Albert R.N. Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Albert R.N. Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 27, 2024

If he's remembered much at all these days, Lewis Gilbert's name probably tends to ring a bell mostly with fans of the relatively early James Bond films, as Gilbert helmed You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. Some devoted cineastes may know that Gilbert also directed a number of other notable films like the original Alfie, Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine, offering three distinctive character portraits of rather "quirky" individuals. With regard to this particular double feature from Cohen, one other relatively well remembered film directed by Gilbert, Sink the Bismarck!, may be the most salient Gilbert film to list to jar memories, since it, like to two films in this release, offers World War II settings.

Quick! Name a World War II offering set in a German prisoner of war camp where the camp commandant's incompetent assistant is named Schultz. Hogan's Heroes, you say? Well, yes, of course, but also this film, which I'm kind of thinking may have inspired the character's name in the long running sitcom. That said, Albert, R.N., while somewhat whimsical in its underlying premise, is not a comedy, and instead follows a multinational group of prisoners of war at a German facility attempting to engineer more than one escape by utilizing a mannequin to fill in for those who have "departed" the place. It sounds wacky, and it kind of is, but the film begins with one of those "based on a true story" epigrams.

While there are some simmering tensions at times between the guys in the focused on stalag, the real suspense in the film is built around the use of a mannequin, nicknamed Albert (the R.N. stands for Royal Navy, not Registered Nurse), to fool the apparently idiotically unobservant Germans into thinking their "body count" is correct. Schultz (Anton Diffring) doesn't seem quite as boneheaded as some of his fellow Germans, but he's thwarted on more than one occasion by the fast thinking Allies. Suffice it to say Schultz is the very model of a modern Nazi villain, and the film wends its way toward some significant comeuppance, though by that time more than one Allied prisoner has met his fate.

Albert R.N. Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Albert R.N. is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection, an imprint of Cohen Media Group, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This is far and away the better looking presentation of the two Gilbert films aggregated on this disc. While there is still some occasional age related wear and tear, it is nowhere near as ubiquitous as what afflicts The Sea Shall Not Have Them. Contrast is much more solid on this transfer, offering good gray scale and some appealing blacks, and detail levels are often commendable as well. Grain resolves tightly for the most part, and has very little of the mottled look seen in the other film on this disc. Fine detail on aspects like costume fabrics tends to be excellent.

Albert R.N. Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Albert R.N. features DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono audio. This has a bit of boxiness, and even some very slight crackling in Malcolm Arnold's score, though arguably less so than what is on tap in the other audio presentation on this disc. This story has fewer ambient environmental effects than The Sea Shall Not Have Them, though the climax offers several explosions. All dialogue (including some untranslated German) is rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available, but whoever was hired to do them was unable to decipher several lines (which I had not problem understanding).

Albert R.N. Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Cohen has packaged The Sea Shall Not Have Them and Albert R.N. together on one disc, with the following sole supplement:

• Trailer for Albert R.N. (HD; 1:27) is a new trailer advertising Cohen's "digital restoration".

Albert R.N. Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The opening epigram in this film insists it actually happened, and maybe it did. The premise is kind of unavoidably goofy, but Albert R.N. has moments of genuine suspense, and some kind of shocking moments of Allied soldiers being killed by Germans. Technical merits are generally solid. Recommended.