PRESSURE POINT (1962)
Label: MGM
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 89 Minutes 19 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: B&W 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Hubert Cornfield
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Bobby Darin, Peter Falk, Carl Benton Reid, Mary Munday, Howard Caine, Gilbert Green, Barry Gordon, Richard Bakalyan, Lynn Loring
Pressure Point (1962) is not directed by Stanley Kramer (It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), he produced it though, and it certainly feels like a Kramer message movie, such as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (also starring Poitier), opening in 1962 at a psychiatric institution where a young unnamed psychiatrist (Peter Falk, TV's Columbo) has been treating an African American patient who he has been unable to make a breakthrough with, even after months of intensive therapy sessions, and he feels that the reason is that he is white and that the black patients resents him for that. He speak to a senior psychiatrist, a black man, also unnamed (Sidney Poitier, Sneakers), who then tells him about a difficult patient he once had, From here the film plays out in prolonged flashback, of a time in 1942 when Poitier's characters was a prison psychiatrist tasked with treating a hate-filled young man (teen crooner Bobby Darin, State Fair), a racist American Nazi sympathizer during World War II. As he probes the patient's nightmares during contentious conversations that patient, a well-spoken and intelligent man, we get to the seed of his racist ideology stemming from past traumas and perceived slights, none of which justifies his hateful beliefs and prejudices, but there it is. We see stylized and sometimes surreal flashbacks within the flashback of his ineffectual mother (Anne Barton, Whatever Happened To baby Jane?) unable or unwilling to defend him from his abusive, womanizing father (James Anderson, I Married a Monster from Outer Space), and scenes of him being rebuffed by a pretty young Jewish woman (Lynn Loring, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun), and him and his thugs tearing up a bar and harassing a barmaid (Mary Munday, The Balled of Cable Hogue), who is presumably raped offscreen, leading up to him being indoctrinated into the hate-filled Nazi party.
I thought this came across as fairly progressive for an early sixties film in regard to the handling of mental health and the state of psychiatric affairs. Darin and Poitier are terrific together, it was a surprising turn to see the former teen crooner as a racist, he's quite strong in the role, as is Poitier in a role that was tailored to these sort of roles he was so strong in, and he gets a rather solid bit of righteous venom at the end that rings out quite nicely.
Audio/Video: Previously issued on Blu-ray from the now defunct Olive Films back in 2016 gets a re-release from MGM in 1080p HD framed in 1.66:1 widescreen. The black and white image is quite strong, the source looks just fine, grain though course looks filmic, grayscale is pleasing, and blacks are deep. Notably the film was lensed by Ernest Haller (Gone with the Wind, The Maltese Falcon), and his stark monochromatic style looks terrific in HD.
Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The track is clean and has solid fidelity, not a ton of depth to it but dialogue is always clean and easy to decipher, and the theremin infused score from Ernest Gold (The Screaming Skull) is quite nice, elevating the film for sure.
As is typical with these MGM catalog Blu-ray re-issues there are no special features, just a static menu with the option for subtitles, we do not even get the Original Theatrical Trailer which was the only extras on the previous 2016 Olive Films Blu-ray.
The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, not sure if it's original illustrated movie poster artwork but I do recall it from the previous MGM DVD release.
Special Features:
Special Features:
- None
Screenshots from the MGM Blu-ray:
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