John Hough's 1978 film BRASS TARGET - a conspiracy / assassination thriller set in Europe just following the conclusion of World War II - enjoyed an airing on TCM in the early hours today. It has been years since last I saw this, and never in wide screen - and thus was keen to catch up with it.

Unfortunately the print TCM ran was absolutely horrible. It broke up so many times, often dividing the screen into four parts and visually resembling something akin to a mosaic tile. I don't know if this was just on the cable service I have that carries TCM, or if that was the way everyone saw it. When the channel ran PARK ROW not that long ago it likewise looked terrible. I'm not sure if this print came from a PAL source or if it just a ghost in the machine but BRASS TARGET looked flat-out ugly.

BTW this is the only movie I'm aware of where you get to hear George Kennedy say the words "sweet red commie ass!"

Funny, I recall BT looking just fine the last time it aired. I ran into the breakup problem wih PARK ROW, too, but it was intermittent (if irksome) as I recall.

I recorded this and just checked out the first 15 minutes. There were a couple of spots where it VERY briefly appeared to pause and pixellate (when George Kennedy gets up from the desk, for instance), but what I saw didn't look as bad as what Robert described. It didn't look pristine by any means--there appeared to be some scratches and minor print damage--but it didn't look bad, at least not to me. Granted, this is only going by the first 15 minutes.

Now..that airing of CONTEMPT a couple of weeks ago....

I found another TCM gaffe a couple of nights ago when I sat down to revisit THE BIG SLEEP, which I recorded a couple Sundays back. Mankiewicz specifically introduced it as the 1946 theatrical version, but they broadcast the 1945 preview version. You tend to notice it when the "depends who's in the saddle" conversation is nowhere to be found.

PARK ROW was also a mess on my DVR after recording it.

I taped BRASS TARGET too last night and will give it a look-see.

BRASS TARGET is scheduled again for June 11.

Maybe it's just my cable service, but I just turned the TV on and TCM's airing of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD looks like a fuzzy, blurry, shaky YouTube video. Is it just on my end?


**disregard--now it looks OK. That was weird, though. For about 5-6 minutes, it looked HORRIBLE.