The
Angry Hills
(1959/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Exodus
(1960/United Artists/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/The
Revenant (2015/Fox 4K
Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)/Try
and Get Me! (1950/Olive
Blu-ray)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: C+/B-/B/B Sound: C+/B-/B+/C+
Extras: C-/C/C/D Films: C+/B-/B-/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Exodus
Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, is
limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies last,
while The
Angry Hills
DVD is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.
Films
about struggle and survival have been popular on and off, even when
they get graphic and for real, so we have the following four entries
for you to consider.
Robert
Aldrich's The
Angry Hills
(1959) is the first of two films on our list based on best-selling
books by Leon Uris, with Robert Mitchum as reporter Mike Morrison in
Athens, Greece just before the Nazis invade and occupy as WWII gets
worse. He is given a a top secret list to take to the British, but
does not know this at first, but a vicious Nazi (Stanley Baker,
thanklessly brutal here) intends to find that list and he'll torture
and kill anyone who gets in his way. He hides with a woman (Gia
Scalia) to get him out of there, but turning to another woman
(Elisabeth Mueller) might not help as much.
The
gritty Aldrich turned again to writer A. I. Bezzerides, who penned
the brilliant adaptation of the Mickey Spillane novel that made Kiss
Me Deadly
(1955, reviewed on Criterion Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) one of
the greatest Film Noir films of all time. This runs a tight 106
minutes, but maybe this could have used more exposition and some
minor changes for more impact, so it is not as strong as it could
have been, but it is not bad as it stands and is definitely worth a
look.
An
Original Theatrical Trailer is unfortunately the only extra.
Otto
Preminger's Exodus
(1960) is also from a Leon Uris book, this time adapted by the
blacklisted Dalton Trumbo in a script that plays better than his work
on Spartacus
and a film that is long at 208 minutes (!), but this os one of Trumbo
and Preminger's best long-form work telling the story of how world
jewry was misplaced and rejected by the nations of the world after
WWII and how this all led eventually to the State of Israel in holy
land that had been part of the Ottoman Empire for a very, very long
time.
Eva
Marie Saint is the lady visiting a friend near camps where surviving
and displaced Jews are living, which is being treated as no big deal,
but a sour comment makes the professional nurse decide to volunteer
to help those in need and that inadvertently gets her involved in
what will be an uprising that also involves a few terrorist attacks
and other acts of civil disobedience. Paul Newman plays one of the
leaders of the rebels, along with Sal Mineo (including a few ironic
moments) as they try to figure out their next move to save their
lives, their faith and get a future they deserve like anyone else.
Needless to say the anti-Semitism in the time is ugly and the film
becomes a great time capsule of how it was and how it has become
again, rearing its ugly head in new ways and transmutations.
Though
it is long, it does not always feel so because the film keeps wisely
moving along, looks good and has a fine supporting cast that includes
Sir Ralph Richardson, Peter Lawford, Lee J. Cobb, Hugh Griffith,
Gregory Ratoff, Jill Hayworth and John Derek. It is a sort of lost
epic that deserves to be rediscovered and though some of the history
may have been exchanged for dramatic purposes, the film has aged well
and in some ways, is as vital as ever.
Extras
include another illustrated booklet on the film including informative
text and another excellent, underrated essay by the great film
scholar Julie Kirgo, while the Blu-ray adds an Isolated Music Score
and an Original Theatrical Trailer.
Alejandro
G. Innarritu's The
Revenant
(2015) was one of the big critical and commercial hist of the year
with Leonardo DiCaprio finally
winning a Best Actor Academy Award as critics and viewers were amazed
how engrossing a film with little dialogue about a non-talking lone
man barely surviving in the wilderness was just amazing, but you can
go back to the 1922 silent hit Nanook
Of The North
by Robert Flaherty which people just loved. It is funny how the
non-dialogue 'Dawn Of Man' opening sequence in Kubrick's 2001
(1968) gets called boring for showing the same thing, despite how
great, respected, extremely influential and innovate the film is.
The later film Quest
For Fire
did not do well, but has a near-cult following and many other films
have pitted man against nature plus men against each other in raw
nature. Even with bear attacks, et al.
Though
not a remake, this film particularly recalls Richard Sarafian's 1971
Man In
The Wilderness
with Richard Harris that has more than a few similarities to it, so
this new film is not exactly new, groundbreaking or innovative, but
is well done enough and flows nicely enough that you can see why
people have enjoyed it so much.
Set
in 1823, one Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) sets out in the stark unknown with
friends, but he eventually gets separated form them and is stuck on
his own. They betray him leaving him for dead and so, separated from
his family and friends, has to move on until he can get to some kind
of safety. Then bad thing after awful thing occurs and the downward
spiral turns into a quiet, terrifying nightmare. Can he get back?
Can he get revenge?
Loose
takeoff or not of the Harris film, this stands on its own thanks to
its look, sound and a supporting cast that includes Tom Hardy and
Domhnall Gleason. Not perfect, but definitely worth a look,
especially in the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray edition.
Extras
are only on the regular Blu-ray disc and include Digital HD
Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other cyber iTunes capable
devices, while the Blu-ray adds a Behind
The Scenes/Making Of
featurette entitled A
World Unseen.
Finally
we have Cyril Endfield's Try
and Get Me!
(1950) is a hard-hitting crime drama with a particularly vicious
Lloyd Bridges as a criminal who drags an 'old friend' (Frank Lovejoy)
into a kidnapping plot that goes very wrong and a rouge reporter
(Richard Carlson) gets involved and in order to get his scoop and
look good, bends the rules and makes the hideous twists and turns
even worse. Those parts of the film work and they work, but the film
is otherwise nothing special or distinctive from other such crime
films until the last reel kicks in and the film comes to its
surprising conclusion.
I
won't say anymore, but it is definitely worth a look and is partly a
Noir, but is as much a police crime procedural which is not a Noir.
The performances and ending are enough though, so see it.
There
are sadly no extras.
The
2160p 2.35 X 1 HEVC/H.265, HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra
High Definition image on Revenant
is the best of the first 8 releases in the format I have seen so far
(surpassing Pineapple
Express
and the better shots on Joy,
both shot on 35mm film) finished in 4K, but using formats up to 6.5K,
thus the positive reaction to the look of the film along with some
great lens choices. However, if you look at the regular 1080p
Blu-ray version, you might wonder what the fuss is all about. The
lack of color range in comparison to the Ultra HD Blu-ray is
surprising and makes one wonder why so much information is not on the
1080p Blu-ray, so to really see the work by Director of Photography
Emmanuel Lubezki, A.S.C./A.M.C. And you missed this on theaters, see
the 2160p version.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 black & white image on Hills
comes from a good print and though it may be the poorest performer
here being the only DVD, the film looks good for the format
throughout and should a Blu-ray surface would yield more detail,
depth and information than this competent, gray-scale accurate DVD.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer of the Super
Panavision 70mm-shot Exodus
is here in a 35mm reduction print that can definitely can show the
age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all
previous releases of the film by just enough often showing how good
the 35mm dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor reduction prints (the first such reductions
from this 70mm format to such highly valuable, cherished prints) and
that works well enough. Hopefully, MGM will be able to get a 70mm
print to do a full restoration at some point and the film has a good,
consistent look throughout as you would expect from such a big
screen, large frame epic.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Try
can also show its age at times, but there are plenty of fine shots
throughout, though few we would refer to as Noir. Still, yet another
solid Blu-ray that shows how great black and white film can look.
As
for sound, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 7.1 lossless mix on Revenant
with D-BOX motion and base-enhancement is well mixed and presented,
but is still a mixdown of its 11.1 Dolby Atmos/12-Track sonic
presentation in its better theatrical bookings. Still, this is very
impressive and is featured on the 4K and regular Blu-ray editions and
has more than a few impactful moments.
Exodus
features three DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless mixes: passable 2.0
Stereo, better 4.0 multi-channel sound and the best option, a 5.1 mix
that opens up the aged sound the most, listed on some posters as
''Todd AO Stereophonic Sound'' meaning the film originally designed
for 6-track magnetic sound with traveling dialogue and sound effects
in the top rate 70mm presentations. The sound can show its age in
places, but the Ernest Gold music score (here as an isolated music
track, recorded separately from the location audio) stands out.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix on Try
shows its age and budget limits, so though this is not a bad
presentation, it can be trying in parts and limited in range.
However, this is about the best this film will ever sound. Thus, the
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Hills
can actually compete being made 9 years later and with a larger
budget.
To
order the Exodus
limited edition Blu-ray, buy it and other great exclusives while
supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
...and
to order The
Angry Hills
Warner Archive DVD, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
https://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
