drop outs to contend with, as if a few notes here or there were just lopped from the soundtrack. The sound is distinctly murky at times and definition is not at all good. This is not aided by the snap, crackle, pop or distortion that afflicts the transfer. The soundscape is quite frontal and is not really very natural at all. Overall, this is a pretty poor example of the art of sound in film. At least you don't need more than the basic speakers on a $20 radio to be able to listen to this.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Filmography - Cast

Biography - Cast

Gallery - Photo

Trailers (3)

Notes - Credits

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
7th February 2001