- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,424
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
The Warner Archive is picking up steam.
Four new releases.
Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, and a superb cast in the western thriller Bad Day at Black Rock, Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in Wait Until Dark, the incomparable Judy Holliday and Dean Martin in Comden, Green and Julie Styne's Bells are Ringing, and Van Johnson, John Hodiak and company in William Wellman's Battleground.
I'm making note of Battleground first, as I don't want it to get lost amongst the others, as it's a terrific low-key WWII drama.
A slice of military life, unlike the majority of WWII dramas produced during the war, this 1949 production is an intimate film that The New York Times' Bosley Crowther called "The Big Parade of World War II."
He went on to opine: "This new drama... is the best of the World War II pictures that have yet been made in Hollywood. And further, we feel that its unfolding at the Astor on Armistice Day, just twenty-four years (less eight days) after "The Big Parade" opened there, is a piece of poetic justice with arresting significance."
The cast is exemplary. Van Johnson, George Murphy, Marshall Thompson, James Whitmore, Richard Jaeckel, Ricardo Montalban, and in his first role of import, Jim Arness, who would find his claim to fame, just a couple of years later, playing a 6'7" celery, or was it a carrot?
Viewing Battleground in projection, it looked so pristine and proper, that had I not known otherwise, I'd have been willing to bet that it was a 4k scan harvested from the original nitrate negative.
Close.
A safety fine grain master made from the OCN, before the original element was lost in the GEH fire.
While Battleground may not jump out at you as one of those "must own" war productions, I'd advise taking that leap of faith.
Image - 5
Audio - 5
4k Up-rez - 5
Pass / Fail - Pass
Recommended
RAH
Four new releases.
Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, and a superb cast in the western thriller Bad Day at Black Rock, Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in Wait Until Dark, the incomparable Judy Holliday and Dean Martin in Comden, Green and Julie Styne's Bells are Ringing, and Van Johnson, John Hodiak and company in William Wellman's Battleground.
I'm making note of Battleground first, as I don't want it to get lost amongst the others, as it's a terrific low-key WWII drama.
A slice of military life, unlike the majority of WWII dramas produced during the war, this 1949 production is an intimate film that The New York Times' Bosley Crowther called "The Big Parade of World War II."
He went on to opine: "This new drama... is the best of the World War II pictures that have yet been made in Hollywood. And further, we feel that its unfolding at the Astor on Armistice Day, just twenty-four years (less eight days) after "The Big Parade" opened there, is a piece of poetic justice with arresting significance."
The cast is exemplary. Van Johnson, George Murphy, Marshall Thompson, James Whitmore, Richard Jaeckel, Ricardo Montalban, and in his first role of import, Jim Arness, who would find his claim to fame, just a couple of years later, playing a 6'7" celery, or was it a carrot?
Viewing Battleground in projection, it looked so pristine and proper, that had I not known otherwise, I'd have been willing to bet that it was a 4k scan harvested from the original nitrate negative.
Close.
A safety fine grain master made from the OCN, before the original element was lost in the GEH fire.
While Battleground may not jump out at you as one of those "must own" war productions, I'd advise taking that leap of faith.
Image - 5
Audio - 5
4k Up-rez - 5
Pass / Fail - Pass
Recommended
RAH
