7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A squad of the 101st Airborne Division copes with being trapped near the besieged Belgian city of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.
Starring: Van Johnson (I), John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Marshall ThompsonWar | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Howard Hughes didn't want to make Battleground at RKO, and Louis B. Mayer didn't want to
make it at MGM. Both studio heads were convinced that, by 1949, audiences had wearied of
films about World War II. But producer Dore Schary, newly installed as MGM's head of
production, was determined to make the movie as a prospective antidote to the disillusionment
that had set in after the previous world conflict, when doubts arose about whether it had been
worth the sacrifice to send American soldiers to fight and die overseas (a sentiment eloquently
expressed in King Vidor's The Big Parade, to
name one example). Schary, who was never shy
about mixing filmmaking with a political agenda, wanted to remind viewers why America joined
the fight against fascism and why that battle had to be fought. At the same time, he wanted to
acknowledge the contributions of the ordinary soldier, just as John Ford honored the
contributions of lowly PT boat crews in 1945's They Were Expendable. Working with combat
veteran Robert Pirosh (who would later help create the classic TV series
Combat!), Schary set out to develop a battlefield saga that cannily
anticipates the celebration of World War II fighters
encapsulated in the title of Tom Brokaw's book, The Greatest Generation, published half a
century later.
Schary's devotion to the project was rewarded with box office success that gave MGM its
highest grossing film in five years. Battleground was nominated for six Academy Awards,
winning for Pirosh's screenplay and for the expressive black-and-white cinematography by Paul
Vogel (another war veteran). The film is part of the MGM library acquired by Warner, and it is
being released by the Warner Archive Collection as its first title of 2017.
"Bastogne must be taken. Otherwise it will remain an abscess on our line of communication. We must clean out Bastogne and then move on." —General Heinrich von Lüttwitz, 47th Panzer Corps
This story is about, and dedicated to, those Americans who met General Heinrich von Lüttwitz and his 47 Panzer Corps and won for themselves the honored and immortal name—"The Battered Bastards of Bastogne."
Battleground's original camera negative was one of the many lost in 1978 when a fire swept
through the storage vaults of the George Eastman House. For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray,
the Warner Archive Collection undertook an extensive restoration project to recapture the full
impact of cinematographer Paul Vogel's (High Society) Oscar-winning
black-and-white
photography. A second-generation fine-grain safety master was scanned at 4K in an effort to
extract every possible iota of picture information from a less-than-optimal source. Extensive
cleanup and digital repair took over a year to complete. The resulting image reflects a truly
astonishing level of clarity and fine detail, given the compromised source. Snowflakes, pine
needles, the soldiers' grizzled features and even the texture of the frozen ground are rendered
with remarkable immediacy. Both blacks and fine shades of gray are superbly realized, lending
depth and scale to the image. The occasional inserts of archival footage taken by combat
photographers (see screenshot 23) have a soft indistinctness that only emphasizes the vivid
sharpness of Vogel's photography and WAC's restoration.
The film's grain pattern is well resolved, although the grain is somewhat coarser and more
pronounced than usual on WAC's Blu-rays because of source limitations. There is also an
occasional overlay of video noise that is probably a by-product of scanning a compromised
element at high resolution. Fortunately, no filtering or noise reduction appears to have been
applied. The disc has been authored at WAC's usual high average bitrate, specifically 34.99
Mbps.
Battleground's mono soundtrack has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. The source is a so-called "safety track positive" made from the nitrate track negative in the 1960s as part of MGM's early preservation efforts. Audio cleanup has removed any pops, clicks or other distortions, and hiss is almost entirely absent. The dynamic range is limited by the source, but it is sufficient to render aircraft, artillery and weapons fire effectively. The dialogue is clearly articulated. Battleground has almost no underscoring, but what little it has is credited to Lennie Hayton, who was MGM's music director at the time.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2004 DVD of Battleground and remastered in
1080p. The Blu-ray adds the film's trailer (also in 1080p).
Battleground's single most dramatic scene doesn't involve combat. It's a short sermon by a
chaplain who tries to answer for his frost-bitten audience what he calls "the $64 question": Was
this trip necessary? The chaplain's response has an elegant clarity that cuts through the fog, and
it encapsulates the message that the film's producer wanted to convey. Almost seventy years
later, we are still searching for a similar kind of clarity in an increasingly complex world, but
Battleground reminds us of a time when a vast cross-section of Americans united in a dangerous
but essential crusade. Highly recommended.
1992
1969
1967
1962
Special Edition
1958
1977
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1958
1954
1993
1955
1952
1962
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1966
1949
Fragile Fox
1956
1968
1957
1970
2011
1976