Fox/MGM War Film
Blu-ray Wave One: Patton/Battle Of Britain/A Bridge Too Far/The Longest
Day/The Sand Pebbles
Picture: A-/B/B/B/B Sound: B/C+/C+/C+/C+ Extras: B/C+/C-/C+/B- Films: B/B/B/B-/B-
The return of the War
genre as a viable form of filmmaking recently has many reasons and whys fore
the comeback, from bad, mindless “war porn” films and said footage and/or
scenes surfacing in places they never would before to really good films with
something to say, show and tell. Vietnam
is an obvious reason the films fells out of favor, though peacetime and the
different tactics necessary to battle The Cold War are factors. 20th Century Fox has been
revisiting some of their best such films lately and even included two United
Artists gems from the current MGM by releasing the following films, now on
Blu-ray:
Patton
(1970) is the best of the five releases, with George C. Scott in the title role
in this epic narrative look at the man and his life in his peak. Francis Coppola co-wrote the rich screenplay
with Edmund H. North laying out the battles with the Nazis that led the man
into the pantheon of history, military and otherwise, but becomes a deep
character study of the best kind as the film aspires to be Lawrence Of Arabia and sometimes succeeds. Franklin J. Schaffner had just come off of
the huge hit success of the first Planet
Of The Apes (1968, reviewed elsewhere on this site) and created one of the
more formidable big screen epics. Karl
Malden, Stephen Young, Michael Strong, Karl Michael Vogler, Michael Bates, Paul
Stevens and Alan MacNaughton lead the amazing cast.
This was one of only two
feature films shot in D-150, aka Dimension 150, another 65mm large frame format
system that did not make it, but did make two good-looking films. The other, John Huston’s underrated The Bible (1966, reviewed elsewhere on
this site) was also made by Fox.
Director of Photography Fred J. Koenekamp, A.S.C., had done some fine
work in feature film and on TV before, but this was a new high for a man who
would see many throughout his career.
The 1080p 2.20 X 1 AVC @ 23 MBPS digital High Definition image is often
amazing and of demonstration quality, being the third such 65mm film to hit an
HD format after John Frankenheimer’s Grand
Prix (1966 on HD-DVD, due soon on Blu-ray) and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, in both
formats) but falls short of joining them when demonstrating more than a few
moments of motion blur and softness that is from the transfer
unnecessarily. Color is exceptional and
when the detail kicks in, it is film-like and even jaw-dropping. Fox recently reissued the film in 70mm prints
with DTS sound, so it must be those materials they used.
The DTS HD Master Audio
(MA) lossless 5.1 mix outdoes the Dolby Digital 5.0 mix here and featured on
the previous DVD, but has a slight harshness at points it should not. That hurts the sound overall and note we have
covered the limited edition CD soundtrack of Jerry Goldsmith’s score, which you
can read more about at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/247/Patton
This double Blu-ray set
is loaded with extras, including an introduction and terrific audio commentary
by Francis Ford Coppola on BD One, while BD Two adds the featurette History Through The Lens: Patton – A Rebel
Revisited, Patton’s Ghost Corps
documentary, The Making Of Patton
documentary, production stills set to Goldsmith’s score, behind-the-scenes
stills set to an audio essay on the real Patton and the original theatrical
trailer.
Battle Of Britain (1969) is Director Guy Hamilton’s best film outside of the Bond series
and one of the great, triumphant British films, going beyond the War
genre. It is nothing less than the story
of how the British Royal Air Force early on in WWII managed to hold off the
Nazis despite being outnumbered and stopped the country from being invaded and
taken over. The Bond series co-producer
Harry Saltzman was on a roll at this point with several hits on his hands and a
few like this one, he produced himself.
It also features an
amazing cast including Robert Shaw, Michael Caine, Harry Andrews, Trevor
Howard, Curt Jurgens, Ian McShane, Laurence Olivier, Kenneth More, Christopher
Plummer, Nigel Patrick, Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave, Patrick Wymark,
Susannah York, Barry Foster and Edward Fox among the who’s who of British
cinema.
The writing here too is
top rate, while Hamilton is in exceptional form and along with great acting,
flying, editing, model work and energy, this is a film with so much to offer
and one of the greatest war films in U.K. history. It is thoroughly enjoyable, still realistic
by today’s standards and never seems false.
Many real planes of the time were featured and there are no digital
effects. That makes a difference for the
better.
