Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

The Hallelujah Trail Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 8, 2023

John Sturges' "The Hallelujah Trail" (1965) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new audio commentary by critics C. Courtney Joyner and Michael Schlesinger as well as vintage trailer for the film. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Perhaps what I plan to highlight below is too obvious, but I must do it because it is one of the biggest reasons John Sturges’ The Hallelujah Trail is a very enjoyable film. I think that it is a lot more important than the strength of the story that is told and the grand visuals Sturges and Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Surtees captured on film stock. It does not always happen organically. In a lot of different films from different eras, it is imitated, and when you detect that it is artificial, it can become quite distracting. However, when it does happen organically it instantly gives a film a very, very special quality.

What is it?

It is the incredible chemistry between the many big and small stars of The Hallelujah Trail. It is instantly detectable because the actors are feeding off their work before the camera and in the process genuinely enjoying their collaboration. This makes a dramatic difference because small, at times even transitional scenes suddenly become great although they were not conceived to be. I would like to give you an excellent example so that you can understand exactly what I mean. In the second half of The Hallelujah Trail, there is a small, quite silly scene in which after their latest disagreement Burt Lancaster’s Col. Thaddeus Gerhart and Lee Remick’s Cora Massingale casually exit their protective shells while sitting around a table. It is usually Lancaster that has had a couple of drinks, but this time it is Remick that has downed a few. Lancaster attempts to sound serious and is not in the mood to drink, but Remick refuses to be serious and gives him a special look that instantly melts his heart. He has already fallen in love with her so this is not the scene where it dawns on him that he desires her, but this look, which is very, very quick, irreversibly transforms him. And you know what? Lancaster does not do a whole lot of acting here. Remick touches something in Lancaster and he genuinely responds to it. Yes, Lancaster does, not the character Lancaster plays. There are many scenes like this throughout The Hallelujah Trail, and while they feature other actors in drastically different situations, the same or extremely similar organic chemistry is always present and very easy to detect.

I revisited The Hallelujah Trail a few nights ago, and once its final credits appeared on my screen, I tried to remember what other film from the 1960s had a similarly impressive large cast and comparable grand visuals. It took my mind just a few minutes to produce the perfect answer. It was It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which Stanley Kramer directed a couple of years before The Hallelujah Trail. Thematically, The Hallelujah Trail and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World are absolutely impossible to link, but the same organic chemistry that is present in both makes them equally good. It is true that It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a greater spectacle with a superior rhythm, but you have to realize that its stars connect in the same way Lancaster and Remick do. They just do it under different conditions, almost always with the intimacy from Lancaster and Remick’s scene absent.

Something else that is worth pointing out but is routinely downplayed or simply ignored by fans of The Hallelujah Trail and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is that the stories they tell could have been vastly superior. They are not bad stories or poorly written stories, but they do not excite as they could have. Needless to say, this makes the chemistry that I highlighted earlier even more striking.

The Hallelujah Trail is set in the weeks before the winter of 1867. In Denver, the hardworking and hard-drinking miners and drunks realize that they are running out of booze and begin panicking. After consulting the notorious drunk Oracle Jones (Donald Pleasence), who can see the future while he is partially or fully inebriated, they decide to purchase forty wagons of booze from the ambitious entrepreneur Frank Wallingham (Brian Keith). But to get to Denver, the wagons must pass through a large territory controlled by the Indians and withstand the intense criticism of a local activist (Remick) who has gone on the warpath to outlaw booze. The U.S. Calvary is ready to protect the wagons but unprepared for the tremendous noise various parties unleash after the booze is sent on its way to Denver.

The humor that flourishes throughout The Hallelujah Trail is wonderful. Some of it is old-fashioned but plenty of it is deliciously unforgiving and has a contemporary resonance, so listen closely to what is said and how it is said because there are a lot of precious nuggets.

The Hallelujah Trail Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The Hallelujah Trail arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from an exclusive new 2K master that was prepared at MGM. This is not the same master that Olive Films worked with to produce this release in 2018. The previous master was struck from a standard definition source, so in terms of detail, clarity, and depth the improvements you will see on the new release are quite dramatic.

The new master does not introduce a proper restoration of the film. What does this mean? It means that throughout the film you will notice minor surface imperfections. Also, in a couple of areas, you will notice conventional damage. One particular area that reveals damage is in the middle of the film, after the caravan stops and negotiations are held to determine a new strategy. You can see an example of what the damage looks like on the left side of screencapture #28. This being said, virtually all visuals boast very good to excellent delineation and clarity, while depth is always pleasing. However, given how the film was shot, all three could be superior, in 1080p and in 4K. Image stability is very good. There are no traces of problematic digital corrections, so the entire film has a very attractive organic appearance. Colors are stable. In many areas, the color balance looks very good, too. However, there are sections of the film where it feels like blues ought to be more prominent and better balanced, while browns and yellow/yellow nuances ought to be toned down a bit. Screencapture #22 is from one such area. On the previous release, this area has solid blues in the skies. Screencaptures #3 and 17 are from other similar areas. Perhaps the wider range of colors that are present in 4K these fluctuations would be much better handled. Still, the overall color balance is satisfying. Darker areas look very good. Blacks, grays, dark blues, and dark browns usually produce plenty of healthy nuances. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The Hallelujah Trail Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

I viewed the entire film with the 5.1 track. I thought that everything from the overture music to the action footage sounded great. In the past, the film has been screened with a superior track -- a special audio track was finalized for 70mm screenings -- but I do not think that the current 5.1 track is in any way ineffective. On the contrary, I thought that clarity, sharpness, depth, and dynamic intensity were very, very pleasing.

The Hallelujah Trail Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - presented here is a vintage trailer for The Hallelujah Trail. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by filmmaker/critic Michael Schlesinger and author/screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner. Mr. Schlesinger introduces Mr. Joyner as one of "the top four or five experts on westerns" and this is an indisputable fact, which as you can guess already means that the commentary is outstanding. The two gentlemen share a lot of very interesting information about the conception and production of The Hallelujah Trail, the casting choices that were made, John Sturges and cinematographer Robert Surtees' work on the film, the different type of screenings that were done (with particular comments about the aspect ratio of the film), Elmer Bernstein's soundtrack, etc.

The Hallelujah Trail Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Big films that mix satire and comedy very rarely, if ever, reveal moving sincerity, but this is precisely what The Hallelujah Trail does. I think that this is the biggest strength of The Hallelujah Trail, but as odd as it may sound I do not think that it was carefully planned. It materialized because of the tremendous chemistry that existed between the actors that made the The Hallelujah Trail and, I assume, John Sturges' awareness and encouragement of it. The story that is told is entirely predictable, but the spoofs, noise, and spectacular period visuals produce a pretty special film. Kino Lorber's release is sourced from a nice organic master and features a very good exclusive new audio commentary by critics C. Courtney Joyner and Michael Schlesinger. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.