Battleground (1949)

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General		Extras
Category	War	Main Menu Audio Featurette-Cartoon: Little Rural Riding Hood Featurette-Let's Cogitate
Rating
Year Of Production	1949
Running Time	113:42
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (62:49)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	William A. Wellman
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Van Johnson John Hodiak Ricardo Montalban George Murphy Marshall Thompson Jerome Courtland Don Taylor Bruce Cowling James Whitmore Douglas Fowley Leon Ames Herbert Anderson Thomas E. Breen
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Lennie Hayton

    This movie tells the story of the World War II Battle of the Bulge, from the point of view of the 101st Airborne Division. Encircled by the Germans in Belgium, they looked doomed until...well, you'll have to watch the film or consult your local history books.More specifically, the film is told from the point of view of new recruit Layton (Marshall Thompson) and the platoon to which he belongs.

    The Germans made a terrible blunder in attacking the 101st. Had they know they were fighting the likes of Van Johnson, Ricardo Montalban, John Hodiak, George Murphy, James Whitmore, Jerome Courtland, Don Taylor, Douglas Fowley, Herbert Anderson (billed as Guy), James Arness and the ubiquitous Richard Jaeckel, they would have given up without a fight. Or run away screaming.

    The film was directed by veteran William Wellman. The footage of the soldiers in the snow and fog was shot entirely on a soundstage, but the art direction is so good that you would not notice. Robert Pirosh won an Oscar for his screenplay, but the soldiers are really just caricatures and there is little depth to them. This film could easily have been made during the war, as it seems no different to similar multiple character films like Guadalcanal Diary and Air Force. Despite a slow and hackneyed first half with too much comedy relief, it gets much better in the second half as the Germans surround the Americans. War film lovers will enjoy this one.

Video

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

    This is a reasonably sharp transfer of a black and white film, with sufficient detail present. Contrast is good, though black levels are a little too dark in some respects, making shadow detail average. Some of the darker uniforms and dark hair have little definition as a result.

    Aside from the occasional shimmer of aliasing, which is barely noticeable, there is a fair bit of edge enhancement used in the transfer. This only appears in selected scenes.

    Of more concern is the condition of the film itself. There is a lot of grain, particularly on the sky in the opening scenes. There are plenty of white spots indicating minor nicks to the print material, as well as a few instances of dirt. There are also scratches, such as at 25:10 for a few seconds. The inserted stock footage does not look out of place, even though it was obviously not shot for the film. The film is obviously unrestored and the viewer suffers the consequences. It is not so bad that I would recommend avoiding this disc, but it is disappointing.

    Optional English subtitles are slightly smaller than normal, but are still readable and closely match the dialogue. One one occasion they appear at the top of the frame when one of the soldiers is reading a leaflet.

    This is an RSDL-formatted disc with the layer change placed at 62:49 while a newspaper is displayed on screen, and thus is only slightly disruptive to the flow of the film.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Audio is provided in three languages with the default English track being Dolby Digital 1.0.

    Dialogue is quite clear and distinct, with little in the way of distortion or hiss. The audio quality is a lot better than the video quality, and I did not find myself distracted by any inadequacies in the audio.

    The music score consists of the usual military themes and is credited in small type to Lennie Heyton.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Audio

    The main menu has some generic war film music, which I am not sure is even from the film.

Little Rural Riding Hood (6:20)

    This 1949 Technicolor MGM cartoon is in pretty good condition. Tex Avery directed this story of a country bumpkin wolf who visits his sophisticated cousin in the city. Optional subtitles are provided.

Let's Cogitate (8:00)

    This is a 1948 Pete Smith Specialty, narrated by Mr Smith himself. It is a mish-mash of little skits on the theme "have you ever wondered why..." and stars Dave O'Brien, who appeared in most of the shorts in this series. There is an amusing bit with a boomerang. Optional subtitles are provided, and the film is in reasonable condition.

    This release appears to be identical to the Region 1 offering.

    A good but not great war film, with an adequate transfer, and extras not relevant to the film, though you might have seen them with the film if you saw it in 1949.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall