Product Details

• Actors: Guido Alberti, Anny Duperey, Gerard Hernandez, Dorothy James, Marthe Keller
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: March 11, 2008
• Run Time: 124 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00127RAGC
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,837 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Bobby Deerfield" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Al Pacino's character in the first two Godfather films was a man increasingly drawn into himself, pulling an entire family history and legacy along with him into a personal oblivion. Pacino's performance as the titular race car driver in Sydney Pollack's Bobby Deerfield also suggests a fellow adrift in his own company, his very profession underscoring isolation behind the wheel at top speeds. Living with his French lover (Anny Duperey), Deerfield's solipsism (perfectly captured in a dream sequences in which he appears almost autistic) begins to crack when he meets and falls for a dying woman (Marthe Keller). Emerging from his shell just as she is fading away, both the irony of the situation and Deerfield's first experience with real love wake our hero from his spiritual slumber. Pollack's attempt at a mainstream art-house movie didn't entirely work, and critics have been brutal on both its serious aspirations and Pacino's locked-down performance. But there is something in the film that convincingly suggests a yearning for passion and experience even at the great cost of loss, and Pacino's portrayal of a man who steps out of his car and onto the collective bus of ordinary sorrow is rather moving. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

A racing car champion falls in love with a freewheeling lady who is suffering from an incurable disease. Based on the novel "Heaven Has No Favorites" by Eric Maria Remarque.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars underappreciated gem, February 17, 2004

By	Tina Morris "schultheiss" (Rockville, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bobby Deerfield [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a great movie based on an original story by the German author Erich-Maria Remarque (of "all quiet on the western front" fame). The story sees Pacino as the main protagonist Deerfield transform from a controlled and efficient race driver to a confused and soft-hearted lover. He meets the love of his live while visiting a Swiss sanatorium. She is terminally ill with cancer. Despite the tragic topic the movie and the characters achieve an air of lightness and sublimity that is almost unreal. So is the wonderful and sensitive cinematography and direction of the great Sydney Pollack. Long before we would go ooh! and ahhh! over his "out of Africa" splendor he created this perfect and minimalistic mood piece, where the camera work is right on, be it on the race track or in quiet apartment scenes. Marthe Keller and Al Pacino are wonderful as well and the soundtrack will haunt your memory.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forgive the flaws, and you will be moved, July 14, 2002

By	Cameron Young (Orange County, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bobby Deerfield [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is one of my favorite films. For the haunting score. For the restrained direction. And for Pacino's understated, yet ulitmately moving performance. Watch him change from cold, efficient Formula 1 champion to confused lover to enlightened human being who finally understands that finding love is worth the "risk". It is a film a many small, yet revealing moments. This Pacino before the "hoo-haw" phase. His eyes speak volumes. And Marthe Keller is his equal. Only she could bring out the Mae West in him. See it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Overlooked Classic in Pacino's Portfolio, April 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Bobby Deerfield [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This has got to be one of Pacino's best -- and deserves to stand alongside his more well-known classics. But if you're looking for the slow burn-to-rage formula Pacino mastered in "Serpico" and "Dog Day Afternoon," look elsewhere. This is an altogether different film. Silence is used to great effect. The viewer is left to ponder dialogue and action rather than having the characters explain.

As the rigid Formula One driver who has never considered death -- until a crash and a dying girl are suddenly thrust upon him -- we watch Pacino undergo a convincing change. Little by little we see a simple adage, 'everything is sweeter when you take a risk,' take hold and help him reclaim the reality of his life.

Deerfield's story -- and the power of that little phrase -- should be a motto for us all! And the irony of this movie is that the story upon which it is based, by Erich Maria Remarque, is called Heaven Has No Favorites.

Pacino once said that he felt closer in spirit to this character than any other he'd played, and it's not difficult to see why. The onscreen romance between Deerfield and Lillian Moretti also became an true-life love affair between Pacino and actress Marthe Keller, who gives a remarkably sympathetic peformance.

It doesn't hurt that the setting for this film is summer in late '70s Europe, with terrific scenes in Switzerland, Paris, Florence, and the Tuscan countryside. (Someday, this viewer will treat himself to Leukerbad to Milan drive a la Bobby). And it also doesn't hurt that the soundtrack was composed by the master of '70s movie music, Dave Grusin.

Now if the powers that be will only re-release "Bobby Deerfield" on DVD, concurrently with the soundtrack on CD, we'll all find a bit more happiness in our lives.