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A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Duellists -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Robert Harris

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The Duellists, which was directed by one Ridley Scott, is a great piece of entertainment.
Set in Napoleonic France, where almost everyone had Amurican accents, it is a film with depth of both story and character. It was photographed by Frank Tidy, who was also responsible for The Grey Fox.
A Shout Factory release, of a Paramount film, it looks generally terrific, and I'm thrilled to be able to finally add a quality Blu-ray of the film to my library.
Very nice color, densities, and the seemingly elusive look of film.
Those of you who follow cinema to some degree, will be aware that the filmmaker went on to a few other interesting productions.
This was quite a beginning!
Image - 4.5
Audio - 5
Highly Recommended.
RAH
 

John Hodson

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I'm sure I'm in a minority, but it's my favourite Ridley Scott film; it is absolutely bloody *gorgeous*... BTW, Boy and Bicycle has not been carried forward from the old Paramount DVD, but it is available to view on YouTube, and also in HD on the BFI's BD of Loving Memory.
 

David_B_K

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I'm in the same minority, John. My favorite Scott film, and maybe one of my 5 all-time favorites. But, I'm a nut about the Napoleonic period.
 

Dick

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Great news, Mr. Harris. I wish the Shout Factory and Paramount weren't just doing this title as a one-shot.
 

theonemacduff

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Ah, The Grey Fox, and ah, Richard Farnsworth. Fantastic film. I remember seeing it in a quaint place called a cinema, and being just enthralled by it. What I wouldn't give for a blu ray of THAT film. IMDb lists it as being partly produced by Zoetrope, and by a Cannuck company, Mercury, which doesn't appear to be still alive. And speaking of the late lamented Phillip Borsos, how about a BR of another of his, supposedly for kids, called Far From Home, which I thought played pretty well for grownups too.
 

Derrick King

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In case anyone cares, over at the Blu-ray forums, Cliff Mac said that Paramount wouldn't let them include Boy and Bicycle or the trailer.
 

Ruz-El

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Nice to hear Shout did right with this one. I've never seen it, had it on pre-order since it was announced. Can't wait for it to show up!
 

Jon Hertzberg

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Just finally watched this one. I know that with its limited budget and under the conditions it was shot--lots of low light, candlelight, fog, etc.--it's going to be a tougher film to transfer faithfully to Blu-ray than some others, but was I the only one noticing a persistent "blockiness"--compression artifacts, perhaps?--throughout the film? I turned the brightness down on my set so that the blacks would appear more black and I wouldn't see the blockiness, but they still appeared in other parts of the image. I'm sure I can probably do a better of job of calibrating my settings and, hopefully, optimize the quality on this Blu-ray and others.

On an unrelated DUELLISTS note, I was a little disappointed to see, in the otherwise excellent Keith Carradine interview, the producers of the piece repeatedly cut to footage, from the film, of actress Diana Quick (who played Carradine's mistress earlier in the film) when Carradine was discussing co-star Cristina Raines (who plays his wife in the film). They are both brunettes, yes, but, really, someone should have caught that before the disc went out that way.
 

Peter Neski

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Well another ,get the BR but keep the dvd,not only is the Short film missing,so are the few Storyboards and Still files,seems to be
a trend with BR,no still files ,even if DVD had one,Not sure if Resume Play works or they left that out too
 

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