Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47091 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-05-04
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 88 minutes

From the Back Cover
At the close of the 19th Century, French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason, stripped of his rank in a humiliating ceremony and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. But upon further investigation by Colonel Georges Picquart (a powerful performance by Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfus, "The Goodbye Girl"), a high-level conspiracy was uncovered that may have condemned an innocent man. For the next decade, Picquart would risk his career and his life to expose the truth behind The Dreyfus Affair, the shocking saga of anti-Semitism and treason that divided France, set the stage for the First World War and became one of the most notorious cases of criminal justice in history.

Oliver Reed ("Gladiator," "The Three Musketeers") and Peter Firth ("Equus," "The Hunt For Red October") co-star in this acclaimed drama directed by Ken Russell and co-produced by Richard Dreyfus that remains a startling story of racism, corruption, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice.

Customer Reviews

An excellent film with an objective perspective
This film is a very pleasant surprise. Usually movies based on the so-called antisemitic incidents tend to be schmalzy and overdone, with bad guys badly demonized and good guys godly idealized (see, for example, "The Fixer" or "Schindler's List".) "Prisoner of Honor" does not suffer from such shortcomings - Picquard's dislike of Jews is not passed over, and reasonable motives of some of his opponents are not suppressed, either. Richard Dreyfus (one of the film's producers) is truly excellent in the role of Colonel Picquard, and the supporting crew (mostly British actors, including the late Oliver Reed) does a very good job indeed. The ironic touch, so typical of the director Ken Russell ("The Devils", "Mahler"), which drew the undeserved ire of the previous reviewer, definitely adds color and nerve to the entire show. All in all, a film truly worth watching.

A Dreyfuss affair a fair 'Dreyfus affair'?
This is an accurate account of the famous (infamous, more likely)
Dreyfus affair, a scandal that nearly drove France to civil war at the
turn of the century. And it could have been a good movie too, if
director Ken Rusell hadn't overdone it miserably by pretending
"the whole thing was a comedy"!

The film manages to get
its facts right (a rare acomplishment for a Hollywood movie), features
an elaborate production, with fine costumes and sets (although its
'Paris' resembles London), and boasts a great cast led by Richard
Dreyfuss, who gives an above-his-usual performance as the officer
trying against all odds to save Dreyfus, while disliking him
personally for being a Jew.

Why, then, spoil it with all those
cartoonish "comic" details that serve no purpose whatsoever,
except to ruin the whole picture?: A French general, at work, dresses
as Zeus for a portrait (its painter complete with pointy moustaches
and a red beret!) later on display in his office. Another general (a
fat, grumpy, bearded lout who looks a lot like Bud Spencer, and sinks
every scene he's into) sings child-like racist songs with his junior
officers at an elegant military club that seems to accept all ranks
inside its halls, for one sees in one room the entire French army,
from maréchales to privates, getting drunk, pounding tables and
shouting at each other in their messed up uniforms. There's a War
Minister serving cake to his subordinates, a chanteuse lampooning 'La
Marsellaise' (the French applaud!), a German officer -pickelhaube and
all- dancing with a male spy in drag, and a sinister meeting inside a
church, with generals sniggering as they cross themselves. My, oh my!
Aren't these the bad guys!

Seems to me, the director tried so hard
to stress the point, he completely missed it. ....

Poor sound
This DVD has poor sound reproduction, and does not have subtitles in English to help make out what is being said.