The Battle Of The Bulge (1965/HD-DVD)

 

Picture: B+     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Film: B-

 

 

Ken Annakin is one of the most underrated of the great gentleman British directors and when Warner Bros. made their one big screen Ultra Panavision 70mm epic, it is he they hired to helm the project.  The result is one of the best films he ever made.  The Battle Of The Bulge (1965) is about the epic battle between the Allies and Germany five months after D-Day was won.  With a budget that would be almost impossible to think of today and Warner continuing as one of the biggest studios around, it was as huge production where the money and this extends to the cast.

 

Imagine a film that includes fine performances by Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Dana Andrews, Robert Ryan, Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, Pier Angeli and a large cast (no digital work or digital people/crowds!) recreating the events up to the battle and then its results.  Yes, it may not always be as violent as the recent cycle of War films were able to be, but that does not make it any less interesting or effective at its best.

 

If anything, this is the kind of epic (British or American, War genre or otherwise) that digital visual effects and political correctness have ruined.  I admit that the film is long at about 169 minutes, but it is such a pleasure to see a film constantly come up with new places to take us with amazing visuals and leisurely new turns throughout that once you get into the rhythm of the film, you realize how good it can be and what great filmmaking on this scale is really about.

 

When seen in the best film prints, it truly is an event film and HD-DVD finally makes some of the same kind of experience possible with this restored edition in the HD realm, complete with solid color and a solid picture.  It is also great that we finally have the full-length version after the film was available too often in an inferior 140 minutes version.

 

The 1080p 2.76 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot in the anamorphic 65mm negative film format Ultra Panavision 70, also known as MGM Camera 65 and is the second HD release after the 1962 Mutiny On The Bounty to be such a film to arrive in the format.  As a recap, this widest of all widescreen formats was meant to equate the aspect ratio of Cinerama, the first and one of the greatest of all widescreen formats.  While that format required three strips of 35mm film with slightly taller frames than 1.33 X 1, Ultra Panavision 70 offered less negative space but did 5the same frame with one camera instead of three interlocked.  MGM first used the format for their 1957 release Raintree County, had one of their greatest successes ever using it on their 1959 remake of Ben-Hur and saw its final use on another Charlton Heston epic in 1966, Khartoum for United Artists.  Bulge is one of those films that would be blown-up and cut into three- separate 35mm strips for Cinerama presentation.

 

This was the first to use the system under the Ultra Panavision 70 name and third of ten features ever produced this way.  Slight alterations had been made in each of the first three productions and all were also issued in three-strip dye-transfer IB (imbibition) 35mm Technicolor prints.  Since the color in these large frame film formats is always superior to that of 35mm, digital and everything lower, you can imagine how good these looked in theaters.  This sixth MGM Camera 65/Ultra Panavision 70 production had Director Of Photography Jack Hildyard, B.S.C., known for his big-screen work like the 1963 Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra, 55 Days At Peking, the 1967 comedy version of Casino Royale and Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz.  There are shots here that are demo quality.

 

 

The original soundtrack for the film was 6-track magnetic stereo (with five of the speakers behind the screen in original presenations) still present in this Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix similar too and a bit better than the standard DVD.  The music by Benjamin Frankel (John Huston’s Night Of The Iguana, Terence Fisher’s Curse Of The Werewolf, the British anthology TV series Espionage) is also among his best work and instead of being the kind of obvious scoring you might get for a War genre film, Frankel comes up with music that enhances and moves the narrative forward, though its British approach (matter of fact, more sparse than effective) has its issues.  This 5.1 mix has limited bass and surrounds, while the traveling dialogue and sound effects across the three front speakers can be amusing at times, but once you adjust, you get the idea of the kind of stage-like soundstage this and similar big screen film releases had at the time.  Like the 1962 Mutiny On The Bounty, a higher audio upgrade down the line would be advisable.

 

Extras include the original theatrical trailer, a feature length audio commentary track and two vintage featurettes from the vaults.  That’s not bad, though a few more would not have hurt.  For more impressive large frame format HD-DVD releases, try these links:

 

Chronos (Blu-ray)

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5400/Chronos+(1985/IMAX/Blu-ray)

 

Grand Prix

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4394/Grand+Prix+(1966/HD-DVD

 

Mutiny On The Bounty

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4786/Mutiny+On+The+Bounty+(1962/HD

 

The Searchers

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4200/The+Searchers+(1956/HD-DVD

 

Spartacus

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4555/Spartacus+(HD-DVD

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo