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
