Halls of Montezuma (1951)

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General		Extras
Category	War	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1951
Running Time	108:38
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (65:59)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Lewis Milestone
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Richard Widmark Jack Palance Reginald Gardiner Robert Wagner Karl Malden Richard Hylton Richard Boone Skip Homeier Don Hicks Jack Webb Bert Freed Neville Brand Martin Milner
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Sol Kaplan

    Halls of Montezuma is a film about the horrors of war, from the perspective of a group of marines landing on a small Pacific island. In a way this is similar to The Thin Red Line, but being a film from 1951 the focus is not on the fear of death and the futility of war, though these things are touched on, nor is it a recruiting film, being made just before the Korean War. It is more of a collection of stereotypes with a few original ideas, set against a backdrop of action and suspense.

    Lieutenant Carl Anderson (Richard Widmark) is a science teacher who is now a leader of men. A veteran of several landings, at Tarawa and Guadalcanal, he suffers from migraine headaches brought on by stress, for which he is given painkillers under the table by Doc (Karl Malden). I think this thread of the story was trying to suggest a drug addiction, but does not really say this in so many words.

    The film follows the preparation for the landing on the island, with an assortment of marine types on a landing craft going through the torture of knowing that they may soon be about to die. There is the boxer, Pidgeon Lane (Walter (Jack) Palance), the small town wannabe (Skip Homeier), the alcohol-addicted but experienced fighter (Bert Freed), the grizzled veteran (Neville Brand), the war correspondent (Jack Webb) and of course the youths: the young and scared one (Martin Milner) and the fresh-faced cocksure one (Robert Wagner). And of course the stern but level-headed Captain (Richard Boone), who is responsible for the success of the mission, but whose biggest headache seems to be a cold that he has picked up. The oddest piece of casting is English actor Reginald Gardiner as the Japanese-speaking sergeant, but he does quite well in the role.

    They manage to land on the island and progress inland without any immediate casualties amongst our group. But as the campaign progresses, the Yanks are pinned down by enemy rocket fire. There is a race against time to locate and destroy the enemy rockets before the main force lands on the island.

    This is a gritty and but only occasionally downbeat film, reflecting the fact that it was only six years since the end of the war and many in the audience would have been affected by the conflict. While the characters may be stock, there is a feeling of realism to the film, helped by the fact that several of the cast were veterans themselves. Jack Palance supposedly owes his facial appearance to plastic surgery after his bomber crashed landed in England in 1943, though this is a story he has denied. Neville Brand was a highly decorated soldier himself, winning the Silver Star, and most biographies state that he was the fourth most decorated American soldier from the war, although this appears to be an exaggeration. Ironically, the major Japanese character is played by Korean-American Philip Ahn, whose activist father died in a Japanese prison camp in 1938.

    The director, Lewis Milestone, was also a veteran... of war films, having directed two of the best:  All Quiet On the Western Front and A Walk In The Sun. He makes the most of the material here with some impressive sequences, especially the early scene where the marines depart on the landing craft, all looking stony faced or scared, and they stare back at the mother ship as they pull away. Of more concern for modern viewers is the attitude towards the Japanese, the ordinary soldiers being shown as snivelling cowards with no loyalty to their country, and the officers as arrogant aggressors. This would have been the prevailing attitude during the war, but it is too simplistic to be convincing in the post-war era.

    This is not a great war or anti-war film, but it is one of those solidly entertaining movies that Hollywood was able to churn out during its heyday, and the exceptional cast is well worth watching.

Video

    The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, close to the original aspect ratio of 1.37:1.

    Despite the fact that this is not a restored print, the transfer is pretty good. The image is sharp and clear throughout. Shadow detail is good and the video is quite detailed. Colour is also good. This is a Technicolor film, and because of the extreme care that was always insisted on by the Technicolor company, the range of colours on display are realistic and vivid. Flesh tones are natural, though in some shots they look a little too brown.

    There is a fair amount of actual wartime footage included, especially during the opening invasion sequence. This was probably shot on 16mm and looks quite different to the rest of the film.

    I did not notice any major film to video artefacts. There is some edge enhancement, but it is not severe enough to be distracting, or even noticeable most of the time. There are a lot of film artefacts, though none are of any size. Most of them are either small white spots, or faint scratches. Sometimes there is a shower of these scratches. While it is a little disappointing that the source material was not fully restored, this is still a pretty good transfer.

    Subtitles are provided in several languages, and the English captions are reasonably accurate to the spoken word and easy to read, being white with black borders and of a decent size.

    The film is presented on an RSDL-formatted disc with the layer change placed at 65:59, mid-scene but not really disruptive.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The default audio channel is English Dolby Digital 2.0, presumably mono reflecting the original audio recording. There are alternative audio tracks in other languages, some of which sound a bit comical, given the disparity between the voices used and the characters.

    Dialogue is clear and distinct throughout. I did not have any problems with the clarity or quality of the audio on this transfer. There were no noticeable dropouts or distortions. There is a very low level of hiss throughout, but I doubt if anyone would be disturbed by this. Audio sync seems exact throughout.

    Surprisingly, there is some surround encoding when switching the receiver to Pro Logic mode. The centre channel gets dialogue as you would expect, and music and some effects are sent to the rears, with the subwoofer giving the occasional thump.

    The music score is by Sol Kaplan. From listening to the opening theme, you would think that this was a highlights disc of the Adelaide Football Club, given that their theme song has the same music as the Marines' marching song, the first line of which is "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli". This song not only gives this film its title, but also an earlier Marines film from 1942 called To the Shores of Tripoli. The score seems to consist mainly of adapted patriotic music, which suits the subject matter.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    No extras are provided. Menus are 16x9 enhanced.

    The Region 1 release of this film sounds as though it has the same transfer. The Region 1 gets an original theatrical trailer, plus trailers for other war films released by Fox. The trailer would not be enough for me to recommend the Region 1 over the Region 4, however.

    An entertaining war film, slightly overwrought at times, but still worth watching.

    The video quality is pretty good.

    The audio quality is pretty good too.

    The extras are AWOL.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall