NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Criterion Blu-ray (April 2023): Criterion have transferred Peter Bogdanovich's Targets to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Peter Bogdanovich". The blue-ish-ness of the 2003 DVD (reviewed HERE) is very apparent beside the new 1080P transfer - which itself has green and golden/yellow hues, more information in the frame, appreciated textures and is sharper. There is only sporadic depth, some warmth to skin tones but contrast - and black levels - take a pleasing bump. With it's bare-bones production budget - this is probably the best it can look aside from a 4K restoration. The image quality was clean and consistent. 

NOTE: We have added 68 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Criterion use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original English language. Targets has few plenty of gunshots - hand gun and mostly rifle fire. It is flat with modest depth. There is some radio music courtesy of Charles Greene and Brian Stone and as we watch pieces of 'The Terror' we can hear AIP-regular Ronald Stein's (Day the World Ended, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Dinosaurus, Journey to the Seventh Planet, Queen of Blood, She Creature, It Conquered the World, Not of This Earth, Dementai 13, Spider Baby etc.) score. Dialogue didn't fluctuate as I found with the lossy Dolby DVD. Criterion offer optional English (SDH) subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Criterion Blu-ray offers the 2003 commentary featuring Bogdanovich - as found on the now ancient DVD. He is always great to listen to with so much background on every facet of his first film. The film warrants a new commentary, imo. We also get a new 27-minute interview with filmmaker Richard Linklater who states that no one was more prepared to make their first film than Peter Bogdanovich. He discusses his extensive knowledge of film history in his early 20's and his acting. His comments are interspersed with clips from the film and news footage of the Charles Whitman event. He identifies how Corman was the only one giving new director's opportunities - as long as they worked cheap. There is also a 14-minute introduction to the film from 2003 by Bogdanovich and a 1/2 hour of audio excerpts from a 1983 interview with production designer Polly Platt (and Bogdanovich's wife from 1962-71) at the American Film Institute. The package has a liner notes booklet with an essay by critic Adam Nayman and excerpts from an interview with Bogdanovich from Eric Sherman and Martin Rubin’s 1969 book The Director’s Event: Interviews with Five American Film-Makers. 

Peter Bogdanovich's powerful film Targets is an amazing debut especially as it was a 'thrown together' concept which helped established a new, adept, director on the film scene. Roger Corman proposed the idea to a young enthusiastic Peter Bogdanovich with the only stipulation that he had the use of Boris Karloff for only 2 days as well as some older footage of a film he had made with the aged actor ('The Terror'.) Bogdanovich, with his wife Polly Platt, fleshed out an idea for the film utilizing a recent news item of a sniper in Texas who randomly shot people from a tower (see Kurt Russell in The Deadly Tower.) Bogdanovich brought it to a friend and in the space of a couple of hours Samuel Fuller was able to pinpoint the areas of strength and weakness while essentially rewriting the entire script. He urged Bogdanovich not to mention him in the credits for fear it would detract from his friend, who also starred in and directed the feature. Bogdanovich's character's name "Sam Michaels" is his recognition for his friend 'Samuel Michael Fuller' and his important part in the development of "Targets". The film itself is highly regarded by film buffs, which when completed was bought, almost reluctantly, by Paramount (Robert Evans) for $150,000. "Targets", with cinematography by László Kovács (Bogdanovich's Paper Moon,) has relatively unexploited violence but is probably more impactful with its cold, sterile, vérité. It can be seen as allegorical for American society at the time, I would say this is a significant, and highly unnerving, entry in the history of American cinema. "Targets" is a film that cinema fans have patiently waited for to reach 1080P. The Criterion Blu-ray has an important film with revealing extras. Fascinating and essential.

Gary Tooze