{"id":10282,"date":"2014-12-15T00:50:57","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T05:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10282"},"modified":"2014-12-15T00:50:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T05:50:57","slug":"br-che-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10282","title":{"rendered":"BR: Che! (1969)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Che1969_BR\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Twilight Time<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0All<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 September 9, 2014<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Biography \/ War \/ Drama<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Compact account of Che Guevara, spanning his years with Fidel Castro and post-Cuban revolution years trying to instill uprisings in parts of Latin South America before his execution in 1967.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Isolated mono music track \/ 1969 making-of promo (5 mins.) \/ TV spot + Theatrical Trailer \/ Liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ Limited to 3000 copies \/ Available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Produced two years after the death of Argentine-born rebel Che Guevara, Richard Fleischer\u2019s film is infamous for being a grand piece of cinematic kitsch, starring Omar Sharif as the eponymous anti-hero whose face became a brand on T-shirts, sheets, posters, and buttons, and Jack Palance as a cigar-chomping Fidel Castro who led his band of rag-tag rebels into Havana after 2 years of guerilla warfare in the rural areas of Cuba.<\/p>\n

The basic story of Che and Castro\u2019s successful revolution is incredible: roughly 80 soldiers land on a beach, are decimated by the planes and soldiers of Cuba\u2019s lead dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and from twelve survivors, manage to increase their membership to a small force which ultimately sends Batista packing, and appoints the pair as key figures in a dictatorship that endures in roughly the same form today.<\/p>\n

As a piece of ephemeral tabloid filmmaking, Che!<\/strong> is fascinating for the selective, simplistic storytelling, and if shorn of its major stars, Fleischer\u2019s film would essentially be no greater nor worse than a cash-in TV movie of the week. Sharif may look like Guevara, but he\u2019s robbed of necessary scenes which humanize the pop culture enigma. Part of the problem stems from an obviously tight budget \u2013 although shot in beautiful Puerto Rico, the newsreel structure borrowed from Orson Welles\u2019 Citizen Kane<\/a><\/strong> (1941) ensured the three screenwriters needed to focus on just the essential material that would accompany a print biographical sketch.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a certain sleaziness that dominates the film in spite of Fleischer\u2019s genuine attempts to exploit the news doc format which may well stem from Palance\u2019s colourful version of Fidel (false nose and all), and Sharif\u2019s fiery eyes which often transcend the script\u2019s banalities but also reinforce we\u2019re watching an Enigma rather than a person. The film works, but it keeps stumbling when epic street fights are reduced to an obvious one-scene studio set, and Fleischer\u2019s news doc format mandates ridiculous \u2018present day\u2019 confession-style interviews with Castro associates and critics who smile, grumble, or wander around buildings and make their addresses to the camera.<\/p>\n

Women are almost non-existent in the film, with Barbara Luna\u2019s portrayal of a token female rebel being an exception that soon vanishes into the background, and Linda Marsh (America America<\/a><\/strong>) having an eeny-weeny role of a faux anthropologist \/ spy who provides Guevara with government and military movements. (The ad copy shows Guevara fondling a woman in a scene that never<\/em> occurs, and based on the film\u2019s rather short running time, it\u2019s either from a deleted scene, or was pure teaser material designed for the poster art.)<\/p>\n

Perhaps the goofiest component is Che\u2019s \u2018final thoughts\u2019 that start the film: Sharif whispers the final words of Guevara, now a spirit observing as his own cadaver is prepped for a helicopter transport across the Bolivian mountains to a remote village for final display and disposal. Fleischer returns to this in-progress body transport to infer the nearing end of his film, and there\u2019s an amusing cluster of jump cuts of the helicopter which may have been designed to invoke a newsreel style, but come off as heavy-handed.<\/p>\n

Some of Fleischer\u2019s other techniques are rather interesting: special lenses that completely block out the background and make any close-ups of Guevara and Sharif\u2019s eyes hyper-real; a diopter lens that allows for Castro\u2019s men to remain in focus as they turn at the sharp end of a fork-in-the-road in the jungle; and a sudden acceleration of frames as a camera crane up, over and down a shed.<\/p>\n

Fleischer\u2019s second unit action scenes are excellent \u2013 the combat, explosions, gunfire, and massive vistas sugar fields, and of Bolivia\u2019s mountains where Guevara attempted to mount a central anti-American revolution he hoped would bleed to surrounding South American countries are gorgeous in \u2018scope \u2013 and he manages to give the teleplay script a visual depth typical of an A-level studio picture. The violence is fast and ruthless, especially a great montage in which Castro\u2019s victory parade through Havana\u2019s streets is intercut with the mass executions of captured Batista soldiers, and Guevara\u2019s repeated injuries and survival add to the details which elevated the former doctor-turned-revolutionary into an icon.<\/p>\n

Guevara\u2019s asthma is recurrent \u2013 a clich\u00e9d yet effective detail that humanizes the icon \u2013 but it\u2019s contrasted with Castro\u2019s cigars (never far away from his mouth) and regular consumption of amphetamines and Metaxa<\/a> booze. The Cuban accents are very loose \u2013 Palance just can\u2019t hold it for long \u2013 and the cast is a mixed bag of character actors: standouts include Sid Haig and Adolph Caesar, while Woody Strode is largely silent and Robert Loggia is always looking rather irked. With the cast outfitted with Cuban wigs #12 and #14 and Cuban beards #9 and #10, Che!<\/strong> feels like a rush job designed to give studio Fox some easy cash, and perhaps beat any TV news producers to making their own detailed, fact-rich biography.<\/p>\n

The real assets in this piece of conventional storytelling are Sharif\u2019s crazily affecting eyes, Charles Wheeler\u2019s gorgeous cinematography, and Lalo Schifrin\u2019s rich score, isolated in a mono music & sound effects track on Twilight Time\u2019s Blu-ray.<\/p>\n

Che! <\/strong>has remained a problem film to release \u2013 it\u2019s good trash but not a good film \u2013 and its never made the move from videotape and TV to DVD, so this BR is a real are rare treat. The visuals are splendid, but the mono 2.0 mix is rather flat, and low in volume. There are few dynamic aural moments in Che!<\/strong> (gunfire and score, excepted), and the isolated score track has been slightly enhanced to give Schifrin\u2019s music a bit more richness.<\/p>\n

The isolated music track (apparently taken from a clean mixed music stem, instead of a music & effects track) also marks the first time the original score\u2019s been released, and offers a very different listening experience to the prior soundtrack album.<\/p>\n

Originally released on Bill Cosby\u2019s Tetragrammaton label, then AES Records, and later on Schifrin\u2019s own Aleph CD label, the score is more dissonant and impressionistic, whereas the album features somewhat longer re-recorded versions that present themes in more concise listening versions. (It would be interesting to learn whether Schifrin actually wrote two scores \u2013 one more melodic and catchy, but there\u2019s no details on the score\u2019s creation in Julie Kirgo\u2019s appreciative liner notes.)<\/p>\n

Fans of the album might be a little jarred by the score\u2019s less conventional sound, and should hold onto both the LP and CD releases as they contain different score, re-recorded, and source cues. Last point: even on CD, Che!<\/strong> never sounded particularly good \u2013 there\u2019s a grubbiness to the recording which was either deliberate, marrying a coarser sound to the film\u2019s newsreel approach, or a rushed recording which Schifrin never liked, and was unable to significantly improve upon on his own CD edition.<\/p>\n

Other Blu-ray extras include a TV spot and trailer. Both are amusing for playing on Guevara\u2019s post-mortem cult status, not like the Bird Lives! wave that followed the death of iconic alto saxophonist Charlie Parker<\/a>. A vintage making-of promo featurette (in great condition) shows cast, crew, and director on sets and in the jungle.<\/p>\n

Fleischer would move right into the making of the superior Pearl Harbor docu-drama Tora! Tora! Tora! <\/strong>(1970) , whereas both writer \/ producer Sy Bartlett (13 Rue Madeleine<\/a><\/strong>, The Big Country<\/strong>) and veteran and former blacklisted writer Michael Wilson (Bridge on the River Kwai<\/strong>, Lawrence of Arabia<\/strong>, Planet of the Apes<\/strong>) apparently retired from filmmaking (or couldn\u2019t transcend the dud status of their Guevara epic). David Karp, co-credited with devising the film\u2019s story had just completed a season of the Dirty Dozen<\/strong> knock-off TV series Garrison\u2019s Gorillas<\/strong> (1967-1968), and would return to TV as a prolific episodic series writer.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2014 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB \u00a0<\/a>— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —Album Review<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Produced two years after the death of Argentine-born rebel Che Guevara, Richard Fleischer\u2019s film is infamous for being a grand piece of cinematic kitsch, starring Omar Sharif as the eponymous anti-hero whose face became a brand on T-shirts, sheets, posters, and buttons for decades, and Jack Palance as a cigar-chomping Fidel Castro who led his band of rag-tag rebels into Havana after 2 years of guerilla warfare in the rural areas of Cuba…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3209,3211,51,3210,529],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2FQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10307,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10282\/revisions\/10307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}