Battle of the Bulge [VHS]

This review is more about this version rather than a critique of the movie. I think anyone buying this is already familiar with the movie. Battle of the Bulge was probably the US Army's defining moment in WWII Europe, most other battles having been combined Allied efforts. Failure here would have given the Germans new life. This movie was a big effort and a big deal when released in 1965. I saw this in a theatre as a young kid. This was filmed in Ultra Panavision for those wonderful single screen Cinerama Theaters with the very wide curved screens. In a way, these theaters were better than Imax. Your peripheral vision is better right to left rather than up or down, and we're more used to using it that way (not to say these screens weren't big vertically too). This Blu-Ray version attempts to preserve that with a very wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio. You will need a large screen as it's very aggressively shadow boxed horizontally, but I absolutely think it's worth it. Represents new digital transfer from restored picture (it's film in all its glory). Remastered sound track in DD 5.1. And it sounds great in 5.1. Contains the tanker song "Panzerlied" which the current German Army is forbidden to sing. And since it's Blu-Ray, there is room for some vintage background material.

Ok,for me it does not get much better than this! My Dad took me to see this back in 1965 when it came out.Over the years I have seen it on network tv,cable tv ,and thru VHS format! I was not all that picky about how super clear a movie could be until We got a DVD player about 8 years ago!Than I was a bit picky! Last Christmas we got a 52 inch Samsung Flatscreen 1080p for the family.Bestbuy threw in a free Blueray player along with it! So now I can never go back,I am having a field day!And yes I have gotten picky! We have 3 DVD Players ,one run of the mill! One that will play anything from all regions! and than the Blueray!That being all said, I find the Battle of the Bulge in Blue-ray is outstanding!!It comes thru very clear and crisp!It looks like it was made this year! Everything really stands out!The sound is great too as is the soundtrack!If you want something that is 100% correct with History than you better see another version(like Battleground -1949) of this story!I will say this tho, regarding the movie being real,They use 80 real and at that time active tanks and 5000 extras out of the Spanish army to stand for most of the American and German troops!Nowdays CGI is used a bit too much!A good example is TROY with Brad Pitt and Eric Bana,it was a good movie but it could have been a great movie with less CGI and more extras!I dont let the fact that the Battle of the Bulge is not 100% correct with history bug me when it comes down to it, as this flick just looks so good,has great action and a great cast! Robert Shaw as Col.Hessler, Henry Fonda as Kiley,Robert Ryan as Gen.Grey,Dana Andrews as an officer who gets it all wrong about the coming German attack and than later is a big enought man to tell Kiley he was wrong!,Telly Savalas as Guffy, The Head of a Sherman tank crew,Charles Bronson as an officer on the very front of the lines who later fights a holding action and stands up for his men when they are pows!,James MacArthur as an officer who does a 180 in how he handles his part in the battle due to what he went thru with his Sgt Duguesne played by George Montgomery,Ty Harden plays Lt .Schumacher ,a leader of a team of Germans who had lived in the U.S.A. but came back to fight for the fatherland posing as U.S. troops,and many more!This film has somethings in common with a good western made 3 years later called Custer of the West-- 1. They are both made with the Cinerama process and I feel a Big screen TV in conjuction with a Blue-ray Player helps one still enjoy this process up to a point!2. They have a lot of the same cast.In Custer of the West Robert Shaw has the lead role as Custer,Ty Harden is Reno and Robert Ryan plays a deserter!Thought that was interesting to point out!Some other things that I feel were realy good on the Battle of the Bulge were 1.In the beginning of the movie were Col Hessler is showed all the dreams and ideas some of the German high command have along with some tanks and fresh troops to still try and win the war!2. The train scene 3. The first battle were the Americans were caught way off guard!. 4. The Battle scene were a large amount of German tanks are lined up with ground troops pounding away at the town they are attacking and than moving in!5. Col Hessler showing his commanding officer an American cake and telling him that things like that getting to the troops makes them feel they can do any thing! He wants to take the town he is spending time attacking so as to brake American moral!5.The final battle, There is a computer game called Beyond Overlord that has this battle along with many others!This movie has a running time of 169 mins.I hear a fair amount of people sometimes knock any movie that runs pass 2 hours! I for one, like em the longer the better as long as they are well made!This movie has some good extras like The filming of the Battle of the Bulge,History Recreated and others. Its Directed by the same Director who did The Longest Day Ken Annakin.Hans Christian Blech has a good part as an aide to Col,Hessler!The movie has extra music before the start,during an intermission phase and at the conclusion!By the way, that one reviewer has it wrong about Henry Fonda not using his gun,In the first battle He is shooting a German tank crew member!!All in all I would have to put this movie in my top ten of World War 2 movies of all time!! I would say this movie is to be very much recommended !!

Love this movie! My original DVD disc had a bad scratch in it. Great price for another dvd.

BLU-RAY REVIEWI am updating this review (Dec. 9, 2008) to address the Blu-Ray edition of this movie which I feel is worthy of praise. In addition to a very impressive 1080p high definition picture which has nice contrast, vibrant colors and a fantastic level of detail (just witness the Christmas tree and flags in the first scene between Henry Fonda and Robert Ryan), the Blu-Ray also boasts a scene specific audio commentary featuring Director Ken Annakin and actor James MacArthur.The two are obviously very good friends and the commentary strikes a nice balance between technical details, preproduction and filming background and friendly chatter. I found it enjoyable.The Blu-Ray also transfers over the two vintage featurettes and theatrical trailer found on the DVD, but the addition of the audio commentary and the superior high definition picture makes this an easy recommendation for an upgrade from the subpar DVD format.I read the concerns over "fogging"n some of the previous reviews and did not notice it on my Blu-Ray, except in instances when it was obviously a deliberate decision. For the most part this is an impressive presentation. For those wanting the check out the HD picture, the high definition premium commercial-free TV channel HDNet Movies has been showing "Battle of the Bulge" in HD recently.In the 1960s it seemed to be all the fashion for a host of big name actors to appear in World War II movies. From THE LONGEST DAY to THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, THE DIRTY DOZEN, THE GREAT ESCAPE and BATTLE OF BRITAIN every big name actor made his appearance in big epic war pictures commemorating a war that, at that time, was still fresh in the memories of many.From the extremely realistic (as much as Hollywood will allow) such as THE LONGEST DAY, BATTLE OF BRITAIN and (to a lesser extent) THE GREAT ESCAPE to the more Hollywood-ized versions of the war represented by THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and THE DIRTY DOZEN the quality of the movies was unquestionably epic in nature with varying degrees of historical accuracy.Somewhere in-between the examples above falls BATTLE OF THE BULGE (1965) which purports to illustrate the events of the winter of 1944 in which the Nazi powers sought to separate the American frontlines from their supplies and reinforcements. The movie works well as far as mindless action entertainment and we have some truly great performances by Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Telly Savalas and Charles Bronsan, but it seems as though the script writers threw the history books in the trash and decided to write the battle as they would have liked it to have played out.The result is some truly shocking historical inaccuracies. Firstly, the movie suggests that the Germans were running low on fuel and were desperate to capture Allied fuel depots. In fact the Nazi's had enough fuel for the offensive but suffered due to supply lines that were constantly being bombed by Alied aircraft.The Malmedy Massacre is portrayed here as an organized slaughter of American GI's. In fact, this was not the case. The massacre certainly happened, but it was more of a spontaneous affair.Another historical inaccuracy is in the portrayal of the German armor. The movie gives the impression that the assault was carried out exclusively with King Tiger tanks when in fact many more Panzer tanks were utilized in the offensive. Germany it appears did not have an overabundance of King Tigers.Compounding the movies historical difficulties is the creation by the movie makers of characters to lead the German and American divisions. Most blatently obvious is the character of Col. Hessler (played by Robert Shaw). In fact the officer in charge was a Col. Joachim Peiper. The movie makers also created a fictional character - Lt. Col. Kiley - for Henry Fonda and a Gen. Grey for Robert Ryan and totally ignores the role of Gen. Patton in the struggle.Where the movie gets it right is in the Battle of Bastogne, the use of English-speaking German special forces behind Alied lines to mess up logistics and the fact that the American forces were hopelessly overextended.However, if you are not looking for a history lesson and instead would just like a comic-strip style action movie, then you can do a lot worse. Growing up and seeing this movie on television I found it exciting and exhirating. Taking top honors in the acting department is Robert Shaw as the cold and grittily determined Hessler. The scenes between him and his subordinate Cpl. Conrad (played by Hans Christian Blech) show the deep conflict in 1940s-era Germany between the fanatical Nazi's determined to carry on the fight and the regular citizenry who, although patriotic, wished only for an end to the conflict. The scenes are poignant and revealing and represent some of the best scenes in the movie.Overall this movie is flawed, but its still enjoyable and thought provoking.

Very good copy to blu ray

I enjoy the film not exactly true to real events of course but I like it

Excellent

very good

Very good Value