The Classic Collection (1939)

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    The Classic Collection is a box set compilation of 4 classic movies; Doctor Zhivago, Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, and Ben-Hur. The collection is presented as a gatefold package with a slip-off cover which isn't likely to survive repeated handling. To my mind, this collection is more of a hotch-potch compilation than the previously-reviewed Clint Eastwood Collection, as there are no common threads tying these movies together, other than their classic status. The packaging itself, which merely presents the previously-released individual discs in the gatefolds, does little to tie these movies together, either, with the discs being presented in a variety of formats; dual sided, dual layered, single sided with black and white printing, and single sided with full colour disc art. It really does look rather messy and arbitrary when the gatefold is fully opened.

    A booklet is also provided which is essentially a replication of the chapter listings and back cover art of the discs as previously released individually.

    One thing that IS specifically worth noting, however, is that both discs of Doctor Zhivago are provided; Disc 1 holds the movie and Disc 2 the extras. This is much-preferred to including only Disc 1 of a 2 disc release, which was the case with Unforgiven in the Clint Eastwood Collection.

    Having said all of the above, at $99.95, this compilation represents good value for money. All the movies are classics, and buying them as a compilation saves substantially over the individual disc prices, which would total $139.80.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Introduction-Omar Sharif Audio Commentary-Omar Sharif (Actor), Sandra Lean & Rod Steiger (Actor) Isolated Musical Score Listing-Cast & Crew Audio-Only Track-Premiere; David Lean Interview, 2 others Featurette-Making Of Featurette-Behind The Camera With David Lean Featurette-David Lean's Film Of Doctor Zhivago Featurette-Moscow In Madrid Featurette-Pasternak Interviews-Cast-New York Press Interviews Julie Christie Interviews-Cast-New York Press Interviews Omar Sharif Featurette-Geraldine Chaplin Screen Test Featurette-This Is Julie Christie; Geraldine Chaplin; Omar Sharif Featurette-Chaplin In New York Theatrical Trailer Awards
Rating
Year Of Production	1965
Running Time	192:05
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (42:09) FLIPPER (114:41) Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	David Lean
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Omar Sharif Julie Christie Geraldine Chaplin Rod Steiger Alec Guinness Tom Courtenay Ralph Richardson Siobahn McKenna
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Dual
RPI	$34.95	Music	Maurice Jarre

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Isolated Music Score Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/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 Italian French Spanish German Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Doctor Zhivago is a sweeping epic movie and a true classic. It is a love story set during turbulent times of war and revolution. The DVD is truly sublime, both in the quality of its content and transfer.

    In the rich tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Boris Pasternak wrote the weighty Russian novel, 'Doctor Zhivago'. Inspired by his own life, Pasternak spent ten years writing the novel. It was smuggled out of Russia in 1957 and published in Italian. Soon, however, the novel was translated and published in a number of languages. In 1958, Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his achievement in literature, but the Soviet Government would not allow him to accept the award. The novel was banned in Russia, and it only became available in 1988. Indeed, the movie could only be legally screened there from 1994. The novel 'Doctor Zhivago' is a love story, and not a political story. However, as the story is set largely during revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russia, it caused quite a stir, as the novel did not paint life in the idealised Communist model. Rather, the story featured flawed characters, making do in a flawed Socialist State.

    In 1963, following the release of Lawrence Of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago became David Lean's next movie project. The 700 page novel was adapted into a screenplay by Robert Bolt. Bolt remains one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. He wrote a number of wonderful scripts, including the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter, The Bounty, and The Mission. Lean, of course, remains one of the greatest directors of all time, directing movies such as Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, The Bridge On The River Kwai, Lawrence Of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter, and A Passage To India.

    In fact, the talent that worked on this movie, in both the cast and crew, is exceptional. The movie was made during 1964 and 1965, and it became a great commercial success on its release. While some critics saw the movie as a glorified soap opera, it won six Academy Awards, including Oscars for its Screenplay, Musical Score, Cinematography, Art/Set Direction, and Costumes (The Sound Of Music won Best Picture that year). Doctor Zhivago also picked up the Golden Globe awards for Best Film, Actor and Director.

    The movie is over three hours long, and it covers a significant period of time. There are a number of characters, so my plot synopsis will be a little simplistic: Set in pre-revolutionary Moscow, Zhivago (Omar Sharif) is a doctor, and a passionate poet. He marries the devoted Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin), and they live a comfortable life of some luxury. WWI breaks out, and Zhivago finds himself as a doctor on the front line. There he meets the beautiful and kind nurse, Lara (Julie Christie), and finds himself drawn to her. The Russian Revolution effectively ends Russia's involvement in WWI, and Zhivago returns home to find that his family are now living in squalor. He and his family flee Moscow for the country. In a small town, Zhivago happens to meet Lara again. She now finds herself in a loveless marriage, with an absent husband. Zhivago, a devoted family man, wrestles with his conscience, as his feelings for Lara deepen.

    As one would expect with a epic story of this scale, there are a number of sub-plots and other interesting characters. There are also great performances from some of the supporting cast, such as Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson. The overall production is detailed and lavish, and the movie is a real treat to watch on this DVD.

Video

    The transfer was taken from a telecine of a new internegative, and it is brilliant.

    The transfer presents the movie in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The sharpness, black level, and shadow detail are all great. There are many detailed and intricate scenes, and many intentionally dark and shadowy scenes. This movie demands a great transfer, and it got one.

    Colour is used throughout this movie to assist with the storytelling. For example, many of the scenes of Moscow are intentionally muted in colour. The colour throughout is terrific, although the flesh tones appear a little orange or brown. I had expected the image overall to be a little faded, but bright yellows and reds burst forth from the screen.

    There were no MPEG artefacts to complain of.

    In regards to film-to-video artefacts, there was some very slight aliasing in the form of a slight shimmer on certain objects, such as the shimmer on the windows at 20:47. There was also very slight telecine wobble on occasion, such as during the opening credits. I must add, however, that both of these artefacts were so mild that they are hardly worth mentioning.

    This movie is, amazingly, virtually film artefact free. A few tiny black or white flecks appear, but they are few and far between. An example of one of these tiny flecks appears on Side B at 17:15.

    At times there appeared to be slight edge enhancement, but I never found it distracting.

    There are six sets of subtitles present, and the English subtitles are slightly simplified, but accurate.

    This is a dual-sided RSDL disc. There are 114:41 minutes on Side A, with the layer change placed between Chapters 13 and 14, at 42:09. It is very smooth and as it is between scenes, it is not disruptive. I did not spot a layer change on Side B, and suspect that the 77:24 minutes on Side B fitted nicely onto one layer. The time to flip the disc is at 114:41, which is at 'intermission', so it is appropriate.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Originally released theatrically in Magnetic Stereo, with 6-track audio for the 70mm version, this movie has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 for this DVD.

    Apart from the default English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, there are also Italian and Isolated Music Score audio tracks, both in Dolby Digital 5.1. The Audio Commentary is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0.

    The dialogue quality is fine, but the audio sync sometimes appears to be very slightly out on the English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. However, I never found this too distracting.

    The Oscar and Grammy winning musical score is by Maurice Jarre, and features the well-known 'Lara's Theme'. While at times becoming a little repetitive, the theme and the instrumentation for this movie certainly give it a strong Russian feel. There are also the lush orchestral arrangements, as befits any epic romantic movie.

    Considering that this movie was originally in stereo, the surround presence and activity is astonishing. The rear speakers are used subtly but effectively to help carry the score and provide ambience throughout the movie. A good example of great surround activity came during the snow storm at 18:43.

    The subwoofer is also utilised very subtly and effectively to support both the score, and the sound effects, such as the rumbling train at 108:49.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The extras are plentiful and genuine, as evidenced by the extra disc required to hold them. Unless stated otherwise, all extras are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Menu

    A very simple menu, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Introduction (1:40)

    Omar Sharif provides a brief introduction to the movie.

Audio Commentary

    Omar Sharif provides an enthusiastic commentary, and he is joined by Sandra Lean (widow of David Lean). Rod Steiger also makes a number of interesting comments, although his commentary appears to have been recorded separately.

Isolated Music Score

Listing -- Cast & Crew

    Text-based information about the main cast and crew members.

Audio-Only track

    I assume that these were taken from radio broadcasts, as over a static screen we hear: The Premiere; David Lean Interview; and a few other snippets.

Doctor Zhivago: The Making of a Russian Epic (60:27)

    Unlike the usual advertorial rubbish that parades as a 'making of', this is actually a genuine 'making of', and a very interesting documentary. This documentary is not only about the challenges of making this movie, but of making movies generally. Made in 1995, the documentary includes interviews with many of the main cast and crew, and is narrated by Omar Sharif.

Behind The Camera With David Lean (10:13)

    While this contains a lot of material included in the above documentary, it remains interesting.

Moscow In Madrid (4:28)

    This looks specifically at how the crew created authentic-looking Moscow street scenes in Madrid..

Pasternak (8:51)

    A short but interesting documentary on the Russian author.

New York Press Interviews

    1960s interviews with Julie Christie (10:08) and Omar Sharif (18:54).

Screen Test (3:15)

    Geraldine Chaplin's screen test.

This is Julie Christie; Geraldine Chaplin; Omar Sharif

    Short 1960s promotional pieces on Julie Christie (1:06); Geraldine Chaplin (1:09); and Omar Sharif (1:38)

Chaplin in New York (2:15)

    Short 1960s promotional piece on Geraldine Chaplin visiting New York City.

Theatrical Trailer (3:34)

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Awards

    Text-based information about the movie's awards.

    Doctor Zhivago was released on DVD in Region 1 in November 2001.

    The Region 4 DVD misses out on:

• French Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.

    The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

• Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.
• Three sets of subtitles.

    The two versions are pretty much the same, although the R1 reportedly suffers from a great deal of edge enhancement. I would favour the local release anyway for its affordability, and its superior PAL image.

    Doctor Zhivago is a feast for the eyes and ears, and this DVD provides the best presentation of the movie that I have ever seen. In fact, watching this movie in its original widescreen format, with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, was like seeing the movie for the first time. If you, like I, love epic movies, then I thoroughly recommend this movie as a rental or a purchase. If you are already a fan of Doctor Zhivago, then run (don't walk) to the shops and snap this up.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is also excellent.

    The extras are genuine, comprehensive and fascinating.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Gone with the Wind (1939)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1939
Running Time	223:40
RSDL / Flipper	FLIPPER (103:45)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Victor Fleming
Studio Distributor	Selznick Intrnationl Warner Home Video	Starring	Clark Gable Vivien Leigh Leslie Howard Olivia De Havilland
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$36.95	Music	Max Steiner

    The film opens with a 2:25 minute Overture and then launches immediately into the opening credits. I can tell you that the moment the famous name began scrolling across the screen accompanied by one of the great musical film scores of all time I felt truly excited. The next 4 hours or so slipped by as easily as if I was watching any other 90 minute film and the majesty of the story, the characters and the emotions carried me along until the final scene.

    It would seem to be more than a little silly to set out the plot of such a film here. For a start, it is not a simple story line and, given its length, I could be here forever. Moreover, it is a story that should be seen to be properly enjoyed. Suffice it to say that this is the film of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel (in fact the first novel!) of Margaret Mitchell written during the 1920s. The core strand of the story involves the love affairs of the beautiful southern belle Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh, selected after the single largest casting assignment in history) before, during and after the Civil War. Of course the climax to those affairs involves Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a popular scoundrel with more genuine honour than he might care to generally admit. The entire cast is magnificent (I won't single any of them out here), and it is the characters, their complex personalities and their relationships that make the film what it is. This is ably borne by the remarkable plot which never wavers from its path. Perhaps it is all a big soap opera, but if so then it's in a league all of its very own.

    The film really gives us a huge amount to absorb. On one level, it's an image of the glory days of "the Old South" before the American Civil War, and the aftermath of that war. On another it's an analysis of human character, but seemingly without generalization or caricature. The more obvious themes are on the subjects of love - unconditional, selfish, jealous - honour, duty and avarice. But since these are real people their emotions are rarely pure; we are also presented with the real world complications of doubt, temptation and failure. There are even parallels between Scarlett's behaviour and that of Goethe's Faust, to the extent that she virtually sells her soul for the riches she craves.

Video

    I don't want to wear out the word in this review but, simply put, the transfer is magnificent. Stunning. I literally pushed myself forward in my chair to get closer to the screen because, frankly, I didn't think the picture I was seeing was possible. If only films a tenth of the age of this always looked so good. I understand that the transfer was taken from the recently restored version of the film. We can be thankful that the effort that went into that work can now be preserved forever.

    The transfer essentially maintains the film's original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, being presented in Full Frame. Of course it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    If there is one aspect of the transfer that suggests the film is not modern, it's the occasional slight softness of the imagery, especially some of Scarlett's early scenes. The film never attains the razor sharp clarity of new films but I, for one, have no complaints on this score. I'm sure we are seeing everything exactly as it was created. Shadow detail is superb, again not quite as good as the best of recent films, but still very good and a great deal better than we have any right to expect. There was never any low level noise.

    The colours on show are absolutely superb and are probably the strongest suit of the transfer. This is nigh on a perfect replication of Technicolor films of that vintage, with bright and fully saturated colours. There is never any colour bleeding or other faults discernible. Facial tones radiate real warmth and beauty. External scenes, especially early on before the start of the war, are lush with marvellous contrast between greens and blues, and some of the sunset scenes are just magical. Costuming is a real high point and is almost on a par with the quality on display in My Fair Lady.

    During the entire 4 hours of the film I picked up only a single MPEG artefact, involving some posterization of a dark background at 14:28. There was no aliasing to be seen and no nasty edge enhancement - it simply wasn't necessary. A single, very stark case of a film artefact, comprising a persistent black vertical line through the entire picture lasted several seconds at 3:39, but it was quickly forgotten. I also noted several places where there was a certain "judder" in the picture (e.g. at 2:35), almost as if the odd frame had been omitted. I have no idea what the cause of this was or whether it was an original or modern fault. Otherwise the picture is just pristine.

    The disc is a flipper. However in this case it is almost a welcome re-creation the original cinematic experience, since the break comes at the end of the Intermission at 103:45 and you are therefore forced to get up out of your seat as you would have done 60 years ago. At this point, the sumptuous beauty of the Old South has been destroyed and the War has come to an end. There is a necessity for you to pause to consider what has occurred up to this critical turning point and prepare for the remainder of the film.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Dialogue is clear, except for some of Prissy's lines that I find are delivered in an unnaturally squeaky voice and are at times a little indistinct. Audio sync is never a problem.

    I've already made some mention of the wonderful music. I would imagine writing a musical score for a 4 hour long film, especially this film, must have been like writing a small opera. The recording is obviously a reflection of the technology available at the time so we are never given hi-fi quality. I don't find this alters the enjoyment of the music in any way.

    The remastered surround channels were not aggressively used to place any action, but they did enough to create a certain sense of atmosphere and lifted the sound out of a simple 2 dimensional soundstage. At most this assisted in localizing some of the sounds of cannon-fire. The low frequency effects channel was very satisfying in adding some depth to the musical score and was obvious in cannon and other explosive sounds.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

• Theatrical Trailer
• Collector's Booklet
• Trivia Quiz

• Nothing (apart from the hours' worth of extras that must be out there somewhere)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Casablanca (1942)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer Featurette-Casablanca: You Must Remember This (36:45) Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	1942
Running Time	98:27
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Michael Curtiz
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Humphrey Bogart Ingrid Bergman Paul Henreid Claude Rains Conrad Veidt Sydney Greenstreet Peter Lorre
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$36.95	Music	Max Steiner

    Casablanca is set in Casablanca, in non-occupied French Morocco during the Second World War. The setting lends itself to this type of story. Casablanca is a mysterious, exotic locale with a colourful rag-tag bunch of miscreants and refugees as inhabitants, many fleeing the Nazi war machine. The inhabitants of Casablanca can be divided into two camps; those desperate to get a visa so they can escape to America, and those that make their living from providing these visas by means fair or foul.

    Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is the cynical owner of Rick's Cafe Americain, a world-weary soul who "sticks his neck out for nobody". Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), one of the leaders of the underground movement in Europe, enters Casablanca, attempting to get to America. Rick has in his presumed possession some Letters of Transit which would guarantee safe passage to whomsoever carries these letters. Victor wants these letters and is willing to pay any price for them. But, there is a complication. Victor's wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) was previously involved with Rick, under tragic circumstances. Here we have a classic love triangle; two letters, three people that want the letters. What will Rick do?

    Throw into the melting pot a series of more-or-less shady characters, some excellent one-liners, and you have the cosmopolitan melting pot that is Casablanca.

Video

    This transfer is presented in the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio of the movie, in black and white. It is not 16x9 enhanced. I noted that the image was considerably windowboxed onto the 4:3 frame, so most people will see almost the entire image even if their display devices have considerable overscan.

    The sharpness of the transfer is quite variable, from remarkably sharp to very indistinct. Some of this could be put down to deliberate cinematography, such as the deliberately soft and grainy close-ups of Ingrid Bergman, but at other times the source material appears at fault. Shadow detail was very poor, reflective of the characteristics of film 50 years ago. Noise was problematic, with frequent shots suffering from copious amounts of grain. This is not a DVD that would be viewable on any large screen display device with any comfort.

    MPEG artefacting was where this transfer earned the nasty moniker. Put simply, the MPEG compression has been cranked up too high during this transfer, varying slightly around the 5 - 6 Mb/second range. As a result of this, the compression cannot handle the copious amounts of grain in the background of many shots, with marked and very noticeable macro-blocking evident in many backgrounds. It even intrudes into the foreground at times, particularly during close-ups of Ingrid Bergman, with many of her grainy close-up shots ruined by macro-blocking. The worst affected sequence is from 43:36 - 44:38 where the macro-blocking ruins what should be a beautiful, artful close-up shot.

    Film-to-video artefacts could be attributed to the excessive sharpening applied to this transfer. Whilst this is great when the picture is clear and static, as soon as any aliasing-prone movement happens on screen, the image shimmers markedly. Interestingly, the "usual suspects" for aliasing aren't the problem in this transfer since they didn't really exist in 1942. Instead, we see aliasing in wicker baskets, guitar strings, and on lines drawn on maps. The image frequently jumped about in quite a distracting fashion, in all directions, and sometimes the top half of the screen would jump and then the bottom half would follow suit - a most disconcerting effect. This was in addition to various single frames being dropped here and there.

    Film artefacts were extremely variable. Generally, they were remarkably absent. Occasionally, they intruded markedly into the image, such as as 8:18. There were two very nasty film artefacts at 32:04 and 32:09. In addition to a major loss in definition at these points, MPEG macro-blocking made these artefacts all the more noticeable. Vertical scratches were also evident in the image from time to time.

    This disc is a Dual Layered DVD. I did not detect a layer change during the movie itself, so I suspect that the extras are included on the second layer which is a gross waste of valuable compression space. This movie should have been compressed over two layers in order for it to have had a chance at an acceptable image.

Audio

    Dialogue was acceptable given the age of the source material. It was always clear and undistorted and was never out of sync. A word that Ingrid Bergman speaks has been removed at 43:57. You can clearly see her mouthe the word "nothing", but no audio accompanies her.

    The score by Max Steiner impeccably accompanies the movie, enhancing the mood where appropriate.

    The surround channels and subwoofer were not used.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Featurette - CASABLANCA: You Must Remember This

• 8 trailers for other Humphrey Bogart movies

    The video quality is dreadful at times, with unacceptable MPEG artefacting ruining what would otherwise have been an excellent disc.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are reasonable.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Ben-Hur (1959)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Audio Commentary-Charlton Heston Featurette-Making Of-Ben-Hur - The Making Of An Epic Featurette-Screen Tests Gallery-Photo Theatrical Trailer Notes-Awards
Rating
Year Of Production	1959
Running Time	213:39
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (51:50) FLIPPER (136:05)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	William Wyler
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Charlton Heston Jack Hawkins Haya Harareet Stephen Boyd Hugh Griffith Martha Scott Cathy O'Donnell Sam Jaffe
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Miklos Rozsa

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.70:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.76:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Italian French Spanish German Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    In the late 1950s, the Hollywood studio system was in major trouble. Television was starting to take off in the United States, and movies were not drawing the crowds they had in the past. MGM chose a bold attack on the problem: they would re-make a movie that had saved them in 1925, and it could save them again. They would spend as much money as it took - risking everything on one roll of the dice. They put everything in the hands of one of their most experienced producers, Sam Zimbalist, and he started the process to make what became the most expensive movie made at that time.

    OK, you've guessed that the movie is Ben-Hur - possibly the title to this review gave it away. The story of how the movie got made is almost more interesting than the movie itself.

    Ben-Hur started as a novel written by General Lew Wallace (ever noticed how American generals keep their rank when they retire? Seems like a lack of modesty to me). It was published in 1880, and became a best seller over a matter of a few years. It was turned into an extravagant stage production, which ran 20 years. Then it became an extravagant silent movie, made in 1924/1925, at a cost of US $4 million! Finally it was remade in 1958/1959, and cost US $50 million. The money was well-invested, however - the movie went on to make US $80 million, won 11 Academy Awards (and numerous others), and saved the studio.

    What is it about? You've heard about the great chariot race, of course - everyone has. That is an important part of the story. What I didn't known when I volunteered to review this story was the full title: "Ben-Hur - a Tale of the Christ". This full title is not mentioned anywhere on the cover of the DVD, but it is part of the opening credits (which occur 11:30 into the movie). By then it wasn't as much of a surprise, because the time between the end of the overture (6:13 minutes - nothing displayed but a picture and the single word "Overture") and the credits is spent showing some fairly familiar stuff: Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem for the great census, the appearance of a star (with a circle around it - there's a lack of subtlety in this sequence), three wise men / kings (including Balthazar), shepherds, a stable, etc.

    For a movie with such a subtitle it is surprising that we never get to see the face of the actor playing Jesus Christ. We see his back, his hands, but we never see his face, or hear his voice. Indeed, I don't recall hearing anyone saying the name Jesus, either. Interesting.

    Ben-Hur is not about Christ, however. It is the story of a man called Judah Ben-Hur, played by Charlton Heston. He is described as a prince; he is certainly wealthy, and an influence among the Jewish population of Judea, but he is a Jew, and consequently looked down upon by the Romans. A lot of this story hangs upon that racism.

    The story proper starts with the return to Judea of Messala. Messala, played brilliantly by Stephen Boyd, is a Roman soldier. He was a boyhood friend of Judah Ben-Hur, and grew up in Judea. He has returned from Rome as the new tribune - basically the military leader of the Roman occupation. He is answerable only to the Roman governor, and to Rome. Messala is an ambitious man, and he has plans to use Ben-Hur to achieve his ends. He has barely said hello to Ben-Hur when he is dunning him for the names of those Jews who are speaking out against the Roman occupation. Ben-Hur refuses to act as informer, and Messala utters that famous phrase: "You're either with me or against me".

    During the arrival of the new governor, Ben-Hur's sister accidentally knocks some tiles from the roof of their house which fall to the street, causing the governor's horse to shy, the governor to fall, and the Romans to believe an attack has been made on the governor. Ben-Hur takes responsibility, but exclaims loudly and repeatedly that it was an accident. Messala investigates and discovers the truth, but has Ben-Hur and his mother and sister condemned without trial. When Ben-Hur breaks free and confronts him, Messala explains that he is using the opportunity to prove himself merciless, even to a boyhood friend - he wants to be feared. Ben-Hur is sent off as a slave to row in the Roman galleys.

    Cut to three years later. Ben-Hur is now Number 41 (oops, XLI) in a Roman galley, surviving on hate. Through a sequence of events which would take a long while to relate he is freed, and becomes a man of influence again. He returns to Judea, with a single goal in mind: to free his mother and sister; even revenge against Messala is secondary.

    I don't want to say any more, because it is quite possible that you don't know the whole story, and I don't want to spoil it for you. The story is long and complex, and really requires over three hours to tell. There is hardly a wasted minute in this film (well, except for the overture and entr'acte).

    I should also mention how this is presented on DVD. This movie is too large to fit on one side, even one side of a double layer disc, without compromising the quality of the image. The choices they had were to split it over two sides of a double-sided, double-layer disc (a DVD-18), or to split it over two single-sided, double-layer discs (DVD-9s - perhaps the most common variety of DVD available today). In both Region 1 and Region 4 they have chosen to use a DVD-18. To be honest, I'd have preferred that they use two discs, because two discs would be easier to handle, and would be more useful in the event that you had either two DVD players, or a DVD player with multiple disc capabilities. I suspect they used a single DVD-18 so they could state that they'd put the whole movie onto a single disc. Anyway, what it means is that you must handle the disc quite carefully to avoid getting fingerprints on it, and it is a little more fragile. Also, because the only label is a thin ring around the centre of the disc, it is not particularly easy to work out which side is which. It doesn't help that they haven't labelled them clearly, either - both labels say "Widescreen DVD Ben-Hur" - you think they could have added "Side A" and "Side B". The easy way to tell them apart is to look at the serial number: on the first side it ends in A and on the other in B. Still, look at it this way: DVD-18s are quite rare, so you get an uncommon piece of technology for your money.

    An interesting piece of trivia that is mentioned during the commentary: all the Hebrew characters but one are played by American actors, all the Romans and others are played by British actors. This was deliberate on the part of the director.

     Ben-Hur is an important piece of film history, a true classic. You owe it to yourself to see this movie at least once so that you can understand when other films reference it. I'm very glad I watched it, and I can see myself watching it again some time. Yes, it is very long, but it is far from boring.

Video

    They have clearly put some considerable effort into presenting this movie in the best possible condition. It helps that it was filmed using MGM Camera 65 with Panavision lenses. That means that they used 70mm film, and each frame is four times the size of a regular 35mm frame - the same size film artefact will only appear one quarter the size.

    The movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.71:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. That's very close to the original aspect ratio, which was 2.76:1. This is an extremely wide aspect ratio. Because our picture is fixed in width (we can't open our curtains wider, as they can in the cinema) that means that we get more black above and below the picture. On a 16x9 screen this is quite reasonable. On a 4x3 screen it means that the picture is about half the height of the screen. The sacrifice is worthwhile: William Wyler, the director, is renowned as an expert in using widescreen, and this movie shows that - I hate to contemplate the butchery that would be involved in a pan and scan version of this picture. 

    The image is wonderfully sharp, with strong shadow detail, and no visible low level noise. I must confess that I was not expecting a picture of this clarity. There are movies much younger which show far less detail.

    Colour is bright, strong, and well-saturated. It seems a property of the Technicolor process that blue eyes look very blue, as do Charlton Heston's in this film (much as Jane Fonda's do in Barbarella). Again, this surprised me, for I have seen many movies made in the 60s and 70s that look faded / washed out. That is most definitely not the case here. Even so, there is no colour bleed; I looked for it quite particularly. There were some instances where colour varied slightly from one shot to another, possibly a consequence of slightly different lighting conditions (different time of day, perhaps?); I'd regard those as minor flaws in the original source material, rather than flaws in the transfer.

    There are plenty of film artefacts. It would be extraordinary if there were not, in a film over forty years old. There is probably one every few seconds, but they are tiny, transitory, and not distracting. In fact, on many screens the vast majority of them would be invisible. The same cannot be said of aliasing, I'm afraid. We see aliasing on a lot of things (perhaps the most obvious is at 10:09 on the shawl over the head of the centre wise man). Strangely, even though I find aliasing quite annoying at times, I felt less troubled by it here. I wonder if the reason was because I was expecting a flawed picture because of the age of the movie? There was also some instances of pixelization, but only on dark objects (a night-time sky, for example) - it is hard to see, and not irritating.

    There are subtitles in five languages, including English. They are quite accurate, if a little abbreviated at times. They are presented in a simple, attractive font and placed well below the picture (one benefit of the wide black space). When you choose the commentary, though, there are no subtitles. There is a subtitle track, but it is used to display a symbol on the screen which indicates when Charlton Heston has finished speaking for a while.

    With a double-sided, double layer disc we could have two layer changes to worry about. On the first side, the layer change is located at 51:50 - superbly hidden in a scene change. On the second side there is no layer change; they have placed the rest of the film on one layer, and the extras on the other.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two soundtracks, both Dolby Digital 5.1, in English and Italian. I listened to the English soundtrack. There's an additional soundtrack in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded, containing a commentary by Charlton Heston - I listened to this, too.

    Dialogue is clear and readily understood. I noticed a couple of tiny glitches in dialogue sync, but I'm confident that these are mistakes in ADR, rather than mastering flaws.

    There is a small amount of distortion in a few places, but generally the soundtrack is clean.

    The score won an Academy Award for Miklos Rozsa. In my opinion, it sounds somewhat clichéd, but it may be that that is because it has been plagiarised repeatedly since. Certainly, it suits the action on-screen very well. 

    The original soundtrack has been remixed into 5.1. The surrounds are mostly used by the score, sort of a "deep stereo" effect. The subwoofer is not used extensively, but it does get used to extend some of the loudest passages.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menus are static, with music on the main menu. On my Arcam DVD player the main menu did not display a selection marker; it is a nuisance, but can be navigated. On a Sony player the menu works normally - I have not tested other players. All the submenus work normally on both players.

Cast and Crew

    This is just two pages, listing the main actors and the roles they played on the first page, and the main crew on the second page. The Region 1 version has filmographies attached to some of these entries; this disc does not.

Commentary - Charlton Heston (Actor)

    This commentary is presented in an interesting way. They have used a subtitle channel to place a symbol on the screen when Charlton Heston has finished speaking for a while - you press Chapter Skip Forwards when the symbol appears and it takes you to the next piece he wishes to comment on; if you don't press the button then the regular soundtrack continues until we reach that point. This seemed a bit odd, but I was glad of it. Charlton Heston had quite a bit to say at times, but he left large gaps, too. The Chapter Skip button saved me from sitting through extended sections where he wasn't speaking. In all, I estimate he was speaking for about an hour of the full 3.5 hours running time. He did repeat some of his comments, but generally what he said was interesting and provided an insight into the events surrounding the making of this movie.

Screen Tests

    There are two screen tests, but the second one is less than a minute long; just a shot of Haya Harareet in makeup. The interesting one is of Cesare Danova (as Ben-Hur) and Leslie Nielson (as Messala); it runs over six minutes. If you've never seen the young Leslie Nielson (he was in Forbidden Planet, for example), it may come as a surprise to learn that he played a handsome young man back then. 

Photo Gallery

    This is a slow moving montage of 10 stills.

Theatrical Trailer

    This is presented in an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1, is 16x9 enhanced, and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. The quality is not as high as the movie, but it's not too bad. It runs almost four minutes.

Awards

    This lists all the awards the movie collected, including all 11 Oscars, and 4 Golden Globes.  

Documentary - Ben-Hur - The Making of an Epic

    This documentary is too big to be called a featurette. It runs almost an hour, and is divided into 20 chapters. It is presented in 1.33:1 (clearly intended for TV) and is not 16x9 enhanced. It was made in 1993. It describes the evolution of the story from book to theatrical production, through two silent movies to the 1958/59 production. It features footage from all three films, and interviews with many of the people involved. It is quite interesting, and worth watching more than once. 

    The Region 4 disc misses out on:

• Theatrical Teaser Trailer (2:27 minutes)
• Filmographies for selected cast and crew

    The Region 1 disc misses out on:

• transparent Amaray case (snapper case)

    There is very little difference between the two. Both are DVD18s. Both seem to have excellent transfers. I prefer the R4 because it is in a better case, and because this is one case where the 4% speed-up of PAL can make a real difference: our version runs 213:39 minutes, while theirs runs 222:13 minutes.

    Ben-Hur is one of the true classics of film in the 20th century. Your collection is incomplete without it, and now you can own it at a reasonable price.

    The video quality is excellent, especially considering the age of the film..

    The audio quality is good.

    There are some fine extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall