Review of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased): Volume 3

Introduction

Randall (Mike Pratt) is a private eye who used to have a partner (Hopkirk - Kenneth Cope). Now he has a ghostly partner that only he can see. Very useful!

Randall and Hopkirk was unique in that the main (alive) character was quite plain, didn`t do anything illegal and was mostly down on his luck, nothing glamorous about detective work here.

The series was quirkly humerous and was recently revived by Reeves and Mortimer on the 30th anniversary of the original screenings.

As with disc two, you get four episodes, which is pretty good value for money at around 190 minutes running time!

Video

I was thoroughly impressed with the video quality of this disc, the print is extremely clean and the transfer doesn`t suffer any apparent digital artefacts - blacks are nicely black and all colours come across strongly. The picture is a tad washed out but that just makes it look the part ;)

Audio

Dialogue is crisp and clean and the incidental music warbles nicely in the background in typical 1960`s style.

(yes it`s mono but don`t let that put you off - you don`t need to be surrounded by explosions to have a good time ;)

The DVD menu plays the soundtrack on an endless loop that`s just a little too short.....

Features

Very similar to the offerings from the other Carlton (ITC) releases like Danger Man in that each disc has a few features that gently build up into a nice collection.

In this case there`s a stills gallery that flcks through itself if you go for a coffee and the US title sequence - notable for terrible dirt on the print and little else.

There`s also a brief memorabilia page with some covers from magazines featuring Randall and Hopkirk.

The box also features a little booklet that goes into the scripts and locations a little. Pretty good considering the age of these productions.

Conclusion

I`m quietly impressed with these Carlton releases, they are charging sensible prices and putting some work into cleaning prints and producing some nice little extras - with each series building into a good collection for the fan.

Thoroughtly recommended if you are a fan, just think of all the videos you can chuck away!