Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Man Who Could Cheat Death, The
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Man Who Could Cheat Death, The
Released by: Eureka
Released on: September 21st, 2015.
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Anton Diffring, Christopher Lee, Hazel Court, Arnold Marle
Year: 1959
The Movie:
Set in the Paris of 1890, The Man Who Could Cheat Death follows a scientist named Dr. Georges Bonnet (Anton Diffring) who may appear normal on the outside but who in actuality leads a sinister secret life. Bonnet has figured out the secret to eternal life - he makes an elixir out of the glands of young women! The only problem is that the young women in question don't necessarily want to donate their glands to the good doctor and so he winds up with a fair bit of blood on his hands. The bonus flip side to this dilemma is that while he might actually be over a hundred years old, he doesn't look a day over forty so his elixir obviously works.
Eventually Bonnet receives a caller one day in the form of his old friend, Professor Ludwig Weiss (Arnold Marle), an older and obviously aged man who is shocked to find Bonnet looking so young. Bonnet has asked Weiss to perform an important operation on him and, being rather suspicious of Bonnet, Weiss refuses.
Bonnet, his life now in danger, has little choice but to blackmail another doctor, Pierre Gerard (Christopher Lee) into performing the operation for him by threatening a beautiful woman, Janine Dubois (Hazel Court), that both he and Gerard are involved with.
Based on a stage play by Barre Lyndon entitled The Man In Half Moon Street (which was also made into a film in 1945), the picture feels very much like a play thanks to its minimalist sets and the fact that so much of it takes place indoors. This prevents the film from obtaining the sense of grandeur that makes many better known Hammer films so much fun, but to its credit, the movie works well. Fisher's direction is solid and Anton Diffring gives an excellent and enjoyably sinister performance as the mad doctor Bonnet. It's fun to see Christopher Lee play the good guy this time around and Hazel Court makes for a charming and beautiful leading lady. Supposedly the uncut European version of this film features a topless scene from Ms. Court but that footage is missing from this DVD release.
While The Man Who Could Cheat Death probably won't ever find the following that Hammer's Dracula and Frankenstein pictures have justly won, it's an enjoyable enough mad scientist picture with some nice sets, decent direction and solid acting. The first half of the film might move a little slow for some tastes but it does build rather nicely and the last half hour of the picture is quite tense and exciting. The makeup effects are fun and the score, courtesy of composer Richard Rodney Bennett compliments the story and the tone of the movie very nicely.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Man Who Could Cheat Death arrives on Blu-ray from Eureka in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.66.1 widescreen. The film was released in North America some years back on Blu-ray from Legend Films but this new disc from the UK is an improvement (the image is darker but looks more natural and it is quite a bit cleaner with considerably better black levels). Colors look great, they're reproduced brightly and boldly without looking over-saturated, while black levels are strong and deep. Detail is consistently impressive and there's impressive depth and texture here. There are no problems with any compression artifacts, edge enhancement or noise reduction and while there's the expected amount of film grain present, serious print damage is never a problem. This is a pretty strong transfer on Eureka's part.
For a comparison between the North American Legend Films Blu-ray and this UK release from Eureka click here!
Audio options are provided in LPCM English language 2.0 mono, there are no alternate language options provided although removable English subtitles are provided. There's decent depth and range to the mix, the levels are nicely balanced and the dialogue consistently clear. The score sounds good as do the effects. It's not the world's most complex mix, but it works and it works well.
Eureka's disc includes two video interviews as the main supplements. The first is a seventeen minute piece with writer Kim Newman who speaks for roughly seventeen minutes about the history of the picture, his thoughts on what works and what doesn't and a fair bit more. The second interview also runs approximately seventeen minutes and it features film historian Jonathan Rigby. He too offers up his thoughts on the picture and then goes on to provide some context for the film and offer up some information on the people who made it.
The disc also comes packaged with a full color booklet featuring an essay on the film by author Marcus Hearn, (the man who wrote The Hammer Story: The Authorized History of Hammer Films), and a really impressive collection of related archival images.
The Final Word:
A fun, if slightly low key, Hammer effort, The Man Who Could Cheat Death holds up fairly well and remains an entertaining effort even if it isn't on par with the best of Fisher's Hammer offerings. Eureka's Blu-ray offers a nice upgrade over the previous North American Blu-ray release in both presentation and supplements.
Posting comments is disabled.
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (272)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4162)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2513)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (391)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (300)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (497)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Kino Lorber
Released on: February 22nd, 2022.
Director: Gianfranco Parolini
Cast: Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance
Year: 1976
Purchase From Amazon
God’s Gun – Movie Review:
Directed by Gianfranco Parolini in 1976, quite late in the spaghetti western boom years, God's Gun (Diamante Lobo in Italy) introduces us to a bad, bad man named Sam Clayton (Jack Palance) who, along with his gang of equally bad, bad men, start wreaking...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 12:10 PM -
-
Released by: Kino Lorber
Released on: October 8th, 2019.
Director: Mario Bava
Cast: Christopher Lee, Reg Park, Leonora Ruffo, Gaia Germani
Year: 1968
Purchase From Amazon
Hercules In The Haunted World – Movie Review:
Directed by Mario Bava in 1961 and featuring a screenplay by Bava (and Sandro Continenza, Francesco Prosperi and Duccio Tessari), Hercules In The Haunted World (also known as Hercules At The Center Of The Earth and...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 12:08 PM -
-
Released by: Cinématographe
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Jack Nicholson
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Mary Steenburgen, Christopher Lloyd, John Belushi
Year: 1978
Purchase From Amazon
Goin’ South – Movie Review:
Made at the height of his career as an actor, 1978’s ‘Goin’ South’ sees Jack Nicholson once again in the director’s chair, seven years after his directorial debut, ‘Drive, He Said,’ failed to set the...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:29 AM -
-
Released by: Radiance Films
Released on: April 20th, 2024.
Director: Noburo Nakamura
Cast: Miyuki Kuwano, Mikijiro Hira
Year: 1964
Purchase From Amazon
The Shape Of Night – Movie Review:
Directed by Noburo Nakamura for Shochiko in 1964, ‘The Shape Of Night’ follows a young woman named Yoshie Nomoto (Miyuki Kuwano). In the opening scene, she’s working as a streetwalker on the outskirts of town and soon enough, she’s picked...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:26 AM -
-
Released by: Film Masters
Released on: April 23rd, 2024.
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Richard Carlson, Juli Reding, Lugene Sanders, Susan Gordon
Year: 1963
Purchase From Amazon
Tormented – Movie Review:
The late Bert I. Gordon’s 1963 horror film, ‘Tormented,’ is an effectively spooky ghost story made with an obviously low budget but no less effective for it.
The story revolves around a professional piano player...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:19 AM -
-
Released by: Grindhouse Releasing
Released on: March 12th, 2024.
Director: William Grefé
Cast: William Shatner, Jennifer Bishop, Ruth Roman, Harold Sakata
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Impulse – Movie Review:
Directed by the one and only William Grefé, 1974’s Impulse is one of those rare films that allows you to witness what it would be like if a really sweaty William Shatner got mad at a lady carrying balloons. Before that...-
Channel: Movies
04-15-2024, 01:20 PM -