View Full Version : Turkish Delight - any good?
Dan Druff
08-08-2002, 15:38
Considering buying this Paul Verhoeven movie..never seen it.
Would you recommend it?..I liked Flesh and Blood and his later Hollywood output..
Cheers,
The Druffmeister..
It's very different to Robocop, for sure.
Kind of mental, psycho-sexual, drama - the perfect mixture between high and low-brow cinema.
I love it, but would recommend the fantastic Bunuel homage "The Fourth Man" and the equally ace WW2 spy thriller "Soldier Of Orange" as more essential purchases. The Anchor Bay releases are anamorphic and both have very amusing commentaries
Michael Brooke
08-08-2002, 16:17
There's a wonderful illustration of just how hard it is to pigeonhole <I>Turkish Delight</I> - in Holland it was a mainstream commercial release (based on a best-selling novel), in the US it was an Oscar-nominated subtitled arthouse film, and in Britain it was dubbed into English and dumped on the softcore sex cinema circuit!
It doesn't really stand comparison with any of Verhoeven's American films - I'm tempted to say <I>Showgirls</I> comes closest, but that's pretty misleading as the films have little in common besides a fondness for full-frontal realism and all-stops-out melodrama. <I>Turkish Delight</I> is certainly a far superior film!
I second Ben's recommendation for <I>The Fourth Man</I> - that was my first Verhoeven film, and I was completely hooked! I still think it's my favourite by a short head, though <I>Starship Troopers</I> isn't far behind.
Think of it as Verhoeven's take on <i>Betty Blue</i> albeit <I>Turkish Delight</i> came first. :p
The r1 DVD (commentary and NOT Tartan) is the way to go.
Dan Druff
08-08-2002, 16:42
Originally posted by Garry Cowell
The r1 DVD (commentary and NOT Tartan) is the way to go
So R2 is not the one to go for?..not going mad for commentary.
The Fourth Man and Soldier of Orange also sound very good..must invest. Need cash.
Michael Brooke
08-08-2002, 16:54
The Anchor Bay discs are region-free and have excellent anamorphic transfers and a pretty good extras package of trailer, stills (often including storyboards as well as more conventional material) and a Verhoeven commentary - and he's one of the better DVD commentators out there, so the discs are well worth buying for that reason alone.
I haven't seen any of the Tartan discs, but they don't look that competitive by comparison.
And the R1s are cheap....can be had for around 12/13 quid.
Oh, anyone checked out the AB releases of Business Is Business and Katie Tippel yet. I haven't seen either so thinking I should probably complete my PV collection.
Oh, BTW - MGM are releasing Spetters in November - I just hope it's not the appalling US dub which I have on VHS.
Michael Brooke
08-08-2002, 17:19
Originally posted by BenH
Oh, BTW - MGM are releasing Spetters in November - I just hope it's not the appalling US dub which I have on VHS.
I had appalling VHS English dubs of <I>Satyricon</I> and <I>Roma</I>, but the MGM DVDs were of the subtitled versions, which bodes well.
If you're interested, I've reviewed three of the Anchor Bay releases of Verhoeven's films, namely Turkish Delight (http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/index.cgi?page=Review&id=652&story=2809), Soldier Of Orange (http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/index.cgi?page=Review&id=701&story=2915) and Katie Tippel (http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/index.cgi?page=Review&id=855&story=3265) for DVD Times. The first two are well worth a look if you enjoy the director's no-holds-barred approach to filmmaking but <I>Katie Tippel</I> is recommended for hardcore fans only. (I don't have the <I>Business Is Business</I> disc.) I haven't posted my review of <I>The Fourth Man</I> yet but like Michael Brooke, it remains probably my favourite Verhoeven film to date. Incidentally, the AB discs are region 1, not region-free.
[And thanks to Ben H for the heads-up about the forthcoming release of <I>Spetters</I> - I hope it is the subtitled version, too.]
Gary Couzens
09-08-2002, 00:54
I reviewed the Tartan (Region 0) disc for Videovista. The transfer is pretty good, which leads me to suspect that Tartan didn't do it themselves. (The optional subtitles are another giveaway.) The DVD is anamorphic 1.66:1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 mono. Extras are okay but nothing special.
It's also the uncut version, for the first time in the UK. (For the record, the original BBFC cuts were only a few seconds long - to the garotting scene about five minutes in. Considering what the BBFC left in, back in the early 70s, that's quite remarkable.)
As for the film itself, it's definitely not for the prudish. (Some might suggest the scene where Rutger Hauer inspects the contents of a toilet after Monique Van de Ven has used it, to be an appropriate summing up of the entire film) It's commendably frank and very explicit for its time though not above juvenile shock tactics - Verhoeven can't seem to resist pointing his camera up women's skirts and we also get to see a dog crap on the pavement. But despite all the melodramatic asides and the hard-boiled "attitude", it does manage to be quite moving towards the end.
Tiffany Bradford
09-08-2002, 07:06
Originally posted by Gary Couzens
(Some might suggest the scene where Rutger Hauer inspects the contents of a toilet after Monique Van de Ven has used it, to be an appropriate summing up of the entire film)
:D
The Fourth Man is my favourite, but Turkish Delight is very watchable which translates into very ownable for me.
APPRIA40WR
09-08-2002, 07:28
Turkish Delight - any good?
Watchable. Just buy it as cheap as possible.
Think of it as Verhoeven's take on Betty Blue albeit Turkish Delight came first.
by about 15 years I would say and ending is also incredibly bleak
Rutger Hauer is simply awesome here and so different from his roles in either Blade Runner or The Hitcher
:nuts:
I think that this is the best Paul Verhoeven has done before making movies, and ofcourse Rutger Hauer is the title character
Shot in B & W and spread over 3 discs with 12 episodes.
http://www.freerecordshop.nl/pages/productview.asp?ProductID=111888
Does that <I>Floris</I> (Boxset) come with English subs?! :(
Gary
very good question indeed !!!!! since I speak dutch, I would have no problem, but I will try and find out for you, okay
:smokin:
Martin Veenman
09-08-2002, 13:30
Originally posted by Garry Cowell
Does that <I>Floris</I> (Boxset) come with English subs?! :(
No, it doesn't.
Somone wrote NOT Tartan earlier, but maybe that was regarding "Turkish Delight" only? How is the Tartan edition of "The Fourth Man"? I don't care about the lack of commentary, as long as the picture quality is good.
SIMON ADEBISI
09-03-2006, 16:42
How di this end up in this forum?
The R1's are still the way to go. I've long since bought the R1 Anchor Bay Paul Verhoeven Collection which contains The Fourth Man, Turkish Delight, Katie Tippel, Business Is Business and Soldier of Orange all in a nice box with a booklet. ALSO the R1 are ALL region free too. :thumbs:
How di this end up in this forum?...because it was posted 4 years ago, before the forums were segregated.
How di this end up in this forum?
Old threads quite often get bumped up in the movie forum, some like this one from years ago before the current forums came into to being. So if you see any that are in the wrong forum feel free to report them to us and we will move them.
Moving to Classic Forum
Barney_Tabasco
10-03-2006, 12:39
Blimey, i opened this up without checking the date and thought all the old faces had come back for a big party! Michael Brooke, APPRIA40WR...ah, those were the days.
More worrying was seeing one of my own posts from 2002!! I feel old
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