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Wartime
Drama - 20 Great Wartime Movies
This 4-disk boxed set contains an astonishing 20
movies from the 1940s - a total running time of 1754 minutes or over 29
hours - and cost just $9.95. To be honest, I bought the set for just one
of those movies - "Spitfire" - and consider everything else in the
bundle to be a bonus. There is something here for just about everyone
from drama to action-adventure to romance to a musical. Surprisingly,
neither the box nor individual DVD cases have a distributor named.
All but one of the movies are in black and white, which is hardly
surprising given their vintage. Some have been poorly digitised; this is
especially clear in the action sequences in "Gung HO!" for example. In
some cases, they have been transferred from VHS videotapes; this has
damaged the sound in the first half of "The Last Chance", for example.
Hiss in the soundtrack is also a common problem, but one that was
expected. The picture is in 4:3 ratio. Perhaps the most annoying sound
problem with the set is that the playover of the menu is much louder
than the actual movies - you learn to be teady with the volume control
fairly quickly, but this could have been better managed.
Despite these shortcomings, this boxed set is clearly a bargain for
anyone who enjoys a good movie regardless of its vintage. There are no
"extras" in the modern sense, but buy the set for one movie, as I did,
and get 19 more full feature films as a bonus? Things don't get much
better than that!
I'm not even going to try to include reviews of all 20 movies. Suffice
it to say, having seen them, that I am quite happy to have several of
them in my collection. Others are not my cup of tea, as the saying goes,
but that's completely forgivable under the circumstances. Here's a full
list of the movies included in the package, their production dates,
running lengths, and the principle stars:
Disk 1:
Side A:
Submarine Alert (1943, 66m, Richard Arlen)
Gung Ho! (1943, 88m, Randolph Scott)
Private Buckaroo (1942, 68m, The Andrews Sisters)
Side B:
Three Came Home (1950, 105m, Claudette Colbert)
The Last Chance (1945, 104m, Ewart G. Morrison)
Disk 2:
Side A:
Spitfire (1942, 89m, David Niven)
British Intelligence (1940, 60m, Boris Karloff)
Corregidor (1943, 73m, Otto Kruger)
Side B:
One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942, 103m, Peter Ustinov)
The Big Lift (1950, 120m, Montgomery Lift)
Disk 3:
Side A:
Blood On The Sun (1945, 98m, James Cagney)
Wings Over The Pacific (1943, 59m, Edward Norris)
Bombs Over Burma (1943, 65m, Anna May Wong)
Side B:
Stage Door Canteen (1943, 132m, Katherine Hepburn)
Sundown (1941, 90m, Gene Tierney)
Disk 4:
Side A:
Go For Broke (1951, 92m, Van Johnson)
Lady From Chunking (1942, 68m, Anna May Wong)
Waterfront (1944, 64m, John Carradine)
Side B:
This Is The Army (194, 114m, Ronald Reagan) (Colour)
We Dive At Dawn (1943, 96m, Anthony Asquith)
A quick scan through that list will reveal names any movie buff will
recognise, most no longer with us. I might have wished for "12 O'clock
High" and "Command Decision" in a perfect world, but you can't have
everything. A WWII comedy might also have been a welcome change of pace.
But these are faint criticisms at worst.
Deciding how to rate this boxed set was a bit of a challenge. Do I score
all 20 movies as the one "feature?" Or pick one and call the rest
extras? With sound and picture quality so variable, do I assign an
average in that category? What do I take off for most of the content
being in black and white and with a 4:3 screen ratio? No matter how I do
it, the ratings will end up being largely meaningless. No matter how you
slice it, this collection offers genuine value for money! |
