Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Assassination Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov November 23, 2022

Emilio Miraglia's "Assassination" (1967) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new audio commentary by critics Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, as well as restored international trailer for the film. In English or Italian, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The birth of Philip Chandler

On a cold and gloomy winter day, Barbara Chandler (Evelyn Stewart) is informed that an appeal has been rejected and her husband, John (Henry Silva), will die on the electric chair. A few hours later, she visits John in his cell and they have a few very tense final moments. As planned, John then dies from a powerful electric shock.

Some days later, in the heart of the city, Barbara meets a veteran lawyer and his assistants and is presented with her late husband’s last will and testament. Barbara inherits a little over one thousand dollars but the lavish home she used to share with her husband and all of its possessions are awarded to his brother, Philip, a resident of Kenya, Africa. Barbara can barely control her emotions because she has never before been told about the existence of Philip.

In a different part of the city, a team of medical experts working for the CIA resuscitate John and begin helping him adopt the personality of his fictional brother, Philip, who is supposed to look exactly like him but has a completely different personality and daily habits.

When John’s irreversible transformation is completed, he reemerges as Philip and renters Barbara’s life while working closely with his new bosses at the CIA. After a series of tests, he establishes contact with a criminal organization whose elusive boss has been a top target for the CIA. Eventually, he lands in West Germany where the boss is planning a big job and CIA operatives are engaged in an even bigger and more complex operation.

Emilio Miraglia’s directorial debut, Assassination, is an atmospheric and often surprisingly good looking but ultimately rather uneven film that will likely be of interest only to big admirers of Silva and his work. Like most Italian crime films from the 1960s and 1970s, Assassination does several very particular things to hide its Italian roots and convince that it is a serious, meaning well-funded, American film with big ambitions. This unbridled desire to be accepted as a bigger project is what gives Assassination its charm and ultimately becomes its biggest strength.

But Italian crime films from the 1960s and 1970s were instantly recognizable because virtually all of them had unmistakable macho personalities that they loved to promote as well. Assassination was part of this trend. This is almost certainly the reason Silva was contracted to be its star since he already had a reputation for playing tough-talking and violent characters in various genre films. (William Asher’s Johnny Cool, for instance, was very well received in Italy).

All the good surprises in Assassination are in its final act. Here the film begins to resemble an unhinged Cold War-era political thriller with shadow figures whose intentions and actions are virtually impossible to predict. However, Silva does not adjust his character and the film quickly acquires an interesting exotic quality.

The acting is something of a mixed bag. Silva always leads and looks good but the secondary characters are played by actors that are difficult to praise. For example, Fred Bair emerges as Silva’s main competitor before the decisive finale but never looks like a man who might have been on the payroll of shady characters with grand ambitions. There are several German actors that are unconvincing as well.

Miraglia worked with the prolific cinematographer Erico Menczer, who lensed numerous smaller but very good Italian genre films, such as Machine Gun McCain and Rulers of the City. The beautiful melancholic soundtrack was created by Robby Poitevin (The Sweet Body of Deborah).

Assassination Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.20:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Assassination arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

As soon as the thick title of the film appeared on my screen, I assumed that the technical presentation would be lovely. Assassination has been recently remastered in 4K and what I saw during the opening five or so minutes gave me the confidence to conclude that the technical presentation would be comparable to that of Grand Slam. (Both films were licensed from Unidis Jolly Film). Unfortunately, something is off with this 4K master. I am not going to speculate why because I don't know what type of work was done. I will simply describe what I saw on my system. So, the overall quality of the visuals ranges from good to very good. There are some areas with small fading and density fluctuations, but these are acceptable limitations. However, something isn't right with the movement of the film frames. On my system, I saw quite a bit of light jerkiness and, more importantly, what appeared to be frame skips. A lot of these skips look like the type of anomalies that emerge during an improper conversion from PAL or 1080/50i to 720p or 1080p. Obviously, there is something else going on here, but the anomaly is very similar -- it is as if some frames are abruptly dropped and other frames are accommodated to appear proper. Now, there are large areas of the film where everything looks fine, but elsewhere these skips are easily noticeable. Will you notice them? I don't know. But this is what I saw on my system, and it is what I am reporting in our review. The color grading job is very nice. There are no traces of problematic digital corrections. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Assassination Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

I viewed the entire film with the lossless English track, which should be considered the original track because Henry Silva and the many other characters utter their lines in English. However, there is overdubbing as well, so you should expect to encounter some minor unevenness. Clarity and sharpness are good, but the overall range of nuanced dynamics is fairly limited.

Assassination Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critics Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson.

• Trailer - presented here is a newly restored International trailer for Assassination. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

Assassination Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While a small film that would appeal only to great admirers of Henry Silva and his work, Assassination has a lovely period atmosphere and personality that I found quite attractive. The film has been recently restored in 4K on behalf of Unidis Jolly Film, but its transition to Blu-ray is unconvincing. If you decide to pick it up for your collection, I recommend that you plan to do so only when it is heavily discounted. In the meantime, consider picking up Grand Slam, which is another very enjoyable and great looking genre film from Unidis Jolly Film's catalog.