Flaming Star (1960)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Love Me Tender; Wild In The Country
Rating
Year Of Production	1960
Running Time	88:09
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (51:19)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Don Siegel
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Elvis Presley Steve Forrest Barbara Eden Delores del Rio John McIntire (I)
Case	?
RPI	Box	Music	Sherman Edwards Sid Wayne Cyril J. Mockridge

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 4.0 L-C-R-S (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German 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 French German Dutch Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    In Flaming Star, Elvis plays a half-breed Indian named Pacer Burton. His Mother is Indian, and his father white American. A struggle starts between the whites and the Indians, which has a huge effect on the Burton family. After his parents are both killed, Pacer sides with the Indians, while his brother Clint sides with the whites.

    Shot in 1960, Flaming Star featured Elvis after he’d already been established as a movie star. Coming off a stint which included Love Me Tender, Loving You, Jailhouse Rock, King Creole and G.I. Blues, he was a proven hit on the big screen.

    I’m not a big fan of the forced and unnatural acting that was used back in the day. It is on display in full force in this film, and is an immediate turn-off for me. That is my criticism for the film, but those who are interested will likely not care much for that, as any fan of Elvis’ music was more than likely a fan of his films. If you’re a fan, then ignore my comments, and go stock up on your Elvis DVDs.

Video

    The video transfer is good, considering that the film has not been remastered.

    It is presented in its correct ‘Cinemascope’ aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness was not perfect, with an overall softness to the entire film. Nothing excessive, and as is to be expected. Shadow detail and black levels were strong, which is important to this transfer. Grain and low level noise was evident throughout, never becoming excessive, although both were more prominent here than in Love Me Tender.

    Colours were strong considering the print’s age. There was no bleeding evident, and it wasn’t that faded or washed-out either.

    Film artefacts were consistently frequent throughout, but for a forty-six year old print were not too dramatic.

    This disc is RSDL-formatted, with the layer change placed at 51:19.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio is satisfactory, if unspectacular.

    We have the choice of English Dolby Digital 4.0 L-C-R-S, French or German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtracks.

    Dialogue was fairly clean, never becoming unintelligible or distorted. There were no issues with audio sync.

    The film’s music, which features four songs from ‘The King’ all sounded pretty good. There were no issues with quality, with the music being the highlight of the soundtrack.

    Despite what you’d assume, there was no surround channel usage.

    The subwoofer was barely used at all. There was some slight support for the music, but nothing which would make you Elvis fans go out and invest in one.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Theatrical Trailer - (2:29)

    Poor quality, 16x9 enhanced with Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio.

Trailer - Love Me Tender (2:16)

Trailer - Wild In The Country (2:26)

    As far as I can tell, both the Region 4 and Region 1 DVD's are identical. I'm sure you'd be safe with the local version.

    The video transfer is good, if a bit problematic, which is only to be expected being such an old print.

    The audio transfer is satisfactory, if unspectacular.

    The only extra features are three trailers.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall