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DVD Zulu Dawn
Cy Endfield co-wrote the epic prequel Zulu Dawn 15 years after his enormously popular Zulu. Set in 1879, this film depicts the catastrophic Battle of Isandhlwana, which remains the worst defeat of the British army by natives, with the British contingent outnumbered 16-to-1 by the Zulu tribesmen. The film's opinion of events is made immediately clear in its title sequence: ebullient African village life presided over by King Cetshwayo is contrasted with aristocratic artifice under the arrogant eye of General Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole). Chelmsford is at the heart of all that goes wrong, initiating the catastrophic battle with an ultimatum made seemingly for the sake of giving his troops something to do. His detached manner leads to one mistake after another, and this is wryly illustrated in a moment when neither he nor his officers can be bothered to pronounce the name of the land they're in. That it's a beautiful land nonetheless is made clear by the superb cinematography, which drinks in the massive open spaces that shrink the British army to a line of red ants. Splendidly stiff-upper-lipped support comes from a heroic Burt Lancaster and a fluffy, yet gruff, Bob Hoskins. Although the story is less focused and inevitably more diffuse than the concentrated events of Rorke's Drift which followed soon after, Zulu Dawn is an unflinchingly honest depiction of British Imperial diplomacy. --Paul Tonks
This is a great movie. It was presented at the University of Texas during my incarceration there in the 80s; I was taking a course sequence on the European expansion in Asia. The instructor recommended it, so I dropped in. In a theater, the feeling of doom was tangible.
It's nice to see the movie re-released on DVD, but it appears that either the print they used was bad or the transfer inferior. Perhaps a combination of both factors. Some "dark" scenes have such extreme pixellation that it's reminiscent of watching an old UHF TV station with one of those O-antenna things that you tried to cross with the rabbit ears and a coat hanger to get better reception.
Other elements of the movie--particularly the subtitled sequences at the beginning, with the Zulu king--are so bad they look like someone filmed a projection screen.
BUT. A great movie, and a good addition to a "South Africa" collection of "Breaker Morant" (covering the Boer Wars) and the original "Zulu!" (to which this movie is a prequel). Both of the other movies are far better DVDs. Doesn't feel like any care went into this DVD.
Review of DVD transfer
The new Tango release of the Zulu Dawn DVD is not as bad as some folks make out. On ebay, a while back, someone was selling the region 1 version of the film based on the English DVD which had been out for a while. It was somewhat letter-boxed but the image was fuzzy and the colors bled a lot (but it was better than the VHS version). The new Tango seems to have the same screen ratio with some letter-boxing top and bottom. I didn't see any evidence of pan and scan and it seemed somewhat wide-screen though I imagine the original print was wider. The transfer is better than the ebay/English version with more definition and less color bleed. It's not as good as a pristine new DVD release or, for that matter, the MGM DVD release of Zulu with is a truly excellent transfer. Perhaps an original 35 print of the film doesn't exist anymore which would be a shame. It's too bad that both of these films weren't made more in the digital era. Both of them need more Zulus in the frames!
Thrilling Finale Saves Film From Zulu Yawn
My interest in this film stems from my enjoyment of the original "Zulu". I would recommend this film to the fans of "Zulu" but do not have high expectations. To the filmmakers credit they try to meticulously portray the events that led to the massacre of British troops at the hands of Zulu warriors. It's not the filmmakers ambition that I'm criticizing but in the way they execute their story. The events preceding the battle border on the stuporous. The film feels like it's populated by re-enactors as opposed to actors playing real men. This is odd because of the presence of fine actors like Burt Lancaster and Peter O'Toole in the cast. Before all is lost, however, the makers deliver a slam-bang extended battle scene in the film's final third to redeem this enterprise. In closing, anyone venturing into this film has to slog through some inert patches but are semi-rewarded by sticking it out to the end.
Mixing action, humor, sentiment, and even a few righteous moral convictions, The Wild Geese is good, rousing fun. Released theatrically in 1978 (oddly, this 2005 DVD release is referred to as the "30th Anniversary Edition"), director Andrew V. McLaglen’s film depicts the adventures of a group of British mercenaries hired by a shady multinational corporation to free the benevolent leader of an African nation held captive by a ruthless dictator. Led by the caustic, no-nonsense Col. Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), these soldiers of fortune are all stout fellows out to earn a big payday and restore a good man to his rightful place of power (the underlying message of universal racial brotherhood is effective, if somewhat simplistic), and they do their job swiftly and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Burton - Roger Moore - Richard Harris - Hardy Krüger - Stewart Granger Director(s): Andrew V. McLaglen DVD Release Date: Released the 27 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This restoration of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western Major Dundee is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece. When Peckinpah went over budget and over schedule during the Mexico shoot, unshot scenes were canceled and the footage rudely cut by the studio. The director disowned the results. In 2005, surviving footage was patched back in, and a new musical soundtrack commissioned to replace the score Peckinpah hated. This raises some legitimate questions about interpreting a director's intentions, and about messing with film history, but Major Dundee--The Extended Version is such a rousing, mysterious experience, one feels grateful.
Major Dundee (Charlton Heston) is a vainglorious officer busted to the decidedly inglorious job... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlton Heston - Richard Harris Director(s): Sam Peckinpah DVD Release Date: Released the 20 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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If you are a fan of the Zulu and Zulu Dawn movies, this is a DVD that you should own. Mind you, it is a documentary feature, but it is extremely well done. History buffs in general should love it. The production values are outstanding, the narration by John Hurt is excellent, and there are commentaries by Ian Knight, surely, for we Americans, the leading expert and writer on the Zulu Wars. The great majority of the trio of features consist of live action reproduction, brialliantly acted, and filmed on location in South Africa. I hesitated before buying this, as I had never caught it on the Learning or History channels, there were no extant reviews, and the packaging did not initially inspire confidence. However, my hunch paid off, and this outstanding little gem is worth every penny. More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 25 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Some movies you just have to love. Oh, they may be well, even beautifully, made; wonderfully cast and stirringly acted; uplifting in theme and noble in motive. That's fine. In fact, that's great. For that, you admire them. But you love them because they are perfect distillations of a mood, of a moment in the history of filmmaking, of a breed of imagination that, like the best of fairy tales, transcends the tides of taste and empire, and certainly of political correctness.
Consider The Four Feathers, produced in England in 1939, at Alexander Korda's London Films studios, where a family of Hungarian expatriates aspired to exalt their newly adopted country, its history and traditions, and also to out-Hollywood Hollywood. With this film, they realized both ambitions, in spades.
