DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The 4:3 fullscreen transfer is an example of mostly superior black and white, preserving the film’s original Academy Ratio. It’s visuals are concise and achieve an admirable contrast between exteriors and interiors and a fine opening suggestion of the importance of objects and locations in triggering remembered events. The source print shows some minor signs of wear in white speckling on occasion and at least two instances of a vertical white line through the middle of the frame. However, these instances do not last long. There is subtle shadow differentiation on show in many scenes and deep if uneven blacks when required. Of note here is the director’s stress on visible sources of light within the frame for an effective texture. These light sources never flare and are kept in a fine tonal balance. Some darker scenes, however, reveal flared blacks ever so briefly. The aerial combat scenes utilize actual footage shot by both the US Air Force and the German Luftwaffe and are well integrated into the final sequence. King emphasizes the physical details of the setting – the tarmac and the planes especially – and telling moves from men in tighter groups to more individualized shots and spread-out group compositions. Indeed, the gradual relaxation of frame space nicely thus correlates to Peck’s increasing empathy. Tellingly, Peck remains alone or isolated in the frame much of the time.
Sound
The Dolby Digital sound transfer has a functional mono feel as perhaps expected from films of this age, though some sources list it as being a 2.0 stereo transfer. Centered either way, there is no crackling or substantial hiss and voices are always clearly audible. Although it makes much use of the ordinary sounds of airfield activity and especially of loud aircraft, culminating in the effective aerial combat scenes, it lacks the resonant bass to capture the overwhelming sounds of these monstrous bombers. Incidental background sound effects are clearly audible (footsteps, doors and such like) but the transfer is best when it reveals the struggle of voices to be heard above the machinery of war, edited in contrast to capture the reactions of the men who await the arrival of these beasts in nervous silence. Here the audio transfer touches on the theme of the re-emergence of humanity in the field of technological warfare: personable humans heard above impersonal machines. Subsequent films about the airforce during World War Two would carry this aural trait, culminating in the sly mix of Catch 22, a film that in its black comedy makes a most ironic counterpoint to Twelve O’Clock High, indeed subverting all that King’s film and others like it sought to stress. Music is used nicely and is linked to Jagger’s process of remembrance – the film’s framing device. Intonations in voices nicely indicate the ongoing battle with stress. read more
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