The Sea Wolves (1980)
Warner Home Video
Cast: Gregory Peck, David Niven, Roger Moore, Trevor Howard
Extras:
Rating:

Warner Home Video has just put out “The Sea Wolves”, a 1980 film starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, Roger Moore and Trevor Howard among other stars, and despite the lack of any extras, the disc at least contains an anamorphic widescreen version as well as a fullscreen presentation of the film. The widescreen version restores the movie’s 1.85:1 aspect ratio, while the fullframe transfer is cropped on the edges and reveals slightly more information at the top and bottom of the image. The transfer itself is clean without defects, but the compression on the disc varies quite a bit. While the anamorphic transfer is mostly free of distracting compression artifacts, the fullframe version is riddled with pixelation and ringing. As a result the 16×9 enhanced widescreen version is clearly to be preferred as it contains a much better reproduction of the film.

“The Sea Wolves” contains only a Dolby Stereo soundtrack in English language. The tracks is well balanced and always understandable, but sounds a bit harsh at times without the natural bass roll-off that would make it more pleasant. Subtitles in English and French are supplied on this release, and the disc does not contain any extras.