Shot in real anamorphic
Panavision by the great Freddie Young, B.S.C., the film was originally issued
in three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor prints and though this is not a bad
print, the 1080p 2.35 X 1 MPEG-2 @ 18 MBPS digital High Definition transfer is
not of the best film materials and the color is not consistent, though richer
than any DVD could deliver. This was
even offered as a 70mm blow-up at the time, but the material to do that looked
a little better than this. Of course,
the compositions are amazing.
The DTS HD Master Audio
(MA) lossless 5.1 mix is not very strong, upgraded a bit from the 6-track
magnetic stereo the 70mm prints offered at the time, but still on the weak side
for dialogue. The music is by two
composers. Ron Goodwin (Trials Of Oscar Wilde, Day Of The Triffids, Where Eagle Dare, Frenzy) can count this among his best works and adds greatly to the
film’s success, driving the narrative in sometimes ironic ways. It sounds better than anything else, as if
the rest of the film were monophonic, so the sound will hopefully be upgraded
in a larger, highly deserved special edition.
The only extra here is a Dolby Digital 5.1 track with Sir William
Walton’s score isolated.
A Bridge Too Far (1977) is the newest of the five films, as shot by Director Richard
Attenborough. Showing us the deadly
risks in Operation Market Garden aiming for German bridges to stop their
progress in Europe and in general, the film wants to be another Battle Of Britain, but it becomes more
of a drama at times and they even got Connery, Fox, Caine and Oliver. It is a good film, but it falls short at
times of its aspirations. However, it
also tries to take the War genre into a new direction, which is at least
ambitious.
The problem is the
constant attempt to have a film that looks soft, and it is not the 1080p 2.35 X
1 MPEG-2 @ 18 MBPS digital High Definition transfer. Instead, the approach is supposed to be
“nostalgic” come to life and though it was shot in real anamorphic Panavision
by the amazing Geoffrey Unsworth, B.S.C., and the film was originally offered
as a 70mm blow-up at the time, this transfer just does not totally cut it. Color systems were plain by now, but Unsworth
(2001, Cabaret, Zardoz) was so
talented that he knew how to shoot in any format and get the most out of
it. When they do a special edition, they
need to get a fixed print.
The DTS HD Master Audio
(MA) lossless 5.1 mix is not very strong, upgraded a bit from the 6-track
magnetic stereo the 70mm prints offered at the time, but still on the weak side
for dialogue and music, though better than the Dolby Digital 4.0 Mix also
included. John Addison (Tom Jones, Torn Curtain, The
Seven-Per-Cent Solution) turns out one of his better scores too and it
could sound better here, but is not bad.
It is more naturally integrated into the dialogue than on Battle Of Britain, though. The only extra is the original theatrical
trailer.
The Longest Day
(1962) is the oldest film here and the only one in black and white, as well as
being the film Darryl F. Zanuck made to revive the studio he built and once
ran. The story is nearly legendary on
how Mr. Zanuck took over the studio again and waged his own personal war to
make this the best possible war film he could make. He juggled several directors at the same time,
resulting in a critical and commercial smash that proved his genius.
With a great cast
including Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Ray Danton,
Eddie Albert, Mel Ferrer, Gert Frobe, Curt Jurgens, Rod Steiger, Robert Ryan,
Peter Lawford, George Segal, Kenneth More, Roddy McDowall, Sal Mineo, Tommy
Sands, Stuart Whitman, Red Buttons, Paul Anka, Fabian and a young Sean
Connery. Yes, the king of the studio had
returned!
The acting and writing is
good, but the D-Day attack shown here is has dated a good bit thanks to Saving
Private Ryan and is just not as convincing as it once was. However, the rest of the film is a remarkable
production and holds up very well.
Shot in black and white
and real anamorphic CinemaScope, it is only the second such film to make it to
an HD format after the Elvis Presley hit Jailhouse
Rock (reviewed on HD-DVD elsewhere on this site) and second monochrome
scope film overall to do so. Despite the
Elvis film being seven years older, it looks better than this 1080p 2.35 X 1 AVC
@ 23 MBPS digital High Definition transfer is not of the best film materials despite
good video black you would never get on DVD.
Detail and depth are problems outside of the two lenses it used to take
with this format to get a scope image.
The film needs some more restoration work, especially considering the
fine cinematography by Jean Bourgoin and Walter Wottitz so much so that it was
even offered as a 70mm blow-up at the time, but the materials here to do that
looked a little better than this.
