Wild in the Country (1961)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Love Me Tender; Flaming Star
Rating
Year Of Production	1961
Running Time	109:35
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (63:07)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Philip Dunne
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Elvis Presley Hope Lange Tuesday Weld Millie Perkins Rafer Johnson
Case	?
RPI	Box	Music	Kenyon Hopkins

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 Norwegian Swedish Danish Finnish French Titling German Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Wild In The Country begins with a fist fight between Glenn Tyler (Elvis Presley) and his brother Hank (Red West – Presley’s then real-life bodyguard), who are being cheered on by their father. After convincingly beating his brother, Glenn is paroled into the hands of his uncle, in order to get his life back into shape. Now Glenn must battle feelings for his childhood sweetheart Betty-Lee, his cousin Noreen, and his court-appointed psychiatrist, Mrs. Speery.

    Shot in 1961, Wild In The Country sees Elvis continuing his blossoming career as a movie star. Having already proven his worth on the ‘silver screen’, he was now becoming very popular as an actor...as if being the greatest Rock’n’Roll singer around wasn’t enough (!).

    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 of 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 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 only to be expected. Shadow detail and black levels were strong, which is important to the transfer. Grain and low level noise were evident throughout, never becoming excessive, although both were more prominent here than in Love Me Tender and Flaming Star, which is surprising as this is the youngest film.

    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, their impact was not too dramatic.

    This disc is RSDL-formatted, and the layer change occurs 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 on this DVD.

    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, and indeed these were the highlights of the soundtrack.

    Despite what you’d assume, there was no surround channel usage, and the subwoofer was barely used at all. There was some slight support for the music, but nothing to 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 - (2:26)

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

Trailer - Love Me Tender (2:16)

Trailer - Flaming Star (2:29)

    As far as I can tell, both the Region 4 and Region 1 versions of this DVD 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