Banning Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Banning Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov October 15, 2024

Ron Winston's "Banning" (1967) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Imprint Films. The supplemental features on the release include new program with obert Wagner and Jill St. John; new program with author and film music historian Jon Burlingame; new audio commentary by critics Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell; and vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

It takes approximately twenty minutes to realize that plenty of people participate in a big game that constantly makes them a lot of money. It is a safe game. The players know exactly what to do and how to do it, while the played have no idea that their bank accounts are being drained. Why would the played be suspicious? They are in a stunning country club in sunny Arizona, where all of them are treated like dignitaries from a foreign land.

When Mike Banning (Robert Wagner) enters the country club and demands to be given a job, the game begins to change -- slowly at first, then quicker and rather dramatically. However, it takes another twenty or so minutes to understand why the people running the country club do not just throw Banning out and avoid the incoming drama. Banning is a disgraced professional golf player who has a history with Jonathan Linus (Guy Stockwell), also a professional golf player and the son-in-law of millionaire J. Pallister Young (Howard St. John), the brains behind the profitable game. If Banning is refused the job he demands, he will talk and expose the game. If Banning is banged up and thrown out, or better yet killed, the police will investigate and quickly link him to Linus, whose activities in the country club will inevitably expose the game too.

But immediately after Banning is hired several women take an interest in him and begin complicating his duties. The first is Angela Bar (Jill St. John), a rich, glamorous, and very cynical socialite who always gets the man she desires -- even if she must pay to have him in her bedroom. The second is Linus’s equally glamorous and bored wife, Cynthia (Susan Clark), who immediately recognizes that the newcomer has a functioning head on his shoulders and enough style to be a middle-aged model. The third is Carol Lindquist (Anjanette Comer), a charming and pragmatic single girl who reports to Linus and Young. As two of the three women begin making moves, freelancing debt collector Harry Kalielle (Mike Kellin) appears and warns Banning that he has very little time left to pay the $22,000 he owes, effectively forcing him to start improvising and outsmarting Linus, Young, and several other people on their team while playing the game they have perfected.

Directed by Ron Winston, who spent the majority of his career shooting content for TV, Banning can best be described as an oddity that nowadays looks many times more stylish than it did in the late 1960s. Why? Because it aims to impress the same audience that would have paid to see the likes of Harper and Marlowe but without introducing an instantly recognizable character, and because it gathers too many soon-to-be-big and recently established actors that just a few years later would have ignored it to appear in more prestigious projects like the two mentioned earlier. In other words, on paper Banning is a small film, but it does not have the ambition, appearance, or attitude of one.

The camera loves Wagner because he looks fantastic. However, the three big female leads are to die for and the reason Banning quickly evolves into a strikingly stylish and very intriguing film. For example, in just a few sequences St. John effectively overshadows Wagner and her cynicism adds a contemporary edge to the drama that many viewers will find surprisingly refreshing. Clark is equally impressive but looks drastically different. She is a classic femme fatale who has secretly transitioned to a different decade and upgraded her bag of tricks. Comer is the mysterious, tough-to-get younger beauty men typically fall for and inevitably misjudge. So, the beauty, glamour, and variety of personalities in Banning, a supposedly small film, are quite odd, but in a surprisingly good and effective way.

Banning has an unmissable noirish quality, but it is of the new kind that the likes of Don Siegel’s The Killers and John Guillermin's P.J. promoted. These genre films intentionally emphasized plenty of light and a variety of bright and lush colors, rather than the typical for the classic film noirs prominent shadows.

Gil Bernal can be heard singing “The Eyes of Love”, an appropriately stylish tune, several times. Additional great music by Quincy Jones, who composed it, is also used very effectively.

Banning Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Banning arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Imprint Films.

For this Blu-ray release, the folks at Imprint Films commissioned an exclusive new 2K master struck from an interpositive that is very good. It retains a few white specks and nicks that could have been removed, but produces visuals that have a very convincing, very attractive organic appearance. For example, delineation, clarity, and depth range from very good to occasionally even excellent. In a few areas, small density fluctuations can be observed, but they are a byproduct of stylistic choices and minor weaknesses inherited from the interpositive. Color balance is outstanding. All primaries and supporting nuances are properly set and appear very healthy. Ideally, in a few spots saturation levels could be a tad better, but I liked what I saw on my system a lot. Banning has a solid and very convincing color scheme that provides it with an authentic period look. Image stability is good. There are no traces of problematic digital tinkering. All in all, Banning looks lovely on Blu-ray, so I could not be happier to have it in my library. My score is 4.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray release. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your player regardless of your geographical location).

Banning Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English LPCM 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

Gil Bernal's rendition of "The Eyes of Love" and all of Quincy Jones' original music sound lovely and infuse Banning with quite an atmosphere. I think that a lot of what makes Banning a stylish film has something to do with the music and the manner in which it is used. Dynamic contrasts are good, but it is always easy to tell that the sound design was done many decades ago. The dialog is clear, sharp, stable, and easy to follow. I did not encounter any troubling age-related anomalies to report in our review.

Banning Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• "A Hole in the One" - in this exclusive new program, Robert Wagner and Jill St. John talk discuss the evolution of their acting careers, their collaboration on Banning, the era in which the film was shot and some interesting trends at Universal and in Europe (where Wagner had a great time working), Gene Hackman's curious part in the film, real golf hustlers, etc. In English, not subtitled. (20 min).

• "Members Only: Scoring Banning" - in this exclusive new program, author and film music historian Jon Burlingame discusses the unique qualities of the score Quincy Jones composed for Banning, as well as some interesting studio trends that were already underway at the time. In English, not subtitled. (16 min).

• Trailer - presented here is a vintage trailer for Banning. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

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

• Isolated Score - presented as a LPCM 2.0 track.

Banning Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Banning heads down the same path and quickly enters the same territory where you will discover wonderful but not well known genre films like Warning Shot and P.J.. These genre films tend to behave like film noirs, but reject their classic stylistic identity and always play with a lot of light and bright colors. I think that many of them were the blueprints for the big and popular neo-noir films that emerged during the 1980s and 1990s. Imprint Films' release introduces a new 2K remaster of Banning and features a very nice exclusive program with two of its stars, Robert Wagner and Jill St. John. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.