6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There is an outbreak of violent behavior at the exclusive Catholic boarding school for boys, where Joe Dobbs is a popular English instructor and Jerome Malley is a widely-disliked Latin and Greek teacher. When Malley begins to receive threatening notes and phone calls, he assumes that Dobbs is the caller.
Starring: James Mason (I), Robert Preston, Beau Bridges, Ron Weyand, Charles WhiteMystery | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Olive Films has the rare distinction of having released two films now that bear titles that were later reused for other properties, two films which not so coincidentally I tried for years to track down either on television or through rentals with absolutely no success. As I mentioned in my review of the 1968 William Castle feature Project X, I had fallen in love with that film’s source novel, British science fiction writer L.P. Davies’ The Artificial Man, when I was a kid. I had then found out sometime thereafter that it had been adapted into a film. Project X (at least this particular Project X) never seemed to turn up on television and I could never find a rental, and so when Olive released it, on Blu-ray no less, it was like finding an old treasure that you had given up on ever unearthing. Something fairly similar happened when I saw that Olive was preparing to release a 1972 film called Child’s Play, not to be confused with the later series starring the demonically possessed doll Chucky. No, this particular Child’s Play deals with a potential other demonic possession, one of a bunch of boys attending a somewhat dilapidated Catholic boarding school. The film was adapted from a well regarded and quite successful Broadway play by Robert Marasco (the only play he ever wrote, though his later novel Burnt Offerings was adapted as a Bette Davis film), a multiple Tony winner which I became familiar with when it was included in the annual Burns Mantle Best Plays series, a book franchise I became nerdily fascinated with in my teen years, checking as many of the tomes out of my local library as I could find. I had initially been drawn to the 1969-70 edition of the Burns Mantle yearbook because it included the Stephen Sondheim – George Furth musical Company, whose cast album I had fallen in love with but whose libretto I really knew little about, but I was really drawn to Child’s Play once I read the excerpts included in the yearbook. Unlike the 1968 Project X, which was never a high profile project to begin with, Child’s Play was a potentially “big” feature with an A-list director (Sidney Lumet), two fairly famous stars (Robert Preston and James Mason) along with a then trendy up and comer (Beau Bridges), plus it was based on what was then a recently very successful Broadway hit. And yet, exactly like with Project X, Child’s Play simply seemed to have disappeared into thin air after its brief theatrical exhibition.
Child's Play is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While the elements here do show some minor signs of damage, with occasional white specks and flecks dotting the landscape, overall this is a remarkably clear and precise presentation for a film of this vintage, and one that luxuriates in such dark lighting most of the time. Lumet and his DP Gerald Hirschfeld favor extreme close-ups, which benefit the film's fine object detail in this high definition presentation. Colors are nicely saturated and accurate looking. There are some niggling concerns with inadequate shadow detail and actual crush in a couple of extremely dark sequences, two things that are somewhat exacerbated by a sometimes fairly grainy looking presentation, but this is another nicely filmic looking transfer from Olive that doesn't appear to have undergone any serious digital tweaking in any way, shape or form.
No, that isn't some bugaboo in Child's Play's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that is causing all those weird sounds to emanate from your home theater system. Child's Play came in for some critical brickbats at the time of its release for a somewhat odd decision by composer Michael Small and the sound design team to incorporate all sorts of weird clicking and thumping noises throughout the film. Most of these, like soft bongos or congas, are nicely interwoven with Small's evocative score, but in a couple of scenes, the listener is awash in frankly bizarre sounding effects that might lead some to believe there's someone out of frame talking in that African tribal language Xhosa where the speaker makes all those weird clicking noises in the backs of their throats. Fidelity here is fine, if nothing spectacular, though it should be noted that amplitude is somewhat variable, and fluctuates at various points, including a long sequence toward the end of the film where it's considerably diminished.
No supplements of any kind are offered on this Blu-ray.
Child's Play is a largely very effective chiller, one that walks a nice tightrope where the viewer can see things two ways. Unfortunately things fall apart toward the end, with a kind of Lord of the Flies devolution into anarchy and then a moody, if unclear, wrap up. But the film is worthwhile despite its flaws for its two brilliant lead performances. Mason is uncannily neurotic throughout the film (watch how he hunches his head down into his shoulder in most scenes) and Preston has what is arguably his most nuanced role in his latter career. Lumet's direction is appropriately claustrophobic and disturbing. Child's Play isn't a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination, but it has its moments. Recommended.
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