Product Details

• Actors: Gregory Peck, Anne Heywood, Arthur Hill, Alan Dobie, Conrad Yama
• Directors: J. Lee Thompson
• Writers: Ben Maddow, Jay Richard Kennedy
• Producers: Arthur P. Jacobs, Mort Abrahams, Pepi Lenzi
• Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), French (Dolby Digital 1.0), Spanish (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: November 7, 2006
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000HT3PA6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,445 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Chairman" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

When Nobel-winning scientist Hathaway (Peck) receives a strange letter, the last place he expects it to lead him is into Communist China â?" as a spy! Sent to decode a formula that could save millions, Hathaway has no idea whom he can trust, and no assistance. Worst of all, his handlers haven't told him that the transmitting device implanted in his head is also a bomb. And if things get too hot, they're prepared to detonate!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seen an advance copy of this DVD and it's incredible, November 2, 2006

By 

Darren Harrison "DVD collector and reviewer" (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Chairman (DVD)

Arriving on DVD for the first time on Nov. 7 is the Gregory Peck movie "The Chairman." In it Peck plays a scientist who must travel to China to steal a top-secret formula. It's a fast-paced movie that manages to successfully balance post-cultural Revolution China politics, and the cultural divide between East and the West. The final moments as Peck's character attempts to flee over the Chinese border with Russia are filled with tension and excitement.
This release includes a rather unusual special feature. Running at 17:32 is a mini-version of the movie using deleted and alternate scenes. It's actually very well done and managed to touch on the majority of key plot points from the full running time version of 98 minutes.
There are also two deleted scenes taken from the International version of the movie. Neither adds much to the overall movie and parents should beware, the second deleted scene contains female nudity.
Arguably the lead special feature for "The Chairman" is an audio commentary conducted by film historians Eddie Friedfeld and Lee Pfeiffer. The two are obviously good friends (both being professors at NYU) and the commentary is very academic in tone, but still engaging. They begin by framing the movie in the context of the Cold War. Other key points in the commentary include discussions on the symbolism in the movie and standards of the spy genre. Included is a discussion of geopolitics specifically the tension between Russia and China as "The Chairman" sees the United States and Soviet Union join forces against the Chinese. They also commend the Jerry Goldsmith score and Pfeiffer (a well known and respected 007 fan) comments how the actress playing the Chinese stewardesses on the plane who just happens to be a spy also played a stewardess on a plane who just happened to be a spy in 1964's "Goldfinger."
These Nov. 7 releases from Fox contains trailers for several other movies, of varying quality. The trailers for "The Chairman" for example include not just the one for the feature, but also for "Our Man Flint," "In Like Flint," "The Quiller Memorandum," "Deadfall," "The Magus" and "Peeper." As might be expected however the trailers do show their age, and not always gracefully.
Also included is a quite in-depth collectible booklet.
Recommended.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kaleidoscopic Cold War Epic, January 3, 2007

By 

gobirds2 (New England) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Chairman (DVD)

Well it is not entirely an epic but it certainly is bizarre. This film has great potential as a somewhat conventional spy film with a few experimental eavesdropping gadgets thrown in for good measure. Yet director J. Lee Thompson puts his own distinctive stamp on it making it a frenzied and often unsettling kaleidoscopic affair. It is taut, suspenseful and often defies credibility and that is what makes it so much fun and very entertaining. Gregory Peck and Arthur Hill are as stoic as ever and it is good to see actress Anne Heywood show up in this film. One of the highlights of this film is Jerry Goldsmith's incredible score. It is amazing how he intuitively puts such great effort at times into modest production's that aspire or beg for some added dimension to enhance the film. In all this is a very interesting and entertaining look at China during the height of the Cold War era. Great packaging on this DVD by the way.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not exactly a bomb but certainly no classic, December 11, 2006

By 

Trevor Willsmer (London, England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Chairman (DVD)

The Chairman (aka The Most Dangerous Man in the World) starts off with an amazing photomontage title sequence by Paul Brown Constable dealing with overpopulation and the rise of the Red Guard in Mao's China accompanied by the increasingly strident tones of Jerry Goldsmith's superb score that sets the scene for a much better film than you get. Any hope of a serious political thriller is quickly lost as soon as Arthur Hill's cycloptic general turns up and it turns out the bug implanted in Gregory Peck's skull is also a bomb. What you get instead is a fairly glossy, fashionably cynical shot-on-location thriller that briefly touches on humanistic issues in a couple of scenes before getting back to the spy stuff that's neither James Bond nor John Le Carre but pure Hollywood hokum in the 60s mould. Ironically, although the producers harboured the notion of filming in China in a monumental fit of delusion, it was the Hong Kong and Taiwanese authorities that really objected to the subject matter (as either too defamatory or deferential to Mao as the prevailing mood would have it). J. Lee Thompson's direction is occasionally visually ambitious, but seems to have suffered in the editing, with several very obvious edits to alternate takes interrupting what were clearly intended as continuous camera moves. It's a shame that Fox's DVD is the US version, relegating the racier scenes to the extra features - who'd have thought there'd ever be a movie with Gregory Peck having his trousers undone by a naked woman on her knees?

Fox have done an excellent job on this DVD - aside from a good 2.35:1 transfer and trailer, it also includes two alternate scenes and a 17-minute promotional cutdown of the feature (clearly put together before the climax was shot and featuring Burt Kwouk's own voice - in the feature he's dubbed by Robert Rietty) that includes some deleted footage. There's also a historical audio commentary that could have benefitted from a little more time in the archives and a selection of trailers for other recent Fox titles such as The Quiller Memorandum, the Flint films and Deadfall.