The Hanged Man - DVD
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There have been three attempts to kill Lew Burnett. After the third attempt Burnett decides to stay 'dead' - so that he can stay alive.
Burnett, owner of an international construction company, begins scouring his past to find out who hated, loved or envied him enough to want him out of the way for good; he is not running from his enemies but trying to draw them out. Undercover and on borrowed time, he has been given a second chance at life. In this state of transition - symbolised by the Hanged Man of the Tarot - he can no longer fall back on his money or influence, just the wits and hands with which he built up his own small empire. In the process, he is forced to confront some painful truths.
In an exceptional performance, acclaimed RSC player and character actor Colin Blakely (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Son of Man) stars as Lew Burnett alongside Michael Williams as Alan Crowe and Gary Watson as hired assassin John Quentin. This powerful eight-part thriller series also features guest appearances from Jane Seymour, Gareth Hunt, James Grout and Frederick Jaeger, and is scripted by Edmund Ward, whose previous credits include The Power Game and The Main Chance. Ward found inspiration for the series in his own experiences in the often morally dubious world of international construction; The Hanged Man is both a story of self-discovery, and a journey into dark places where the global reach of money ultimately holds the power of life or death.
This complete series, made by Yorkshire Television and originally screened in 1975, is available available in DVD format via serveral editions.
The Madman (Aust) edition seesm to be out of print.
Release Date: 20/07/2011
Languages: English
Number of Discs: 2
Runtime: 407.0 mins
Format: DVD, Region 4 (PAL)
Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Original Aspect Ratio
Catalogue:# MMA5151
Network DVD have a couple of releases:
Catalogue Number: 7953309
Classification: 12
Picture: 1.33:1 / Colour
Subtitles: None
Time: 400 mins approx
Barcode: 5027626330941
Number of Discs: 2
Sound: Mono / English
Region: 2 / PAL
Released on dvd 03 May, 2010.
2016 Box set
The series was released in 2016 as a box set alongside Turtle's Progress, both devised and scripted by Edmund Ward.
- Catalogue Number : 7954676
- Available: 29/11/2016
- Classification 12
- Number of Discs: 6
- Picture: 1.33:1 / Colour
- Sound: Mono / English
- Subtitles: None
- Region: 2 / PAL
- Time: 1050 mins
Daza's review
I watched it over a weekend soon after recieving the set and found it quite engaging. The dialogue is full of wisecracks and other clever turns of phrase, and the plot is action packed, in as much as a TV show of this vintage can be. There is a strong moral theme going through the story of a man looking back at his behaviour and realising that he has made mistakes and looking, if not for complete redemption, at least to make a change for the better. There are also lots of interesting observations on the politics and economics of the time - the episode set in Scotland in particular. It reminded me of the show 1990-which the writer Edmund Ward also worked on-in that serious issues are being discussed in a spirited and forceful manner so I started feeling myself becoming quite angry about the injustices on show.
The image quality was way better than I expected, looking quite sharp on our medium sized LCD TV. The opening sequence has a fair few spots and film artefacts, but the rest is pretty clear, and the studio work, which I guess was recorded on video tape, is amazingly crisp. There are a few bright reflections off the faces of cast members in some scenes which I found distracting - this might be a result of contrast/balance alterations in remastering, or perhaps they just sweated a lot back then? In one episode there is a tracking glitch which looked like it came off the original tapes rather than a problem with the DVD itself. One problem in almost 8 hours for a 20 something year old show isn't bad.
In all I was more than please with my purchase.