NORTH DALLAS FORTY (1979)
Label: Imprint Films (#173)
Rating: M
Duration: 118 Minutes
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround, LPCM 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Cast: Nick Nolte, Dabney Coleman, Mac Davis, Charles Durning, G.D. Spradlin, Steve Forrest, Dayle Haddon, Savannah Smith Boucher
Ted Kotcheff's superior sports films North Dallas Forty, based on a novel by former Dallas Cowboy Peter Gent, depicts aging football wide receiver Phil Elliot (Nick Nolte, Extreme Prejudice) whom has played with the fictional North Dallas Bulls for years. His body has suffered and he is in constant pain from years of injuries incurred playing the sport he loves. He treats himself with a steady diet of prescribed pain pills, painful injections, beer and smoking some occasional weed. Despite the pain he pushes on, hoping to someday earn enough from the sport to build his dream home on a gorgeous plot of land he's bought in the country. As of late though his body seems to at it's limit, perhaps having reached it's threshold for pain and injury, and he's been benched most of the current season by head coach Strother (G.D. Spradlin, Apocalypse Now) after a few sloppy plays, and he feels he's been unfairly sidelined. I think the film pretty accurately portrays the sport and the way that team owners like Conrad Hunter, (Steve Forrest, Spies Like Us) and his brother Emmet (Dabney Coleman, Cloaks & Dagger), and coaches treat the athletes like expendable pieces of meat to be chewed up and spit out by the machinery of the sport, to win at all costs, pushing the athletes beyond their measure, particularly Assistant Coach Johnson (Charles Durning, The Dark Night of the Scarecrow) who encourages the athletes to treat their pain with pills and medication and to ignore their pain and injuries, no matter the cost to their bodies, which causes a potentially career ending injury for a young rising star.
While at a party with his hard-partying best pal, quarterback Seth Maxwell (country singer Mac Davis, The Sting II), Elliot meets a young woman named Charlotte (Dayle Haddon, Cyborg) who makes quite an impression on him, so much so that he not only second guess not only his not-so-serious and not-so-secret relationship with the team owner's brother's fiancé Joanne Rodney (Savannah Smith Boucher, The Long Riders), but just exactly how much shit and injury he is willing to endure playing football. Like most of the best sports films, at the least the ones I like, the movie is not so much about the sport itself as it is the human elements. While this does have prerequisite moments of training, working out, and game play we also see Elliot's struggle with his love of the sport versus his increasing physical vulnerability and the loathing of the business end of it, as represented by the owners and coaches. It's chock full of colorful characters like brutes John O.W. Shaddock (former real footballer John Matuszak, Sloth from Goonies!) and Jo Bob Priddy (Bo Svenson, Curse II: The Bite), the winning is all mentality of the coaches and team owners, who are only too happy to turn a blind eye to the players wild lifestyles (lots of sex, drugs and alcohol) ...until they it suits them not to, and the flick does excellent work portraying the way these athletes destroy themselves in the name of the game they truly love only to be chewed up and spit out.
Audio/Video: North Dallas Forty (1979) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Imprint Films in 1080p HD widescreen (2.39:1) this is advertised as a new "new 4K scan by Paramount Pictures", and the source looks pretty great, with only some minor speckling and a few small nicks mar it. The new 4K scan is quite pleasing and easily advances over past standard-definition releases with improved clarity, depth and contrast, with the Paul Lohmann (Time After Time) cinematography looking better than ever. Colors are naturally hued and look terrific, and texturing is quite nice. We get a choice of uncompressed English LPCM 2.0 and English DTS-HD MA 5.1, I typically leaned towards the stereo track which feels more authentic to my ears. Depth and fidelity are quite pleasing, and dialogue is well-defined, acoustics on locker room talk and on-the-field game play sounded organic and impacted. The score from John Scott (Symptoms) also has a nice showing in the mix and is full-bodied and serves the film quite well.
Imprint offer some much appreciated new extras for this release, kicking things off with a 1-min Introduction by director Ted Kotcheff, then into an Audio Commentary by filmmaker/film historian Daniel Kremer and screenwriter Daniel Waters with the film’s director Ted Kotcheff. We also get a 5-min Hit Me With Those Best Shots: Ted Kotcheff Remembers North Dallas Forty, plus a new 19-min video essay Looking to Get Out: A Comparative Analysis of the Ted Kotcheff Vision, driving the disc into the end zone with a 3-min Theatrical Trailer. The Limited Edition of 1500 release is a single-disc release housed in a clear keepcase with a 2-sided, non-reversible sleeve of artwork, plus a slipcover with the original Morgan Kane illustrated one-sheet movie poster, which looks awesome.
Special Features:
- 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a NEW 4K scan by Paramount Pictures
- NEW! Audio commentary by filmmaker/film historian Daniel Kremer and screenwriter Daniel Waters with the film’s director Ted Kotcheff
- NEW! Introduction by director Ted Kotcheff (1 min)
- NEW! Hit Me With Those Best Shots: Ted Kotcheff Remembers North Dallas Forty (5 min)
- NEW! Looking to Get Out: A Comparative Analysis of the Ted Kotcheff Vision – video essay (19 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (3 min)
- Limited Edition slipcase on the first 1500 copies with unique artwork
North Dallas Forty (1979) is easily one of my favorite sport flicks, but keep in mind that most of my favorite flicks about athletes are not the usual variety, and are usually not of the serious minded sort, among my most favored are Bad News Bears, Major League and Best of Times, and I would put this alongside any of those. The new release from Imprint Films marks the film's worldwide Blu-ray debut and it looks terrific, the packaging presentation is top-notch, and the new extras are much-appreciated.
Screenshots from the Imprint Films Blu-ray:
