El
Cid (1961/Umbrella Region
B Import Blu-ray)/It's A
Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
(1963/United Artists/Criterion Blu-ray w/DVD Set)/Khartoum
(1966/United Artists/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)/Zulu
(1963/Embassy/MGM/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)
Picture:
B (Mad
DVDs: C+) Sound: B-/B & C+/B/B- Extras: D/B/B-/B-
Films: B-/B+ (uncut)/C+/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The El
Cid
Region B Import Blu-ray is only available from Umbrella Entertainment
and can only be played on machines that can handle that version of
the format, while Khartoum
and
Zulu
are limited edition Blu-ray releases in which 3,000 copies of each
will be made by Twilight Time. All can be ordered from the links
below.
Here
are four epic event films shot in large frame film formats now on
Blu-ray, three of which have arrived in celebration of MGM's 90th
Anniversary and one that still has not been issued in the U.S. yet,
but we have it as an import.
That
import is Anthony Mann's El
Cid
(1961), which we not only covered in a basic DVD from Umbrella a
while ago, but in a DVD Collector's Edition set we covered at this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6482/El+Cid+%E2%80%93+Limited+Collector%E2%80%
Sadly,
there are no extras on this Blu-ray, but it is the kind of upgrade
the film needed presentation wise and if you can play Region B
Blu-rays and you are a fan, you might want to get this copy. More on
its performance below. Too bad it has no extras.
Now
to the MGM catalog releases. Stanley Kramer's It's
A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
(1963) had already been issued in its shorter version on a basic
Blu-ray we missed a little while ago, but now, Criterion has issued
an amazing Blu-ray w/DVD set that offers that shorter cut and debuts
the full length version not seen in decades from the existing,
surviving materials on hand.
The film is known for its massive assembly of acting talent, but
what is also great about it is that before it, no film has ever
attempted to do a comedy on the scale it did. This was a few years
before the rise of Woody Allen & Mel Brooks, was such a huge hit
that it spawned many bandwagon imitators and led to more great
comedies like Peter Bogdanovich's What's
Up Doc?
(1972, reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) and re-solidified
the genre for motion pictures in the face of highly successful (and
at the time, funny) TV situation comedies for decades to come.
With
its share of still-amazing stunt work (though we get dated visual
effects, they do not date as badly, funny both intentionally and
unintentionally) with a screenplay by William & Tania Rose (et
al) that shows a real love and respect for comedy as an artform while
being funny at every opportunity. Some moments are politically
incorrect, but that is not as much a problem here as you might
expect. When a few people discover there is a hidden fortune to be
found, it turns seemingly normal people into greedy maniacs as they
try to outdo each other and solve the mystery of where the cash
supposedly is.
Spencer
Tracy is the no-nonsense cop who has starts getting abnormal reports
of people driving their motor vehicles in ways that seem only suited
to a smash-up derby and has to get the force to find out what is
going on. As characters in the film, Buddy Hackett is teamed with
Mickey Rooney trying to find the loot, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman and
a highly uninterested Dorothy Provone get involved, Sid Caesar and
Edie Adams get involved, then they are joined by the likes of Phil
Silvers, Dick Shawn, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters and others with
great cameos turns by some legends (we'll not ruin those for new
viewers) and all in the wide, widescreen of Ultra Panavision 70.
This could have been an overproduced disaster, but it works,
especially in its longer version and was one of the biggest hits made
in this format.
Ernest
Gold delivers one of his best movie scores and Director of
Photography Ernest Laszlo, A.S.C., constantly makes the correct calls
on how to compose and shot this for maximum madness, comic effect and
narrative impact. This is a big event film that worked and is the
biggest hit of the four films here, but like the others, reminds us
of how Hollywood and serious filmmakers could pull off big
productions that worked when you had people who loved film and knew
how to make them. Nothing like ambitions realized.
And
finally, two solid limited edition Blu-rays from Twilight Time.
Basil Dearden's Khartoum
(1966)
was the last of the Ultra Panavision 70mm film productions and
because of a major lead in Charlton Heston, a following that is just
above cult status and some interesting moments is a film people still
talk about. It may not always work, but when it does, it delivers
some solid moments. United
Artists also issued this one with less box office results, but like
El
Cid,
Heston's massive box office and box office clout had him wisely
taking on more large frame epics that kept him one of the biggest
movie stars in the world.
Here
he plays British General Charles Gordon, who must go to the title
locale to protect the interests of the crown against an Islamic
uprising. The most obviously politically incorrect portion of the
film is having the great Laurence Olivier play historical Arab figure
Muhammad Ahmad, though he delivers a good accent and voice, black
and/or brown face is what it is. Still, the screenplays talking head
moments are consistently intelligent and battle sequences not
overdone if not always well integrated in the plot. Richard Jordan,
Ralph Richardson and Nigel Green are among the solid, convincing
supporting cast (Ronald Leigh-Hunt and Jerome Willis turn up
uncredited) and a plus for the film is that it is not just another
tired biopic, but trying to tell the history (liberties taken
notwithstanding) in a way that does try to put the viewer in the
thick of things.
Of
course, like Lord
Jim,
it is compared to Lawrence
Of Arabia,
which has some degree of fairness but there is only one Lawrence
and it may not be as good, but it has more going for it than not. It
is just a very long 136 minutes at times, so you have to really put
the time aside to get into it or you will not get the most out of it.
Edward Scaife (The
Liquidator,
The
Kremlin Letter,
The
Dirty Dozen)
is the Director of Photography showing his effective use and grasp of
the widescreen frame, while Frank Cordell (Cromwell,
Larry Cohen's remarkable thriller Go
Told Me To
aka Demon)
produced a decent music score (here in an isolated track that proves
my point) that might get overlooked more than it should. This film
is worth a good look for serious film fans.
Last
but not least is Cy
Endfield's Zulu
(1963) starring Stanley Baker, but often best known in the U.S. for
its early great performance by Michael Caine. Operating with the
syntax of a Western, this well thought out war epic is also based on
the historical Battle Of Rorke's Drift and is well thought out enough
that this aspect of it becomes the film's core. Sometimes criticizes
for being racist, it does have some us-and-them aspects and because
the Western approach makes the title opponents a nameless force (we
never get to know any Zulu by name or have any scenes that let us
into what they are thinking, talking about, planning, etc.), the film
is just as concerned with the battles within the British camp that
get ugly.
Besides
personality clashes, clashes of values and the screenplay by John
Prebble subtly offers elements of the inner conflicts of the Crown
and British Empire that will eventually led to its decline. It is
for those reasons and a rare, landmark combination of talent that the
film is still celebrated and discussed. Like Khartoum,
Nigel Green shows up here too with James booth, Patrick Magee, Jack
Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson and other actors the audio commentary rightly
notes should have had longer careers. Endfield deserves additional
note here.
He
was a engineer and from what I am seeing of Quentin Tarantino's
abandoned Western The Hateful Eight (the script was leaked
online to his own rightful furor), the idea of shooting a large fame
format Western in limited locales is definitely partly inspired by
this film. Like Deer Hunter and Heaven's Gate director
Michael Cimino, who was also an engineer, this film like those take
us somewhere we have never been before and is a one-of-a-kind film
that even 1979's Zulu Dawn (reviewed elsewhere on this site)
could not recreate. That is one of the reasons it is an enduring
piece of pure cinema.
I
am not a fan of the ending, which is a little trite, but it also has
other great things going for it including its location, well made
fight scenes, an early winning score by the great John Barry and some
underrated cinematography by Director of Photography Stephen Dade,
who lensed the early widescreen hit Knights Of The Round Table
(1953), was a capable journeyman and also delivered some of the
best-looking episodes of Man In A Suitcase and some of the
most memorable episodes of the Linda Thorson/Tara King episodes of
The Avengers. He could handle black and white well, but his
knack for color was especially strong.
All
four films were originally issued in large frame 70mm film prints as
well as 35mm reduction prints struck in dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor that are highly collectible today for their
quality and endurance. Color in all four cases here are pretty good,
but there are various flaws in each presentation that hold back
performance to some extent despite all four Blu-rays offering some
great demo shot for any serious HDTV or even Ultra HDTV.
El
Cid
and Zulu
were shot in Technicolor's Technirama format and are here in 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers that make the film's
look better than they ever have before, but the El
Cid
frame is a bit different than the DVDm, yet color and definition
greatly improve over all previous DVD editions. Still, we can see
the age of the materials used at times and some color moments are
better than others. Zulu
has color, detail and depth as good as anything here, but is it is
plagued by very light telecine flicker throughout some may not notice
as much as I did, but it is there.
As
for Mad
World
and Khartoum,
they were only two of ten films ever shot in the anamorphic Ultra
Panavision 70 format, a 70mm format meant to duplicate three-camera
Cinerama with one strip of film. It looks great, if not as defined.
They join Blu-rays of Ben-Hur
(now in a fine box set from Warner Home Video), Mutiny
On The Bounty
(1962), Battle
Of The Bulge
and The
Greatest Story Ever Told
(see all elsewhere on this site) as the 5th
& 6th
films issued and seeing them in their full width is the only way to
really enjoy them.
The
1080p 2.76 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers can show the
age of the materials used in both cases too, but Mad
World
has some rough surviving footage in its longer cut that has color
limits and rough definition, so expect some sudden losses of fidelity
while viewing. However, the best footage on both cuts sometimes do
not look as totally great as they should and as compared to the
earlier basic Blu-ray of the shorter cut which had better color,
there is a slight range limit on the Criterion cuts. The
anamorphically enhanced DVD versions are fuller overall.
Khartoum
was the last of the ten films made in the format (also known as MGM
Camera 65) and budget cuts make this look cheap in ways that hurt the
fidelity of the format, so that is just the way the film is.
However, some shots look better than others, leading to a slightly
uneven presentation.
In
defense of all four films, Blu-ray does not have enough definition to
pull off all of the detail, depth and color range of these films, so
even that can be a factor. In all four cases, I really enjoyed
seeing the films in ways I had not in a very long time and are among
the best presentations I have seen of them to date.
As
for sound, all four films originally issued in 6-track magnetic
stereo sound presentations with traveling dialogue and sound effects
when shown in 70mm and on Blu-ray here offer DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
5.1 lossless mixes save Zulu, which offers only DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 2.0 Stereo and 1.0 Mono lossless mixes and Khartoum, which is
only here in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo. The 6-track
soundmasters seem to be missing for now on those films, but heir
stereo presentations have some traveling dialogue and sound effects
just the same with Khartoum sounding better than expected and both
have isolated lossless DTS-MA music scores that sound really good.
El
Cid
can show its age via its materials, but this is a nice improvement
over the lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 DVD mix in warmth. Despite some rough sound in the
cut footage, Mad
World
is he sonic champ here with some sometimes stunning 5.1 mix as its
soundmaster survived nicely and is an especially pleasant surprise,
but the DVD's lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 is weaker than expected.
El
Cid
has zero extras as note above, but extras for the other three
releases in include illustrated booklets on their respective films
including informative text and feature length audio commentary tracks
that a rich with excellent and rare information on the films they
cover. Mad
World
features Mark Evander, Paul Scrabo & Mark Schlesinger on the
longer cut of the film, while Lem Dobbs and Nick Redmond discuss
Khartoum
(joined by Julie Kirgo, who does liner notes for booklets in all
Twilight Time releases) and on Zulu
where they go it alone. Khartoum
and Zulu
have their great
isolated music scores and Original Theatrical Trailers as well.
Mad
World
adds 4 TV ads in HD, 6 Radio Ads, Road Show & General Release
trailers, another Trailer and 3 more Radio Ads for the 1970 reissue,
1963 Interview footage with Kramer, Winters, Caesar, Berle &
Rooney, two episodes of the TV series Telescope
(not in HD) about the launch of the film, a 1974 reunion interview
clip (regular definition) with Kramer, Caesar, Winter and now
Hackett, the part of AFI's
100 Years... 100 Laughs
program on the film, Craig Barron & Ben Burtt on the visual and
audio work (respectively) on the film, a nice and clearly explained
Restoration Demonstration on the film and remarkable taping at the
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on July 9, 2012 hosted
by Billy Crystal from The
Last 70MM Film Festival featuring
surviving key players in the film including Carl Reiner and in some
of their last public appearances anywhere, Jonathan Winters and the
underrated Marvin Kaplan that has some amazing moments.
You
can order
the Khartoum
and Zulu
Limited Edition Blu-rays while supplies last at this link:
www.screenarchives.com
...and
to order the Region B Umbrella
import Blu-ray of El
Cid,
go to this link:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
