7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 3.6 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
In eighteenth-dynasty Egypt, Sinuhe, a poor orphan, becomes a brilliant physician and with his friend Horemheb is appointed to the service of the new Pharoah. Sinuhe's personal triumphs and tragedies are played against the larger canvas of the turbulent events of the 18th dynasty. As Sinuhe is drawn into court intrigues, and bizarre secrets are revealed to him, he learns the answers to the questions he has sought since his birth. Short on historical accuracy but strong on plot and characterization.
Starring: Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Gene Tierney, Michael Wilding, Peter UstinovHistory | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.55:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.55:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The film world changed irrevocably in 1953. For years since the end of World War II, Hollywood had been rocked by one calamitous event after another, whether it was the anti-monopoly rulings which divested the studios of their theaters, or, perhaps even more cataclysmically, the advent of television and slow, steady decline of paying audiences. Why should people go to the time and trouble, not to mention the expense, of going to a movie when they could remain comfortably at home and watch the new technological marvel of television? But the film industry wasn’t about to simply roll over and die, and in 1953 the first of what would be many widescreen processes to try to lure awestruck viewers away from tiny black and white screens. CinemaScope was a revolutionary process in its day, a radical reassessment of what going to the movies was really all about. Suddenly spectacle and casts of thousands were the flavor du jour, and historical recreations also entered the mix in substantial new ways. The first CinemaScope offering was The Robe, a religiously themed epic based on a best selling novel by Lloyd C. Douglas, and it provided a little religion itself for world weary studio executives, giving them a renewed faith that maybe their industry wasn’t doomed to a slow, malingering death. 1954’s epic historical CinemaScope feature (along with The Robe's sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators) was considerably less charmed than The Robe, but if anything, The Egyptian has become much more of a cult item than the Richard Burton-Jean Simmons starrer ever was. Darryl F. Zanuck spared no expense bringing The Egyptian to the screen, and as odd as it may sound to modern day audiences used to everything from Fox’s own 1963 Cleopatra to Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments to any number of other films set in Ancient Egypt, The Egyptian was the first large scale color film to tackle that era, and as such it presented huge production design challenges which at times seemed insurmountable. The Egyptian’s staggering costs meant the film, while at least decently popular in the United States, had to wait for foreign rentals to pour in to ever show even a minimal profit, and indeed the film was thought of as a massive failure in its time. (It’s somewhat ironic to note that De Mille himself purchased several Egyptian props from Fox for the 1956 Commandments and Fox itself, facing near bankruptcy during the prolonged, extremely expensive production of Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra eight years after The Egyptian, supposedly recycled all sorts of sets, costumes and props from the earlier film into the Elizabeth Taylor epic in a desperate effort to cut costs).
The Egyptian is the first Blu-ray release from niche label Twilight Time, though as Nick Redman revealed in his exclusive interview with Blu-ray.com, the HD transfer was actually handled by Fox and was in their "assets" vaults, simply waiting for release. Encoded via AVC, in 1080p and 2.55:1, this is (rather incredibly) one of two HD masters evidently in the Fox vaults, this one from 2010 while a previous transfer is from 2005. According to Redman, this was handled by the same crew who oversaw the exemplary Blu-ray release of The Robe, and if the results aren't quite as staggering as they were with that film, they're still often awe inducing. The biggest qualm some viewers may have with this release, however ultimately minor it may be, is the kind of pasty yellow skin tones that are the hallmark of Deluxe color, the process Zanuck chose for this film. The better news is if you can get past that anomaly, the rest of The Egyptian's lavish palette is incredibly robust, including gorgeous blue, green and teal tones that fully bring the jade, lapis lazuli and other gemstones of the costumes and sets completely to life. The image here is just a tad bit softer than The Robe, and there does appear to have been some moderate noise reduction applied, though grain is still natural looking and never overwhelming. Depth of field is astounding in the many outdoor shots, though the increased resolution of the Blu-ray only makes the many matte paintings and rear projections look more obvious. One or two times there's some very faint haloing from edge enhancement, but it's extremely minor. Overall, this is a sterling transfer of a film very few of us probably ever thought would see the HD light of day, and it's a joy to see it looking so splendiferous on this new Blu-ray.
The Egyptian was originally released with the "wonder" of "directional, four track stereo," and those original stems have been quite artfully repurposed on this Blu-ray in a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. A film this huge has plenty of opportunity for immersion, and some may find The Egyptian a little lackluster in terms of consistently involving surround activity, but what's here sounds wonderful. Some of the huge crowd scenes teem with sonic activity skirting around the edges of the soundfield, and quite often nice panning effects are utilized in terms of things like spears or arrows finding their marks. Dialogue is clean and crisp, and in fact the entire track is damage free and lacks any overt narrowness that sometimes plagues soundtracks of this era. Best of all is the vaunted score by Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman (also available on an isolated track, see below for details), which sounds absolutely magnificent throughout the film.
The Egyptian has long been a favorite film of mine for a host of reasons, but I had long ago given up hope of ever seeing it on DVD, let alone Blu-ray. I occasionally returned to my pretty hideous looking pan and scan VHS when I need a quick fix of Sinuhe and his trials and tribulations, so it's just incredibly wonderful to a longtime fan like myself to have this film in this stunning new format. All of that said, don't be lured into believing The Egyptian is some sort of lost masterpiece. This is a long, sometimes lumbering film that takes a certain amount of patience to get through. That said, The Egyptian should just as certainly never be feared as being potentially boring, for it absolutely isn't. Even if it's occasionally dramatically turgid, or even maddening with regard to Sinuhe's idiotic passivity, the film is such a riot of production design genius that you could spend hours examining one frame to simply soak in the amazing sets and costumes. Kudos, then, to Twilight Time for taking a chance on this film and for daring to fight the naysayers who claim there isn't an audience for niche fare like this. For the discriminating viewer who wants to see a film that could never be made on this scale in this way ever again, The Egyptian is most definitely Highly recommended.
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