Seagulls Fly Low – Cineploit (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: Italy, 1978
Director: Giorgio Cristallini
Writers: Giorgio Cristallini, Odoardo Fiory
Cast: Maurizio Merli, Nathalie Delon, Mel Ferrer, Dagmar Lassander, Orlando Urdaneta, Andrea Esterhazy, Franco Garofalo

Release Date: November 28th, 2022
Approximate Running Time: 96 Minutes 53 seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVCC
Rating: NR
Sound: DTS-HD Mono Italian, DTS-HD Mono English, DTS-HD Mono German
Subtitles: English, German
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: 29.90 EUR

"A tall, strikingly blond man comes to a small town on the Mediterranean. In his luggage, a heavy revolver. His mission: to shoot Mr. Martini, a man he has never seen. The client, Michele, has blackmailed the killer with a letter. A not insignificant sum of money also plays a role, which is to be handed over to him after the job is done. But now the difficulties really begin - the killer is shadowed by two dubious types who watch his every move closely. In the web of sinister machinations, he too is only a puppet, hanging helplessly on the strings of the great unknown." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 4.5/5

Here’s the information provided about this release's transfer, "Worldwide 2K Blu-Ray Premiere!"

Seagulls Fly Low comes on a 50 GB dual layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 35.3 GB

Feature: 28.6 GB

The source used for this transfer looks great; it is free of source damage. That said, the opening credits are not as strong as the rest of the film. Colors and flesh tones look correct, the image looks crisp, and black levels and compression are solid.

Audio: 4/5 (DTS-HD Mono Italian), 3.5/5 (DTS-HD Mono English) 

This release comes with three audio options, a DTS-HD mono mix in Italiam, a DTS-HD mono mix in English, and a DTS-HD mono mix in German. The English language track has some minor distortion issues and moments where a background hum is noticeable. The Italian language track fares a lot better; it is clean, clear, and balanced. Range-wise, the Italian language track sounds more robust than the English language track. Included with this release are removable English and German subtitles for the Italian language track.

Extras:

Extras for this release include an image gallery (5 images-posters/home video art), two alternate title sequences German and English (2 minutes 22 seconds, Dolby Digital mono), an option to listen to Carlo Cristallini, Paola Cristallini, and Roberto Pregadio’s twenty-five song score (57 minutes 1 seconds), a featurette titled Maurizio Merli - A Lethal Hunter of subtle Variation with Mike Malloy, Eurocrime: the Italian Cop & Gangster Films that ruled the 70s (29 minutes, Dolby Digital stereo English with removable English subtitles and removable German subtitles), a double-sided poster with the German VHS cover and the Italian locandia motif and a media book packaging that contains a twenty-eight-page booklet with a bio for director Giorgio Cristallini (text in German & English), an essay titled Maurizio Merli Under the Spell of the Poliziesco written by Udo Rotenberg (text in German & English), and images from the film (lobby cards/posters). 

Also, this release also comes with multilingual menus, English and German.

Summary:

Maurizio Merli is one of the most recognizable faces to emerge from Poliziotteschi cinema. And, while his early forays into this genre were intended to capitalize on the success of High Crime, particularly its star, Franco Nero, he would fully embrace his status as a Franco Nero knockoff in a series of films, making these films all the more enjoyable.

though there are Poliziotteschi elements in Seagulls Fly Low. It is actually more of a film noir than it is a Poliziotteschi. And nowhere is this more clear than when it comes to the protagonist, Albert Morgan (one of many names he uses), who gets caught up in a scenario that sees him pursued by the police and a pair of hitmen.

As mentioned before, Maurizio Merli was the poster child for typecast actors. With a film like Seagulls Fly Low, he would be given a rare opportunity to portray a character that was different from the type he was pigeonholed into portraying. That said, what his performance lacks in depth, he more than makes up for with his overflowing machismo.

The secondary cast features a few familiar faces to Eurocult cinema fans. Mel Ferrer (Nightmare City) in the role of Roberto Micheli, a businessman who hires Albert to kill his business partner, Dagmar Lassander (The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion) in the role of the owner of a nightclub, and Franco Garofalo (Hell of the Living Dead) in the role of a hitman The strongest performance is by Nathalie Delon (A Whisper in the Dark) in the role of Isabelle Michereau, a woman who is befriended by Albert and who agrees to help him escape.

Seagulls Fly Low was directed by Giorgio Cristallini, who only directed nine films despite his career spanning four decades. That said, his direction for Seagulls Fly Low is very good. When it comes to the narrative, it does a good job of moving things forward. Also, the way the narrative uses flashbacks to emphasize the protagonist's PTSD from his time in Vietnam is very effective. Ultimately, Seagulls Fly Low is an engaging enough film that offers fans of Maurizio Merli an opportunity to see a different side of him.

Seagulls Fly Low makes its way to Blu-ray via a strong audio/video presentation from Cineploit and a good selection of extras, recommended.

Written by Michael Den Boer