The Right Hand Man

1986, 1080hd and VHS full screen

Johnny's comments:

Start the year with an Australian Classic newly remastered to Bluray.

The Right Hand Man is a 1986 period drama where Lord Harry Ironminster (Rupert Everett) gets into a high speed accident racing in his horse-driven buggy where his father is thrown from the buggy to his death and Harry comes out of it mostly unscathed but it turns out that he passed out as they were driving and has become sick. The local doctor Dr Redbridge (Arthur Dignam), helped out by his dutiful daughter Sarah (Catherine McClements) look into it and find out that he has diabetes which in the 1880s is basically a death sentence and after a turn for the worse, they decide he will need to have his (right) arm amputated. His mother Lady Ironminster (Jennifer Claire) thinks that this is the end of the family's legacy and which is not helped by her not loving the move to Australia. One day, Harry sees first hand stagecoach driver Ned Devine (Hugo Weaving) skillfully control a coach and asks him to be his driver but at first he isn't interested until he's fired by Cobb & Co. after avoiding a serious accident. He goes to Harry and they sort of strike up a friendship while Harry falls for Sarah but the amputation isn't enough and he becomes more sickly. Harry, Ned and Sarah become friendly with Ned and Sarah a little more so which the sickly Harry notices and he talks Ned and Sarah into 'making his child' before he dies.

Fairly standard love triangle period drama with the odd twist involving a sickly Harry wanting to leave his mark on the world. It's a strange story that ends in a very odd way but there's a lot of exciting looking stagecoach driving, some quite high speed stuff which looks great. Also the movie looks great and the HD transfer make it looks even more gorgeous. It's a shame the movie was barely released even with Rupert Everett in the lead as it's fairly watchable although Everett's character is sickly for most of the movie and he plays the character with a very soft voice making much of dialogue hard to hear. Also a rare movie where Hugo Weaving gets to play the swarthy love interest and he looks really young here. It's also Catherine McClements first movie (she gets an introducing credit), taken from NIDA and given a pretty decent role in a strong female role which she does pretty well in. An alright Australian period drama with great detail and a standard love triangle plot that goes to some strange areas.

As I said above, the movie was neglected upon release and was basically lost up until a couple of months ago when the wonderful folk at Umbrella strangely gave it a Bluray release (but not DVD as far as I can tell). I was waiting for some very nice person to make it available but nothing doing so when I saw it available for half price, I decided to fork out some cash to get it and here we are. The movie features Catherine McClements nude debut (in her first movie), with a couple of decent scenes debatably better than her nude scenes in Weekend With Kate.

I've also included videos from the VHS rip I had which is nowhere near as good as the Bluray but we see a little more and possibly a nipple in one scene that is not visible in the widescreen version of the movie. I'm not sure because the quality is not great in the VHS rip.

Catherine McClements Blu-Ray film clips (collage below)

Catherine McClements VHS full screen film clips