Battle Cry (1955)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	War	Main Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1955
Running Time	142:22
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Raoul Walsh
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Van Heflin Aldo Ray Mona Freeman Nancy Olson James Whitmore Raymond Massey Tab Hunter Dorothy Malone Anne Francis William Campbell John Lupton L.Q. Jones Perry Lopez
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Max Steiner

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.55:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English German French Italian Portuguese Finnish Hebrew Icelandic Swedish Croatian Czech Greek Hungarian Polish Turkish Arabic Romanian Dutch Slovenian English for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, War is hell
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Based on Leon Uris' autobiographical novel of the same name, Battle Cry is a worshipful ode to the men of the Marines and the women they left behind. Action director Raoul Walsh tales a personal look at the lives of a group of recruits from their days as civvies, through boot camp and training and then into action on the island of Saipan.

    This is not a combat film as such in that more time is spent showing the different personalities of the men and their after-hours shenanigans and love affairs. The only major combat sequence takes place towards the end of the feature and uses quite a bit of stock footage. In fact, the film is directed almost like a stage play and suggests that Battle Cry was made on quite a small budget.

Video

    Battle Cry is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. It does not appear to have lost anything in the transfer from the original aspect ratio of 2.55:1.

    The overall sharpness of the image is remarkably good except for some short transition sequences which are discussed below. The colour process used in those days does soften the picture a little and in the darker sequences the shadow detail is consequently a tiny bit on the muddy side compared to what you would expect from a modern film.

    Most war films made in this period were black and white - in fact, Battle Cry was one of the first colour WWII films ever made. I like these older colour processes and the pastel-hued tones that identify these early colour movies look great on this release. The skin tones are not entirely realistic but it is always better to restore an original rather than try and change it so it's difficult to fault the DVD in that respect.

    Any film of this vintage (1953) is bound to have a few visual glitches, however it is obvious that quite a bit of effort has gone into cleaning up the print as the glitches are all quite minor. Of course there are some film artefacts which pop up occasionally and very briefly, such as the tiny bright spots at 11:46 and 41:49. The most obvious visual anomalies are the brief changes in the character of the image just after some of the scene transitions, such as at 6:34, and one longish sequence at 42:57 to 43:08. These seem to be due to the differing nature of the original material and may be a sign of portions edited out to make way for TV commercials which have subsequently been dropped back in again.

    This release offers a vast array of subtitle choices - twenty one languages in all.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Battle Cry's soundtrack has been remastered into a 5.1 surround format from a mono original. As you would imagine, doing such a thing is no easy task and the results are acceptable but hardly comparable with modern 5.1 audio.

    There is only one language track, English of course, on offer here and the dialogue comes through clearly and well balanced against the other channels. Audio sync is perfect throughout.

    There isn't a great deal of music throughout the picture apart from the odd stab of stirring martial marching band type stuff which sounds a bit thin but acceptable.

    Rear speaker action is sadly lacking, however understandable given the mono nature of the original material. Some of the music, when it appears, is directed to the rear channels, as is some of the gunfire during the brief battle sequences. Your subwoofer will see even less action than your rears with the only noticeable woofing occurring during a naval bombardment sequence beginning at 123:40.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Theatrical Trailer

    This is the original film trailer for Battle Cry restored to the same quality as the main feature.

    All versions of this release are the same, R1 through to R4.

    Battle Cry is an interesting film for fans of Leon Uris or Raoul Walsh, however action fans and WWII film buffs will probably be disappointed at the scarcity of battle sequences and the focus on the characters' activities between battles rather than during them. The DVD looks great, however the original mono soundtrack has made it difficult to give it a really good surround treatment.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall