The Devil's Brigade (1968)

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General		Extras
Category	War	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1968
Running Time	126:38
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (62:00)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Andrew V. McLaglen
Studio Distributor	MGM	Starring	William Holden Cliff Robertson Vince Edwards Andrew Prine Jeremy Slate Claude Akins Jack Watson Richard Jaeckel Bill Fletcher Richard Dawson Tom Troupe Luke Askew Jean-Paul Vignon
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Alex North

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired French Italian Spanish Dutch Swedish Finnish Greek Romanian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Did you enjoy The Guns of Navarone from 1961 or The Dirty Dozen from 1967? Well, if you said yes you can now see them again with different actors in this film from 1968, The Devil's Brigade. The similarities between these three films are quite amazing, although I understand that the timeline for this film, which is based on a book, was begun before at least The Dirty Dozen hit the screens. Also, despite the similarities this film does have some distinct differences.

    The Devil's Brigade tells the story of the creation of an elite unit in the US military, officially known as the First Special Services Force. This unit did actually exist and was created in a similar circumstance to that shown in this film. They were known either as The Black Devils or by the title of this film. The movie follows their story which begins with Lt Col Robert Frederick (William Holden), a tactical analyst working for the US Military in 1942. He was given the job of reviewing a planned operation by the Allied forces to liberate Norway. He disagreed strongly with the plan and pointed the flaws out to everyone who would listen including the British High Command. Due to this and despite his lack of combat training, Frederick was put in charge of creating a unit which would carry out the plan to invade Nazi-held Norway. Accordingly, he was given a base in Montana to use for training. The US army gave him a large group of misfits, petty criminals and other soldiers with difficult histories from other units and these were combined with an equally large group of elite Canadian soldiers commanded by Major Alan Crown (Cliff Robertson). Frederick set out to form these men into an elite fighting force by initially pitting them against each other. The first half of the movie follows their training and then just as he has molded them into an elite force the army decides to disband them as they are not going ahead with the Norway plan. Frederick fights the bureaucrats to keep the force together and eventually they agree and his men are sent to Italy to fight the Axis forces. The second half of the movie covers their initial operations in Italy. The force continued until 1945 when they were disbanded due to their heavy losses, however, this is not covered in the movie. Other important characters amongst the Devil's Brigade include Major Cliff Bricker (Vince Edwards), the second highest ranking US officer, Private Ransom (Andrew Prine) who is AWOL from his unit, Private Rockman (Claude Akins), a big dumb guy who keeps starting fights, Corporal Peacock (Jack Watson), a Canadian with a huge moustache, Private Greco (Richard Jaeckel), who is a trapeze artist and Private MacDonald (Richard Dawson who many will recognise from Hogan's Heroes), a kilt-wearing Canadian.

    This is a good quality war movie without really standing out. It does not have the consistent level of excitement that a film like The Guns of Navarone does, however it does hold your interest for its 2 hour plus running time, especially picking up once the training is complete. The acting is generally of good quality with Holden & Robertson leading the way. Holden also provides an opening and closing voiceover. The battle scenes in the second half of the movie are very well done and quite exciting.

    If you enjoy war films, especially films such as The Guns of Navarone or The Dirty Dozen, there is no reason why you will not enjoy this.

Video

    The video quality is good for a film of this age.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio. It is also encoded with automatic pan and scan information if you have a 4x3 television and don't like black bars.

    The picture was quite clear and sharp throughout except for two short scenes which were distinctly softer at 93:54 and 108:20. There was no evidence of low level noise. There is light grain throughout. The shadow detail was reasonable but not spectacular.

    The colour was very good with natural skin tones and bright reds and other colours.

    As you would expect with a film of this age there were some artefacts to be seen. Film artefacts (both black and white) were plentiful, with the black being worst during the credits and early in the film. Also early on there was a strange smudge at the top of frame for about 10 seconds around 3:10. I noticed a jump in the film at 115:38 which looked like a frame was missing and there were some minor jagged edges here and there. Other than the jagged edges there were no noticeable MPEG artefacts which is a reflection of the high bitrate used.

    There are subtitles in 8 languages plus German & English for the hearing impaired. The English subtitles were clear, easy to read and only slightly summarised from the spoken word.

    The layer change occurs at 62:00 and is well placed and only barely noticeable.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is reasonable.

    This DVD contains five audio options, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s and the same in French, German, Italian and Spanish. I did notice one scene (the fight in the bar) where the audio seemed to be strangely mixed with the background music and sound of glass breaking being loudest rather than the sounds of the fight. This may have been an artistic choice.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this film by 15 time Oscar nominated composer Alex North (he was finally given an honorary award in 1986) is very good, adding tension where required but also a jaunty, heroic feel during the less tense sequences.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu included stills, and the ability to select scenes, languages and subtitles.

Theatrical Trailer (3:38)

    The trailer is very dirty, full of artefacts but otherwise a good quality trailer which includes the obligatory heroic voiceover.

    This film has been released in identical formats in Region 1 & Region 2 except for PAL/NTSC differences.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is reasonable but mono.

    The disc has only a theatrical trailer in the extras department.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall