Caravan to Vaccares (1974)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Gallery-Photo-9
Rating
Year Of Production	1974
Running Time	92:45
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Geoffrey Reeve
Studio Distributor	Geoff Reeve Prods. Warner Vision	Starring	Charlotte Rampling David Birney Michael Lonsdale Marcel Bozzuffi Michael Bryant Manitas De Plata Serge Marquand Marianne Eggerickx Françoise Brion Vania Vilers Graham Hill
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Stanley Myers

     I have enjoyed some Alistair MacLean novels in the past, and my husband is quite a fan, so, in deference to his many hours of patiently enduring my kind of films, I thought I'd give him a treat and review something more to his taste. Hence, Caravan to Vaccares was duly delivered for our consideration. Because it's not really my genre, I shall deliver the basic plot, but will leave the more aesthetic considerations to my husband.

     David Birney is Neil Bowman - an American bon vivant who has become disconsolate with the values of his home nation. In an attempt to reinvigorate himself, he sets out on a European junket, only to become embroiled in international drama and intrigue, finding himself attempting to protect a scientist who has developed a formula with epic economic ramifications.

     The baddies come out thick and fast - there is no one to trust. He encounters the beautiful British photographer Lila (Charlotte Rampling) who matches his own guile with charm and intelligent calm.

     There is some lovely scenery, but the plot line is thick, wooden and heavily delivered. My tolerance was constantly stretched by the leaden Birney, and I found I just didn't care what happened by the end.

      But what were my husband's more experienced comments about this film? "Load of s***e - let's go and eat." Hmm - you have the word from the expert here.

Video

     The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and looks suspiciously like a Pan and Scan version.

     The overall quality of this transfer is appalling. There is a consistent ripple line along the bottom, like the videotape source had suffered tape stretching. The vision was washed out and limp with poor compression and a flat, mono-dimensional look. There was low level noise and grain consistently present.

     The colours are washed out and pallid with poor rendition of skin tones. Blacks are muddy and whites are greyish with no depth or tonal range to spice up this dull presentation.

     There is frequent evidence of aliasing, a significant number of splice marks and dust spots, and the aforementioned tape crimp problem. There are also a number of scratch lines and poor compression. The picture is extremely soft and completely dead.

     This is a single sided disc with no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

     The soundtrack is presented in English Dolby Digital 2.0.

     The dialogue is relatively clean and easy to hear but the audio sync is absolutely terrible. There are no subtitles available, and this may present you with some difficulties, since the baddies speak French with no translatory assistance.

     The music here is woeful. It's hammy, trumped up and vile.

     There was virtually no subwoofer presence at all, with all the tinny sound being delivered flatly over the front two speakers.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

     The menu is static and silent.

Photo Gallery

     9 pictures that are all better quality than the film.

      There doesn't appear to be an R1 version of this movie, so this is your lot.

     This film made 92 minutes feel terribly, terribly long!

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall