The Hindenburg Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Hindenburg Blu-ray Movie Review

Oh, the humanity!

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 16, 2017

What brought down the Hindenburg? One of disaster's great mysteries is the subject of the film of the same name, directed by Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, Star Trek: The Motion Picture). The film offers up its own conspiracy theory, setting off a series of events that culminate with the title vessel catching ablaze and falling to the earth below. Miraculously, about two-thirds of the souls onboard somehow lived to tell the tale, but even still the truths behind her ill-fated final voyage remain up for debate. Unfortunately, the film stalls out early and never gains any momentum. A tedious affair, plodding, and lacking much substance, Wise's picture might offer one of the juicier theories, but the question is whether anyone in the audience will be awake to see how it all goes down in this fictionalized retelling of what may be the second most iconic travel disaster of the 20th century.

An American woman and self-proclaimed psychic living quietly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, pens a letter to Germany's American embassy warning that the country's flagship blimp, the Hindenburg, will explode over United States territory following its long trans-Atlantic voyage. The Germans don't take the notice seriously and decide to launch the airship, dubbed LZ-129, with nearly 100 souls aboard. Nazi Colonel Franz Ritter (George C. Scott) is inserted onto the flight to ensure its safety from the inside. The paranoid officer runs down a list of passengers he deems suspicious, and as the ship sails to its fate over the United States, he methodically investigates those he suspects of intending harm to one of Nazi Germany's most prominent symbols.

While The Hindenburg may most widely be categorized as a "Disaster" film, it hardly qualifies. Typically, the disaster occupies much of the film, and even in these sprawling, character-driven 70s genre films -- think The Poseidon Adventure or The Towering Inferno -- there's at least equal parts characterization and excitement. Not here. The Hindenburg aims more towards the Airport style, unfolding a mystery as disaster looms. Unfortunately, the film flubs that component as well. Unlike Airport, the character roster is uninteresting, stale, and even the performances lack substance or style. Certainly the actors -- and the film offers up an appropriately quality cast that includes George C Scott, Anne Bancroft, and William Atherton among the big names -- are very good at their craft, but the script gives them little with which to work. The result is a film that begins at a snail's pace and never recovers, even in the final minutes as disaster finally strikes.

Once the airship's fate takes shape, the intrigue takes its final turn, and things start to get messy, Director Robert Wise turns off the color and presents the finale in black-and-white, likely in order to jive with real-world archival footage from the airship's real crash. Wise intercuts archival footage with newly created footage with his characters in peril, a smorgasbord of elements cut largely in rapid-fire succession that create a jumbled frenzy of black-and-white imagery whereupon it's easy to sort out fact from fiction, but Wise does well enough to mesh together his take on what really brought the ship down with the real footage, and commentary, from its crash (for those unfamiliar, the radio news call of the crash is one of the most famous broadcasts of all time). Unfortunately, the film suffers much the same fate as its subject: a lot of hype followed by an uneventful flight followed by a sudden disaster. That said, it's impossible to stay more-or-less true to at least the basic facts and timeline and get a protracted disaster out of the Hindenburg's story. It's not like a ship that takes hours to sink or a building that takes its time burning down. For such a famous event, it's simply a non-starter for this style of movie.

The Hindenburg Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Hindenburg's 1080p transfer falls somewhere in the middle of the pack of Universal catalogue title releases, hardly an abomination but certainly not a top transfer. Many of the image's inherent shortcomings seem to date back to the source. It's often softly focused and there's a definite lack of vitality and crispness to the image. Details rarely excel, leaving faces, clothes, and various and diverse interiors around the blimp -- from nicely appointed dining areas to its cruder interior walkways away from the areas inhabited by the passengers -- lacking any sort of serious visual complexity. Grain is uneven, occasionally settling into a firm, filmic presentation and at at others pushing a bit soupy and noisy. Moderate flickering and light wobble are commonplace. A few edge halos and uneven blacks are also regular characteristics. Colors usually fare well, particularly deep red Nazi banners. Flesh tones tend to push a bit warm. At times, the image proves gorgeously filmic, and at others it presents a decidedly midrange picture. It favors the former, slightly.

The Hindenburg Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Hindenburg features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. It's a straightforward and unsurprising listen for a vintage film and a 2.0 track. Dialogue, which drives the majority of the film, pushes adequately to the center, though it sometimes struggles to go all the way, occasionally sounding lost in no-man's land in between the center of the screen and the side speakers. Music plays with solid enough definition and front-side spacing. Clarity can be a little shaky and it can go a touch sharp at the top end, but it's never a struggle to push the basics through with relative ease. There's a sincere bit of depth and drive to the rattly blimp interiors, and its fiery fate plays with adequate crunch and crashes as she descends towards and eventually impacts the earth.

The Hindenburg Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Hindenburg contains no supplemental content. No top menu is included; the subtitles may be turned on or off via a crude pop-up menu.

The Hindenburg Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Hindenburg the film, much as the Hindenburg the airship, crashes and burns. Robert Wise, an otherwise excellent filmmaker with several classics to his credit, can't do anything exciting or of much note with the material. The intrigue falls flat, the characters likewise struggle to find their footing, and the "disaster" element comes swiftly and lasts only minutes at film's end. It's a disappointing film in an otherwise impressive roster of high profile character-driven 70s Disaster pictures. Universal's featureless Blu-ray offers passable video and decent two-channel audio. Skip it.