Review of Gone To Earth

Introduction

I knew before-hand it`d be a challenge staying in-focus with "Gone To Earth" for the full-course of its 110 minute running time, I expected just to aimlessly drift off & lose interest. That I came close to doing many times, but I got through with my first ever retro-movie experience, and i have to report, it wasn`t the pre-conceived snooze-fest i`d thought it up to be. As you can tell, I don`t care much for the old generation of British movies, but I reluctantly gave this one a go.

The movie follows a beautiful English Gypsy girl named Hazel, who has an un-dying affection for animals & in particular, her pet fox. With that the foundation of the movie, we throw in two traditional English-gentleman who both try to woo her into marriage, after she swears to her father to wed the first man to pose the question. With one being a charming but sadistic fox-hunting squire, and the other being a local pastor, Hazel is caught in-between two-minds for much of the movie, which leads to a rather tragic but touching ending.

Video

It`s hard to judge the calibre of a movie of this nature visually, being as I`ve never seen source material of its kind before. I`d not once watched a movie dating as far back as the 50s prior to this. But I can tell you it`s in full-frame & presented in glorious Technicolor, and the re-mastered work as a whole seems fine. Of course there`s the frequent flicker that appears for a split-second, but even movies from the 60s & late-70s suffered from this problem.

Audio

You get that ever-so-quiet constant hiss of air sound, which I assume is a problem that couldn`t be ironed out without causing conflicts to the dialogue & sound. But it`s really only noticeable at the start when there isn`t any noise to silence it out, everything else is on-par.

Features

It`s a decent enough effort, as there can`t be too much footage related to this movie kicking around, and I think what little of there is, can be found on this disc. The pick of the extras is definitely the interview with Ian Chirstie, he gives a good informative talk on most aspects, ranging from the shooting-locations to some of the casting choices. There`s also a "behind the scenes" which hardly constitutes as such a thing, it`s a reel of compiled footage which is so un-watchable it`s laughable. In addition, there`s a short photo-gallery & some interesting biographies too.

Conclusion

I found it rather average, but that`s a hell of allot more than what I expected. Someone of my age & mentality really couldn`t do justice to a film like this, but I appreciated some of the great acting, especially David Faraar, who plays an ace villain. All in all, it`s a true Sunday-afternoon movie. If you`re the kind of person who dreams of chasing butterflies through acres of glorious green fields, you may just like this. Not for me though thanks.