Broken
Lance (1954/Fox/Twilight
Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/The
Firemen's Ball
(1967/Arrow U.K. Region Free Import Blu-ray)/Kings
Go Forth (1958/United
Artists/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/War
Pigs (2015/Cinedigm
Blu-ray w/DVD)
Picture:
B/B/B/B- & C Sound: B- / C on Pigs
DVD Extras: B/B/C/D Films: B-/B/C+/C-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Firemen's
Ball
Import Blu-ray will play on all Blu-ray players worldwide and is now
only available from our friends at Arrow U.K., while Broken
Lance
and Kings
Go Forth
are now only available
from our friends at Twilight Time, and being limited to 3,000 copies
can be ordered while supplies last. All can be ordered from the
links below.
The
following releases involve war and politics, usually working well,
with our foreign entry a true classic...
Edward
Dmytryk's Broken
Lance
(1954) may have some down moments, but with Spencer Tracy leading a
great cast that includes Robert Wagner, Richard Widmark, Jean Peters,
Katy Jurado, Earl Holliman, Hugh O'Brian and E.G. Marshall among
others. Tracy runs a family with a farm and racism in the town has
others who would like his land look down on them all since Jurado is
his wife. This is none of their business, but they also use it as an
excuse to justify robbery and more.
It
doesn't help that Tracy's head of the family is emotionless and
dictatorial, so that leaves them with further vulnerability, but it
all comes to a head when a local company tries to affect their
livestock and land, so a small war develops. Though not as
groundbreaking as the likes of Johnny
Guitar,
Broken
Arrow
or High
Noon,
it is still considered progressive versus what was happening in the
genre (including in dozens of series in the new TV medium) and the
acting is pretty good. Wagner might be hard to believe as
multi-ethnic, but he is not the only part of this film by any means.
It has more than its moments in a pretty good 96 minutes running time
and Fox has issued it through Twilight Time as a Limited Edition
Blu-ray.
If you are a fan of the genre or any of its stars, this expanded
version is worth going out of your way to get.
Extras
an illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and yet
another fine Julie Kirgo essay, while the Blu-ray adds Original
Theatrical Trailers, a new feature length audio commentary track by
film scholar Nick Redman & the film's co-star Earl Holliman that
covers this film and the industry in great
ways more than worth your time and a lossless Isolated Music Score
presentation of the score by Leigh Harline we reviewed as a limited
edition CD from the FSM label of Film Score Monthly at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/227/Broken+Lance+(Limited+CD
Milos
Forman's The
Firemen's Ball
(1967) is one of two very subversive films that put the great
filmmaker on the international filmmaking map and so upset his home
country Czechoslovakia, the USSR and the East Bloc in general, he
would soon leave for the U.S., freedom and an amazing career. Using
the title event, Forman and company make a subtle satire of communist
(and Stalinist for that matter) control of authority, order and
bureaucracy that hits hard when it all adds up, but it does this by
showing realistic interaction with 'the people' of the community at
what is supposed to be a respectable, happy event celebrating the
greatness and 'seamless functioning' of the system.
Forman
is such a good observer and portrayer of human behavior that is is
even more amazing these are actual firemen and mostly no professional
actors are here. I like the film very much and think it has only
appreciated in value over the years with truths as relevant as ever.
The nice thing about Arrow U.K.'s Region Free Import Blu-ray is that
it will play on all Blu-ray players and is a great film getting fine,
expanded treatment even beyond what Criterion offered 14 years ago.
This is a great must-see film!
Extras
include a reversible sleeve featuring two pieces of artwork from the
original release, an appreciation by Czech film expert David Sorfa,
archival interviews with director Milos Forman, cinematographer
Miroslav Ondiek and co-writer Ivan Passer and featurette New
Wave Faces
as Michael Brooke salutes the non-professional actors who made an
indelible impression on 1960s Czech cinema.
As
noted in our DVD review, Delmer Daves' Kings
Go Forth
(1958) ''was
a war drama directed by Delmer Davies with Sinatra and Tony Curtis
vying for Natalie Wood, a beautiful young lady with a secret in an
ugly world beyond the battlefield. This was risk-taking drama at the
time and despite some overall problems with the film, is a plus of a
project for all involved.'' I still like the way it tries to take
risks, the cast and the time spent for character development and
exposition, but it never really comes together as well as it might
have. They tried their best and it is still worth a look, especially
so nicely restored as it is here in this expanded edition.
Extras versus the DVD
repeats the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film from 1 to 2,
then adds a lossless Isolated Music Score & Sound Effects track
with the score by the great Elmer Bernstein, plus we get another
illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and yet
another smart Julie Kirgo essay.
Ryan
Little's War
Pigs
(2015) has two actors I like, Mickey Rourke and Luke Goss, and
another who I would like more if he did better films... Dolph
Lundgren. They are here in this silly mess of an action film
pretending badly to be a war film, but it is much more frontin' than
it is an actual cinematic experience even trivializing the serious
war against the Axis Powers and stopping the Nazis (versus the likes
of Fury
(2014) with Brad Pitt) so this drags on and on and on and on with no
major point. Rourke cannot even save this from its long, unbalanced
88 minutes. Wonder if this was longer, but I'm in no hurry to find
out. This one is just a waste of talent and good subject matter.
There
are no extras.
Ironically,
it is the older three films on Blu-ray that look best with the 1080p
2.55 X 1 digital High Definition image on Lance
having a really good looking transfer, bringing the Deluxe Color to
life as best it can with no fading or major issues, while the 1080p
1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image on Ball
was shot on ORWO Color film stocks and the restoration has been
criticized by some as inaccurate, but it think it is more on than
off. Still, this is ahead of the older Criterion DVD in any case.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Kings
is a solid improvement over the DVD version and looks like a new
transfer from MGM, so the print does not show the age of the
materials used much, making this one of the best-looking older
Sinatra film on Blu-ray to date.
However,
the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Pigs
was supposed to be 2.35 X 1 per its theatrical release, so we don't
know if we are getting more frame (which happened sometimes in Super
35mm shooting) or less. It looks lame and flat, partly due to style
and I doubt seeing more on the sides of the frame (if we lost
anything) doesn't matter much for such a boring presentation. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image DVD is far more awful and very
hard to watch.
As
for sound, it is evenly matched across all four Blu-rays with the
lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mix on Pigs
a bit more limited than expected, the lossless DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 5.0 mix on Lance
a fine
approximation of its 4-track magnetic sound with traveling dialogue
and sound effects & better than the DTS-MA lossless 2.0 Stereo
version also included, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 Mono lossless
mix on Kings
an improvement over the DVD and as good as this is likely going to
ever sound and the PCM
2.0 Mono lossless sound on Ball
benefitting from the restoration as much as possible and more
inarguably saved than its image. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Pigs
DVD is the sonic dud here, weaker than the already problematic
Blu-ray with their limited soundfields.
You
can order Firemen's
Ball
among other extended versions of key films Arrow is known for
producing at...
http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/
…and
to order the Broken
Lance and Kings Go Forth
limited edition Blu-rays, buy them among other great releases while
supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
