Eagles Over London (1969/Severin Blu-ray + DVD)
Picture: C+
Sound: C Extras: C+ Film: C+
Long before he made the original Inglorious Bastards, Enzo G. Castellari made other films and an
earlier entry into the action war epic cycle of the 1960s was Eagles Over London (1969) that plays
like an interesting (if not as effective) flipside to The Battle Of Britain (reviewed elsewhere on this site) the same
year. The tale of Nazis trying to invade
England
and take out radar installations (even though some said the radar was a myth or
joke) included spies and several action scenes.
Slow to start, uneven throughout and a film that has not
always aged well, it does have Van Johnson as the big Hollywood star leading
the defense against the Nazis from the ground (at first) and a decent cast of
supporting actors you may not be as aware of including Frederick Stafford,
Francisco Rabal, Evelyn Stewart, Renzo Palmer, Christopher Hay and Teresa
Gimpera in work that keeps the film afloat.
Not the best of its kind, it has enough good and ambitious moments to
catch and when the film finally kicks in, some suspense.
The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on the
Blu-ray is a little better than the anamorphically enhanced DVD, but not by
much, though the Blu-ray is preferred.
Though some efforts were made to restore the film, this is a soft and
limited print at times, especially where color is concerned. The film was shot in Techniscope, the
inexpensive Italian version of Panavision and CinemaScope Technicolor in Italy developed
due to lack of real squeeze lenses to make richer scope images. The advantage is that these films would be
printed in three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor and look really good, but the
materials here are not those materials and it is obvious the restoration team
had no such print to work with. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 mix on both formats has weak Pro Logic surrounds and add the
non-stop dubbing work makes the audio more aged.
This is better than any previous copies on home video, but
more work needs to be done down the line and if Composer Francesco De Masi’s
score exists in on a good soundmaster, a lossless soundtrack could be made when
a real Technicolor print is finally found.
Extras include trailers for this and Inglorious Bastards, Part 2 of an interview Conversation with Enzo
Castellari & Quentin Tarantino that began on the Blu-ray and DVD releases
of Severin’s Inglorious Bastards
releases and Eagles Over Los Angeles,
where Tarantino hosts a screening of this film at The Silent Movie Theater with
a discussion, et al.
- Nicholas Sheffo
