Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Memphis Belle Blu-ray Movie Review

Luck Is a Lady

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 4, 2014

Loosely based on a World War II documentary directed by legendary filmmaker William Wyler, and co-produced by Wyler's daughter, Catherine, Memphis Belle preceded Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan by eight years. Though Memphis Belle lacked the budget and high profile of an epic undertaking by a famous director, it is as well-crafted as Ryan. The script by Monte Merrick (Mr. Baseball) squeezes maximum tension out of the story of a ten-man B-17 bomber crew's final mission, after twenty-four lucky sorties without so much as a scratch. Some think the crew and the plane are charmed. Others think their number is up. The realists, including the squadron's weary commanding officer, know that in war every combatant is always in harm's way, and no one is safe.

There really was a bomber named "Memphis Belle", but the film is mostly fictional. Originally, co-producer David Puttnam (The Killing Fields ) wanted to tell a story about a British crew, but when financing was obtained from American interests, the focus had to shift. For a time, the studio considered calling the plane and the film "Southern Belle", lest any of the real plane's crew object, but none did. One can certainly understand why. Though the film's airmen didn't replicate the real Memphis Belle's final mission, they did provide a compelling portrait of the courage and dedication displayed by ordinary men plucked from their regular lives and thrown into a new kind of combat against an enemy the likes of which no one had ever faced before.

Memphis Belle was not widely seen when it played in theaters, and its reputation on home video has been hampered by an indifferent DVD released in 1998. The new Blu-ray version from Warner, which is very good, may help it gain the wider audience it deserves.

In a backhanded tribute to Wyler's documentary, Memphis Belle opens with a fictional character, Lt. Col. Derringer (John Lithgow), who has descended on the bomber base in England commanded by Col. Harriman (David Straithairn) to tell the story of the title plane. But Derringer is a cynical PR man. He has no interest in what the flyers actually do; he just wants to drum up enthusiasm for the war effort and sell more war bonds. Derringer thinks that the ten-man crew of the Memphis Belle will make ideal faces for his PR campaign, once they return unharmed from their final mission. Harriman is appalled. To him, every man under his command is equally worthy of attention. Besides, the mission isn't over yet. Like everyone on the base, Harriman understands the vagaries of luck, especially in aerial combat. He doesn't want to jinx anyone's chances by counting on their success.

The tension between Harriman and Derringer provides a dramatic engine to the first forty-five minutes of Memphis Belle, as the crew prepare themselves for their final flight, and we get acquainted with all ten of them. Director Michael Caton-Jones (Rob Roy) and his cast do such an elegant job making each one an individual that it seems almost effortless, but the work is essential. We need to know these characters before the mission begins:

• Capt. Dennis Dearborn (Matthew Modine) is the pilot, a furniture maker from North Carolina. He's a stickler for details and also a bit of a stiff. The plane is named after his wife, whom he met on a business trip to Memphis.


• Lt. Sinclair (Tate Donovan) is the co-pilot, but finds the job dull. He'd rather handle one of the ship's machine guns. Eventually he gets his chance, but the experience isn't what he expected.


• Lt. Phil Lowenthal (D. B. Sweeney) is the navigator, who is almost paralyzed with terror, because he is certain that his lucky streak is over. He expects to die on this mission and keeps trying to give away all his possessions.


• Lt. Val Kozlowski (Billy Zane) is the bombardier and is nicknamed "Valentine" because of his alleged prowess with women. His fellow crew members feel reassured that they are flying with an officer who completed four years of medical school before enlisting.


• Sgt. Danny Daly (Eric Stoltz) is the radio operator. He's known as "Danny Boy" for his Irish heritage, but they start calling him "Shakespeare" when they discover he writes poetry. Pressed to read one of his poems to the group, he borrows lines from W.B. Yeats.


• Sgt. Virgil Hoogesteger (Reed Diamond) mans the top turret gun. He is routinely mocked as "Virgin" (a monicker which turns out to be inapt by takeoff). Virgil's dream after the war is to open a chain of restaurants nationwide where the food will be the same in each one. The others scoff at the notion, but we know that he's a visionary.


• Sgt. Richard "Rascal" Moore (Sean Astin) mans the bottom or "ball" turret gun. He considers himself a ladies man and is "Virgin's" chief tormentor.


• Sgt. Eugene "Genie" McVey (Courtney Gains) man's the right mid-section or "waist" gun. Deeply religious, he relies on a St. Anthony's medallion for good luck, but is always losing it.


• Sgt. Jack Bocci (Neil Giuntoli) mans the left waist gun and is the opposite of "Genie", whom he often calls "Genie the Weenie". Jack comes from Chicago, where he worked for bootleggers, and he has a short fuse.


• Sgt. Clay Busby (Harry Connick, Jr., in his first film) mans the tail gunner. As an experienced gambler, he is constantly being asked to calculate the odds of the crew's survival under current conditions. As a talented piano player and singer, who used to earn his living performing in a New Orleans brothel, he salvages the occasion when the clueless Lt. Col. Derringer starts congratulating them at a gala dance the night before the mission by performing "Danny Boy" with the orchestra.

After the bombers depart on their mission—in the film, the target is an aircraft factory in Bremen, deep inside enemy territory—the crew faces the full array of challenges captured in Wyler's original documentary: fighter attacks, anti-aircraft bursts, freezing temperatures at high altitudes. For dramatic purposes, the film adds further challenges that were no doubt encountered by crews on other missions, including a smoke screen that obscures the target and an engine fire that has to be extinguished by a controlled dive. By far the hardest moments for the crew, however, are those when another plane in the group begins to spin, fall or burn from enemy damage, and they watch intensely for the sight of parachutes that will tell them whether anyone has escaped. Wyler's documentary captured this sight, but Memphis Belle conveys the emotions of those watching who know they may be next.

(Alert: The following paragraph discusses elements of the film's ending, primarily those that are a matter of historical record. Those who want to know nothing at all should skip it.)

Since the real Memphis Belle returned from its last mission, the fictional one does too, but not in the same perfect condition or without casualties. As the ground crew scans the skies intently for the squadron's return, Caton-Jones and editor Jim Clark (The World Is Not Enough) orchestrate a tense sequence that uses action film techniques to convey the emotional bond shared between the men in the sky and those on the ground (another point taken directly fom the Wyler documentary). The film's true climax isn't the delivery of the plane's payload, but its return home: battered, full of holes, barely flying, but still not shot down.

Memphis Belle Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Oscar-winning cinematographer David Watkin (Out of Africa ) photographed Memphis Belle with a soft texture and an understated palette that was probably intended to create a historical look but no doubt also assisted in the integration of the expert effects work. (Real vintage planes were gathered from numerous sources, but some of the more dramatic shots involving flames and crashes required miniatures.) Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was almost certainly derived from a relatively recent transfer, because the last video version of Memphis Belle was the 1998 DVD, which wasn't even enhanced for 16:9. The image is very good, with fine detail evident throughout, tight focus, good black levels and contrast and, with an occasional exception like a cascade of red, white and blue balloons, a delicately pastel and earth-toned color scheme. A fine but natural grain pattern can be observed, and no filtering or artificial sharpening was in evidence. The only real negative was some instability in the opening credits, but this may be inherent in the source.

At an average bitrate of 22.89 Mbps, the compression reflects Warner's usual parsimonious standards, but Memphis Belle has many quiet scenes of conversation, especially in its first half, where a skilled compressionist can conserve bits for more demanding sequences. As usual, Warner has gotten away with it. I note, however, that the total disc image occupies only 24.9 GB of a BD-50, so that the tight compression seems curiously unnecessary. The film itself occupies 22.5 GB, which suggests that it was originally authored for a BD-25, but a BD-50 was used to accommodate the Wyler documentary. Maybe Warner should take a leaf from Universal's book (or from that of its own Warner Archive Collection) and just start using BD-50s for all of its catalog titles. Then it wouldn't have to aim for average bitrates in the low twenties—and waste vast amounts of digital real estate in a situation like that of Memphis Belle.

Memphis Belle Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Memphis Belle was originally released in Dolby Stereo surround, which was remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1 for the 1998 DVD. That remix appears to be the same soundtrack used on Blu-ray, presented in lossless DTS-HD MA. The remix is conservative and does not attempt to "open up" the soundfield beyond the general presence provided by the single rear channel of Dolby surround, which is sufficient to create the sense of being airborne in a B-17 bomber. The sounds of fighters diving, machine guns firing and anti-aircraft bursts exploding nearby are all reproduced with sufficient force to intimidate without overwhelming the human drama inside the plane. The dialogue, while often yelled and screamed, is intelligible. Some of the scenes at the base, particularly the party held the night before the mission, provide a contrasting sense of environment that the soundtrack reproduces effectively.

The score by George Fenton (Gandhi) ably supports the drama, but the tune you're most likely to remember is "Danny Boy", which recurs numerous times in both Harry Connick Jr.'s rendition and as part of Fenton's score.

Memphis Belle Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Warner's 1998 DVD of Memphis Belle contained production notes and trailers for Memphis Belle, plus Copycat, Blade Runner: The Director's Cut, Executive Decision, Passenger 57 and The Right Stuff.

• The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (480i; 1.33:1; 40:01): Directed by William Wyler and containing authentic footage of aerial combat, this 1944 documentary chronicles the 25th and final mission of the real Memphis Belle. Although the crew, target and details of the mission were all changed for the 1990 film, one can spot many of the thematic elements that feature prominently in Monte Merrick's script, and even a few specific quotations (e.g., one crew member's kissing the ground on his return). Of particular interest is the narrator's explanation of the strategic deployment of bomber groups to disperse the Nazis fighter squadrons and improve the odds that the group headed for the key strategic target would get through.
  
  The documentary was made from 16mm negatives, and the source material is in relatively poor shape with frequent vertical scratches and significant fading. A slight horizontal squeeze appears to have applied, so that the opening War Department logo isn't circular but oval.



• Theatrical Trailer (490i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 1:41).

Memphis Belle Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The closing epilogue of Memphis Belle states that over 200,000 airmen died in the battle over Western Europe and dedicates the film to "all the brave young men, whatever their nationality, who flew and fought in history's greatest airborne confrontation". Not content with presenting a bare statistic, director Caton-Jones stages a scene in which Col. Harriman forces the smug Derringer to read some of the letters that Harriman has received from grieving relatives of the men he has lost. As Derringer's face falls, we hear the voices of wives, parents, siblings groping for words to express their sense of loss, and the scene dissolves to archival footage of World War II planes falling. It's a variation on a device borrowed from Wyler's documentary but amplified by the power of dramatic license. When such license is used responsibly, as it is in Memphis Belle, it brings history to life. Highly recommended.