The DTS HD Master Audio
(MA) lossless 5.1 mix is again not very strong, upgraded a bit from the 6-track
magnetic stereo the 70mm prints offered at the time, but still on the weak side
for dialogue and music from Maurice Jarre.
Jailhouse Rock had a Dolby
TrueHD 5.1 mix that sounded better, but this sounds about as good as it is
going to in this case, though maybe a little more work would yield better sound
at a later date if original audio stems survived.
This double Blu-ray set
is also loaded with extras, including two fine audio commentary tracks on BD
One. One is by Mary Corey, the other by
co-director (and underrated filmmaker in his own right; see Battle Of The Bulge reviewed elsewhere
on this site in Hi Def for more information) Ken Annakin. BD Two adds the featurette A Day To Remember, Longest Day: A Salute To Courage featurette, stills, theatrical
trailer, AMC Backstory look at the film and Richard
Zanuck on The Longest Day featurette.
The Sand Pebbles (1966) is one of the better films from the often overrated Robert
Wise, which was his follow-up to his shockingly successful The Sound Of Music. Originally
a 243 minutes-long epic, the tale of what happens in 1926 when America is in
China for political reasons disguised when The Chinese Revolution that put the
Communists in power exploded was meant to have parallel with Vietnam and
suddenly does again with Iraq.
Steven McQueen is Navy
Machinist Jake Holman, who arrived in the middle of increasing tensions,
battles and upheavals as China starts to tear itself up internally before the
big event, which few can see coming.
Though shorter at 179 minutes, the film still runs on longer than it
should, which is typical of Wise’s leisurely style, but it is one of his better
films by default. It has also become
more relevant as the real China grows in power and relevance itself. Some aspects of the film have dated beyond
anyone’s control, but the acting is very good and the production (Boris Levin
delivered the Production Design) is impressive for its time.
McQueen is joined by
Candice Bergen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Mako, Ford Rainey, Joe
Turkel, Gavin MacLeod, Barney Phillips, Shepherd Sanders, James Hong and the
late, great Simon Oakland in one of the better casts in a Wise film. However, there is still a sense of limited
range in the film, of ideas unexplored because he and screenplay writer Robert
Anderson are bogged down a bit by the dramatic side, but the plusses outweigh
the minuses, making this one of Wise’s better films. Fox backing it helped.
The 1080p 2.35 X 1 MPEG-2
@ 20 MBPS digital High Definition transfer was shot in real anamorphic
Panavision by the underrated Joseph MacDonald, who had a lifetime of work at
Fox, shooting some of their key films over the years. This was towards the end of his career and
life, though he would be at other studios, but the film was offered as a 70mm
blow-up at the time and it has so many great visuals that those prints were
more than justified. The transfer here
is decent and the DeLuxe color pretty good, but the fine compositions are
sometimes sabotaged here by softness and depth limits, though the color is
impressive, while other features like jet blacks and ivory whites could never
be recreated on DVD. The print needs
some work, but this looks good.
The DTS HD Master Audio
(MA) lossless 5.1 mix is not very strong, upgraded a bit from the 6-track
magnetic stereo the 70mm prints offered at the time, but still on the weak side
for dialogue. It is still better than
the Dolby Digital 4.0 mix also included.
The music by Jerry Goldsmith is another plus that helps the film work
when it drags or gets into other trouble.
The combination is good, but the aged film has its fidelity issues, but
the money was put into the production all around.
Extras include trivia
track, Road Show Version scenes, a making of documentary, Steve McQueen Remembered featurette, Robert Wise Remembered featurette, China 1926 Remembered featurette, A Ship Called San Pablo featurette, The Secret Of San Pablo featurette, radio documentaries narrated by
Attenborough, radio spots, original theatrical trailer and two feature-length
audio commentary tracks. One is by Wise,
Bergen, Crenna and Mako, the other an isolated music score track with Music
Producer Nick Redman, Film Music Historian Jon Burlingame and Film
Historian/Writer Lem Dobbs. It will be
hard to top all that.
For even more on the Fox
films, our good friend Lee Pfeiffer and Dave Worrall have written a huge book
called The Great Fox War Movies,
with tons of information, text and illustrations throughout. It is a fine coffee table book for serious
film fans and a great companion to these Blu-rays. Serious film fans will want to look into
it. In the meantime, it is great to see
more solid back catalog on Blu-ray and more cannot come out fast enough.
- Nicholas Sheffo
