Play Dirty
(1968/DVD-Video)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: B-
Along
with his James Bond films and Harry Palmer films, the late great producer Harry
Saltzman found himself behind an interesting cycle of War genre films and André
De Toth’s Play Dirty (1968) is one
of those films. It is one of many films
that tried to capitalize on the big hit The
Dirty Dozen (1967, reviewed on HD-DVD elsewhere on this site) and leave it
to Saltzman to find his way to do it.
Michael
Caine is Captain Douglas, an executive for an oil company fuel expert who is
brought along for a very long trip through the almost endless Sahara Desert
during WWII to annihilate an oil facility run by and supplying fuel to the
Nazis. Accompanied by a rag tag team,
he’ll have to endure al kinds of craziness and unexpected events until they
reach their destination. Then, the crazy
climax kicks in with even more action and the result is one of the most
interesting Dirty Dozen imitators of
all.
Caine is
in top form, director De Toth (the 1953 3-D House Of Wax) keeps things gritty, realistic and it has the added
bonus of being appropriately politically incorrect. Nigel Davenport, Harry Andrews, Nigel Green
and Jeremy Child also star in what makes for a very solid cast and seriously
ambitious action drama. Though it is no
classic, Play Dirty is more than
worth a look for being the kind of mature film we just do not see anymore.
Though
the case says the anamorphically enhanced image on the disc is 1.85 X 1, this
was shot in real anamorphic Panavision and has a scope 2.35 x 1 aspect ratio as
it appears on the DVD properly as such.
Edward Scaife, B.S.C., was the cinematographer on The Dirty Dozen and this was his next film, offering a similarly
gritty look though it is wider. Color
(by DeLuxe) is not bad, but this is softer and duller than the transfer should
be. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is good
but a little weak, with a score by Michel Legrand, who usually composes for
lighter fare. There are no extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
