Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Campbell's Kingdom Blu-ray Movie Review

I hear solar's all the rage now.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 22, 2011

My how times have changed. It’s simply one measure of how differently we think about things nowadays that Campbell’s Kingdom posits the oil driller as the good guy and the hydroelectric dam builder as the bad guy. Of course both might be the bad guys in today’s green energy world, but chances are the oil driller is going to come off looking worse, one way or the other. That’s only one of several odd elements of Campbell’s Kingdom, a film that tries to be something of a British Western, with rugged Canadian Rockies settings taking the place of a Fordian Southwest United States. Based on a well regarded novel by Hammond Innes, Campbell’s Kingdom tells the story of Bruce Campbell (Dirk Bogarde), a supposedly Scottish man who thinks he’s mortally ill and comes to survey land left to him by his grandfather. The rather dilapidated cabin and valley are ironically called Campbell’s Kingdom, a grandiose title made even more absurd by the fact that Campbell’s grandfather had long insisted the land sat atop valuable oil fields, despite surveying reports to the contrary. That potential goldmine (black gold, Texas tea) is about to be a moot subject, though, for local contractor Owen Morgan (Stanley Baker) is determined to finish a local dam project which will flood the Kingdom and make any oil deposits unreachable. That drama plays out against a rather soap operatic backstory of Campbell’s grandfather’s business dealings which left several of the local townspeople bereft of funds, something Bruce is determined to set right. And of course there’s the requisite love interest for Bruce courtesy of local hotel worker Jean Lucas (Barbara Murray), a woman who initially probably just feels sorry for Bruce, due to his illness and his soon to be soggy inheritance, but who ultimately falls in love with him and aids him in his mad (mad, I tell you!) attempt to halt the dam project and find oil on his property. Campbell’s Kingdom is one of those films that probably played much better to its late 1950’s British audience than it does today. It’s certainly scenic and colorful, but it’s dramatically turgid to the point where several lines are potentially laugh out loud funny for the more jaded, modern day cynics who will be viewing this new Blu-ray release.

Part of the problem with Campbell’s Kingdom is that it wants to be a rip roaring adventure yarn, and yet its hero is played by—Dirk Bogarde. Bogarde was then full on into his Rank Organisation matinee idol phase, as exemplified by such enjoyable but lightweight fare as Doctor in the House, perhaps only a bit hyperbolically called Britain's biggest star in the film's breathless trailer. Bogarde hadn’t yet begun the explore the more robust dramatic fare which was better suited to his brooding intelligence in films like Darling or Death in Venice. And while he’s not exactly effeminate, Bogarde simply doesn’t have the bearing or the ambience of a rough and ready, rugged action he-man. It’s especially apparent when he’s shoved up against the hulking brutishness of Stanley Baker as Owen Morgan. Clad in a bristlingly bright red shirt, and looking for all the world like Edward Arnold in the opening logging town sequence of 1936’s Come and Get It, Baker is the physical presence of the film and that very physicality pulls focus from Bogarde and deals the film a more than glancing blow to its credibility.

If the action elements never quite gel in Campbell’s Kingdom, the film does much better on a more intimate level in its portrayal of outsider Bruce Campbell inveigling his way into the wonderfully named gaggle of ramshackle houses someone has named Come Lucky, certainly as ironic an appellation as Campbell’s Kingdom. This fish out of water element is the best, and most believable, aspect of the film, as Bruce Campbell attempts not just to stop the marauding construction crew (if that term doesn’t make you laugh, you may in fact be able to make it through Campbell’s Kingdom without cracking a smile) attempting to get the dam built but to become friends with the townspeople, many of whom blame the Campbell family for the town’s destitution and their own personal lack of any savings.

The British film industry wasn’t particularly well equipped to handle a quasi-epic like this, despite its having been produced more than a decade after the end of World War II and the putative renaissance of artistic life (and funding) across the pond. The good news is that under the solid if unspectacular direction of Ralph Thomas, the low budget seams rarely if ever show. Location photography is well cut into the studio bound sequences, and the final “thrilling” sequence dealing with the bombing of several bridges and the breaching of the dam feature some good, if not mind blowing, special effects, with some artful use of miniatures. What the film can’t really overcome is the patent ludicrousness of some elements of this final climax, where as the dam is falling apart literally feet from their heads, several of Morgan’s cronies, and Morgan himself, don’t have the perspicacity to simply look up to see what’s going on, necessitating Bruce to, yes, put on his Hero Hat again and march into the potential valley of death to attempt to rescue them all.

All of this said, there’s nothing horrible about Campbell’s Kingdom. It’s a solidly crafted piece of entertainment that no doubt delighted British audiences in the late 1950’s, especially with its scenic setting and bright, luscious use of color, then still a relative rarity in English film. But from the vantage point of the 21st century, the film seems awfully creaky at times. The now decades long “energy crisis” has put a new spin on drilling for oil, and in fact hydroelectricity itself, making the central conflict of the film seem at the very least quaint if not outright ridiculous. This is a film that’s probably best accepted as appealing eye candy, albeit of a stolid 1950’s British manufacture, with some fairly silly dramatic activity taking place giving the actors something to do in all that scenic magnificence.

Campbell's Kingdom Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

There's both good news and bad news in terms of Campbell's Kingdom's VC-1 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.69:1. The good news is the source elements are in really good shape and the sometimes problematic Eastmancolor looks surprisingly spry, with little to none of the age related devolution that sometimes hobbles this process. Reds are especially impressive in this film and they make it to high definition with sometimes eye popping saturation, without any of the skew towards brown that is Eastmancolor's tendency (as well as Warner Color, strangely). Clarity is good to very good, and the film's location photography looks excellent. What will probably turn off some videophiles is, yes, you guessed it, some fairly aggressive digital noise reduction. It's certainly nowhere near as aggressive as VCI's first foray into Blu-ray territory, Romeo and Juliet, but it's much more apparent than in the other recent (and newer vintage) Bogarde-Rank film released by VCI, Agent 8 ¾. The film actually looks a good deal better than some of these screencaps would suggest, with at least acceptable fine detail, but DNR-phobes are warned that they will probably not like the shiny smooth appearance of Campbell's Kingdom.

Campbell's Kingdom Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

VCI hasn't started offering lossless audio with their Blu-ray releases, and so Campbell's Kingdom is presented with both its original mono track delivered via a Dolby Digital 2.0 mix and a repurposed Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix. Both of these tracks sound good, with some excellent low end (especially well rendered in the final climactic sequence which features several big explosions and the collapse of the dam). Dialogue is crisp and easy to hear and the overall mix is quite good. The surround mix is well handled, with some good discrete sound effects placed well around the soundfield, though generally this mix simply tends to spread the entire mix around the soundfield, creating a kind of generalized surround ambience that isn't especially mindful of discrete channelization.

Campbell's Kingdom Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:34)

Campbell's Kingdom Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Campbell's Kingdom is a sort of British equivalent to a United States B-movie oater, a middling film with decent production values, generally good cast, and patently ridiculous storyline. The film evidently is very well remembered by a certain generation of British filmgoer, many of whom probably saw the film when fairly young and were most impressed by the film's nice use of location photography and its then still unusual use of color. For those fans, this Blu-ray, despite some DNR issues and the lack of lossless audio, will probably rekindle fond memories which will probably help to keep those rose colored glasses firmly intact. For the rest of you, this is probably best sampled as a rental first.