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Battle of the Bulge |  | Director: Ken Annakin
Actors: Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews, George Montgomery
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $5.42
as of 9/9/2010 09:59 MDT details
You Save: $9.56 (64%)
New (35) Used (27) from $3.29
Seller: inetvideo
Rating:  168 reviews
Sales Rank: 2923
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), English (Original Language), German (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 167 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 085391108627
ISBN: 0790765241
UPC: 085391108627
EAN: 9780790765242
ASIN: B0007TKNGA
Theatrical Release Date: December 16, 1965
Release Date: May 3, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The story of the crucial final major battle in WWII when a surprise attack by the Germans on the Belgian front with new tanks, fresh troops and a cunn
Amazon.com
The German offensive in December 1944 became the basis for this all-star Hollywood take on the Battle of the Bulge. Henry Fonda is an officer who predicts the assault, Robert Ryan and Dana Andrews are Army brass skeptical of his intuitions, and Robert Shaw (his hair dyed yellow and his eyes glinting with malice) is a German officer leading the tank attack. Shaw is certainly the most compelling thing about the film, especially in his philosophical debates with ambivalent underling Hans Christian Blech. Elsewhere, the movie jumps around to sidebar stories (cowardly James MacArthur becomes a leader, wheeler-dealer Telly Savalas falls in love) while messing around with the historical facts of the battle. There are interesting episodes, such as the Malmedy massacre of American POWs and the Germans' use of English-speaking spies, but overall Battle of the Bulge has the feeling of having been patched together from different scripts. On the physical level the movie comes up short, with the Spanish locations rarely suggesting the wintry misery of the battle, and the use of models and studio sets highly inadequate. A number of war films from this era are compelling on their own terms, but in the wake of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, this one looks antique. --Robert Horton
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 168
 Great action and unavoidable continuity shortfalls June 26, 1999
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
This movie is a great action story built around the Battle of the Bulge. O.K. so the M26 tanks aren't Tigers and the M24s aren't Shermans. If you are looking to pick apart movies check out the M48/Panther/Tigers in "Patton". The parallels drawn of historical characters isn't bad. The Martin Hessler/Joachim Peiper contrast is good, Robert Shaw(Hessler) does an excellent characterization of the historical accounts written about Peiper (the actual leader of the SS Panzer Truppen). For those who didn't like the movie because it did not re-create the actual battle in detail, read the dislaimer promenently displayed in the credits. It says in essence thath the movie was never intended to re-create the actual battle but to re-enact the spirit of the heroism and actions of the soldiers in the battle and some of the historical events (the 101st Abn Div at Bastogne) that took place. For the real history buffs looking for flaws, the fuel dump that was so eloquently defended by Fonda and Mac Arthur never existed as portrayed in the film. The fuel dump was actually spread out and hidden over several square miles of forest. All in all a great action movie for war enthusiasts
A good transfer May 11, 2005
Hal Twain
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
I will not review the movie but the DVD. It's in Widescreen. No scenes have been cut. Every minute of the movie is on this DVD. It has the overture, intermission & exit music. I saw no pops or lines in the picture. The sound & pitcure quality of this 60s movie is as good as any DVD I have. I like the movie & wish all old movies on DVD were as well done as this DVD.
dump your VHS version May 6, 2005
D. Cooke (canada, courtice)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I'm not going to waste your time telling you about the movie, and how great it is.
The only thing I have to say is someone did something right for a change. Whoever put this one together gave you the full version as it was first shown.
My advice if you know and love this movie, this is the one to buy, and dump your VHS.
Battle of the Bulge........Where's the DVD February 10, 2004
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
It's been 5 months since D-Day and most American soldiers think that the back of the German army is broken. "We'll be home for Christmas" they tell each other. But the Germans have other plans. In a desperate attempt to buy time to fill the skys with their invincible new jets, they launch one more fast furious offensive: the Battle of the Bulge.
Battle of the Bulge is a great epic war drama to watch on a rainy summer day. Awsome battle scenes with the tanks, awsome cinematography, excellent acting, great actors, like Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews, James MacArthur, Werner Peters, Charles Bronson, Ty Hardin and Telly Savalas.
If Warner Bros. is looking at this review, I have only one favor to ask:
Please release the full uncut version of Battle of the Bulge on DVD with the movie trailer and a 'making of featurette'.
FINALLY, THE UNCUT VERSION IS ON DVD! May 3, 2005
Benjamin E. Cressy (NH USA)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
This concerns the DVD. The rest of the review is taken from my war movie web site: www.angelfire.com/film/eurowar/
I picked up Warner's new release of BATTLE OF THE BULGE today, which is finally on DVD. Fans will LOVE this disc.
First off. The video print has been fully restored. Colors are right on target, the image is sharp and free of edge enhancement. There is hardly any damage. It looks like it could have been filmed recently!
Even better, it's presented in the PROPER 2.75:1 aspect ratio of the Cinerama exhibitions. The versions on TCM and laserdisc were 2.20:1.
The audio is an English mix using the original music and sound effects, remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1. It sounds FANTASTIC. The tanks, the gunfire, the dialogue, the Frankel score - wow.
Ok now for the best parts. Most everyone knows that in 1984, when the film was released on video, it ran a mere 141 minutes. Then in the early 1990s it was re-released at 156 minutes. Well, that's still not full length.
This disc runs 170 minutes and includes all four famous missing scenes PLUS another one which expands the conflict between Ty Hardin and George Montgomery - a scene which nobody seemed to know existed!
Extras include a 5-minute trailer packed with alternate takes and dialogue snippets that never made it into the final cut.
There are two grainy black-and-white features about the making of the film which are inconsequential, but for a 1965 film, I think the extra material is quite substantial.
This classic finally got the right treatment. THANK YOU WARNER BROTHERS!
This big, bloated epic re-creation of the battle which turned the tide of World War II manages to be on the most historically inaccurate and over-blown adventure pieces ever produced. It's also one of the most entertaining war movies to grace the big screen. The combination of heroics and history shouldn't work as well as it does.
Writers John Melson, Philip Yordan and Milton Sperling remain faithful to the broad outlines of the real battle, and then fill their story with several important fictional characters, and director Ken Annakin uses a combination of Hollywood heroics and historical accuracy to deliver an entertaining tale. The film relies solely on the excellently-shot action sequences and superb acting by the leads to hold it together.
Veteran director Ken Annakin knows how to make this film work. In the lead, Henry Fonda ("Midway") seems to be having plenty of fun as Colonel Kiley. He gets to argue with people, shoot at Germans, fly in a plane, and even help fend off a Panzer attack - not bad for a civilian-turned-soldier, eh? On the flip-side, Robert Shaw ("Force 10 from Navarone") is fantastic as the fanatical Colonel Hessler, a devoted Panzer officer who will stop at nothing to accomplish his mission. Hessler brings new meaning the Hollywood-Nazi-type: he's brutal, nasty and dedicated despite the fact that he knows Germany cannot win the war.
The supporting cast is filled with the familiar faces of Charles Bronson, Ty Hardin, James MacArthur and Telly Savalas - but the real star is Hans Christian Blech ("The Longest Day"). As Conrad, the war-weary, aging German Corporal, it's his best work in a war film. Conrad wants to go home and is devoted to Hessler, until he realizes that his commander's dedication sits precariously on the edge of madness. His facial expressions - bug-eyed outbursts, sad frowns, frightened glances at strafing airplanes - have never been more convincing.
This epic was shot for the big screen using Cinerama, and the only way to appreciate the action sequences is to see this movie in widescreen. Pan-and-scan prints cut it down from a 2.7:1 ratio to 1.33:1 - that's losing more than half of the image! It was shot on the vast plains of Spain, and although it looks nothing like the brutal winter in the Ardennes forest, this scenery makes from some very impressive landscapes for which to shoot colossal battle scenes. Annakin shows tanks facing off with each other on the plains and in the snow-encrusted woods and shows hand-to-hand fighting in the streets of a French city. These scenes are set to an excellent, rousing Ben Frankel score, which only adds to the excitement. There are hundreds of extras running about, as well as several dozen loud, clanking tanks. Annakin often places his camera on the front end of a tank, train or moving car to give the viewer a "you-are-there" perspective, a technique which is ruined with the pan-and-scan process.
The dramatic effect of the serious scenes is severely hampered by preposterous Hollywood heroics and some incredibly poor special effects. Quite often, the combat and destruction look incredibly real, but there are some truly laughable shots of exploding model tanks and roaring model trains, too. The battle scenes, notably a huge tank vs. tank battle and a conclusion involving an attempted German capture of an Allied fuel dump are incredibly corny and false-looking, adding a forced jingoistic feel and over-reaching heroism which really destroyed the credibility Annakin had been working up to. A strong subplot involving an American tanker, Guffy (Telly Savalas, "The Dirty Dozen") and another, centering on the Malmedy Massacre, help to offset this cheesiness.
"Battle of the Bulge" is a true Hollywood epic in every sense of the word. It may not be historically accurate, but it's probably the most entertaining and engaging war film I've had the pleasure to watch. The characters are fleshed out, the scope is amazing and the direction borders on brilliance.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 168
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