The Hindenburg
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Movie Reviews of The Hindenburg
Movie Review: The story is enticing, although a bit weak in scope...
Summary: 3 Stars
Based on true historic events and some conjectured documents come to light in recent years, this may be one of the possible reasons of the catastrophy that befell the legendary "Hindenburg", pride and joy of the Third Reich at the time.
The cast is stellar for its times, including George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, Gig Young, Charles Durning and a young William Atherton and many others.
But alas, George C. Scott, as a German intelligence Officer is a bit weak and compared with other roles he masterfully played, such as Patton (twice, in "Patton" and "The Last Days of Patton"), or even Mussolini, totally seems out of place. He seems bored with the part, rather than playing it to the hilt.
Anne Bancroft as a Jewish German aristocrat, fleeing her home country, plays her role well, but you never get the sense that she truly has to fight for her life.
The rest of the cast is professional, but lacks luster.
Even the actors playing the Gestapo henchmen, seem totally miscast and weak.
Except for a couple of very tense scenes towards the end of the movie, everything seems centered on the "flying" model of the Hindenburg.
At the end, and thank Heaven's for that, the producers decided to include some vintage - cleaned up - material of the actual disaster, intertwining it with studio filmed recreations of the panic and mayhem it caused.
In scope, the picture could have been a masterpiece, if only the characters had been recast and the story a bit more thrilling.
Suppose they had cast Maximilian Schell as the Intelligence Officer and Derren Nesbitt (remember him as SS-Sturmbannführer Von Hapen in "Where Eagles Dare" or as Colonel Hartmann in "The Naked Runner"), or even Karl-Otto Alberty (as Major von Diepel in "Battle of the Bulge", or the German Tiger Tank Commander in "Kelly's Heroes") as his Gestapo Nemesis, and you would have had a true and murderous Thriller in your hands.
Also, although I admire William Atherton's work as an actor, he simply never takes a bite at his role, as the main saboteur suspect. I am sure that Andrew Robinson, Ian Bannen or Tom Courtney would have made a far more convincing suspect.
All in all this is a watchable movie, although it takes a lot of liberties with historical facts, even if just down memory lane, to meet again some old glories at their peak of their respective careers.
It would also have helped, if before transferring this movie to DVD, they had cleaned up the special effects, which remain untouched and it shows.
The sound is mere Stereo, when we all know that the original presentation was in a Surround sound, which greatly enhanced the passages of the overflying Hindenburg and the sounds of its engines passing by.
A very weak effort by Universal to present its own glories in their digitalized format.
Like "Midway" and "MacArthur", Universal just slams their pictures on DVD as is.
They don't care to clean up defects, streaks, jumps, or even to check color continuity. Their movies, especially those of the mid-seventies, which especially in their epic and monumental ones, were originally produced with a Sensurround process are simply transferred with a 2-channel mono process.
While I can understand that reprocessing multi-channel Sensurround sound can be an expensive affair, especially when editing it with new digital 5.1 Dolby sound, and perhaps even in DTS process, I as a marketing consultant, would refrain them from releasing such movies in the state they are in nowadays, unless we had the money to restore them as they originally were shown.
Also missing from this release, and which was included in the LaserDisc of many moons ago, is a Black & White 60 minutes documentary on the evolution of the Zeppelin and the full story of the historic Hindenburg flights.
Why this is suddenly missing, is as much your guess as mine.
But for the price, what could you ask more? It is just 9 dollars, and for this price anything is right, although I would have wished for something more, even if at a higher price.
This choice is yours. Buy it or leave it, and hope that one day Universal may wake up and smell the coffee...
Movie Review: An interesting conspiracy thriller in a disastrous DVD transfer
Summary: 3 Stars
No film that Pauline Kael despised on principle (in this case the principle that it was directed by Robert Wise) can be all bad, and so it proves with The Hindenburg, which falls somewhere between a countdown-to-catastrophe period political thriller a la Tora! Tora! Tora!, 70s conspiracy movie and by-the-numbers disaster movie. It's as a disaster movie that it fails the most: the destruction of the Hindenburg was simply too quick to make for much of a climax, and playing the famous black and white newsreel footage intercut with unimpressive cutaways to the less than stellar cast at the end feels like a real cheat, especially since it's often clumsily handled. On the plus side it offers a clever screen story from legendary Monday Mystery Movie TV scribes William Levinson and Richard Link that sees George C. Scott's reluctant Luftwaffe Colonel sent by Goebbels on the airship's last voyage to uncover a plot to destroy the ship and thus embarrass the Nazi regime that uses it for their own propaganda. While the real investigations in Germany and America give the film some momentum, unfortunately the search for suspects among this particular sedately paced Airship of Fools is less than urgent: indeed, it's pretty obvious who is behind the plot and how Scott will react when he uncovers him.
That the supporting cast is more solid than glittering doesn't help: Anne Bancroft's aristocratic old flame has little to do but bemoan the way the Nazis have taken over her estate, cheat at cards and smoke the kind of cigarettes you don't get over the counter, but still manages to make more of her part than the script does; Roy Thinnes does well as the Gestapo man hitting on a young Jewish passenger because "I'm anxious to try one before they run out"; Richard Dysart does the good German wondering what's happening to his country routine as one of the owners (who historically was more than happy to cosy up to the Nazis if it was good for business); Charles Durning keeps the glowering to a minimum as the pro-Nazi captain; Gig Young is clearly drunk in a couple of scenes (yes, I know he's playing a drunk, but he slurs even when he's supposed to be sober half the time); while star-that-never-was William Atherton lurks in the rigging moodily before saving the ship from the danger that his own incompetence puts it in the first place. Shame they couldn't have afforded a couple of British actors for Burgess Meredith and Rene Auberjonois' parts. However, it does boast one of Scott's more natural and likeably underplayed performances before his penchant for drunken Long John Silver impersonations took over, managing to keep it all together until things go bang. The production design is excellent, Albert Whitlock's special effects, while dated, are often impressive and there's a lovely score by David Shire that's recently been released as an extremely limited edition CD. And it's hard to write off a film entirely that has one nervous passenger suggest "Next time, let's take the Titanic."
Sadly, Universal's DVD is an appalling transfer: it may be in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, but it looks like a public domain videocassette, with ghosting, edge enhancement problems and serious problems dealing with the airship's struts. It's watchable, but added to the lack of extras (aside from some production notes), it makes this one a reluctant purchase for the film's more ardent fans only until it gets remastered. Alternately, you might seek out Anchor Bay's UK Region 2 PAL DVD, which boasts a much better 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with a fine stereo soundtrack (though no extras).
Movie Review: Good attempt to dramatize the Hindenburg disaster...
Summary: 3 Stars
"Hindenburg" is a pretty good film that unfortunately falls a bit flat. The concept, sets, effects, and the cast are all excellent, but there just seems to be some element missing. The cast is populated with famous faces from yesterday, a standard practice in all 70's disaster movies. Here we have the incomparable Gig Young, Burgess Meredith, Charles Durning, Richard A. Dysart, Robert Clary (late from "Hogan's Heroes" at this point), future Star Trek actor Rene Auberjonois, and Roy Thinnes. And of course, we have Anne Bancroft and George C. Scott. Scott and Thinnes really do their best, too (look at their confrontation scene when Thinnes' character mentions Scott's dead son!).
Still, the cast just seems to be shuffling through this one, with little or no true tension generated, other than an emergency repair by some crewmen who must venture out onto the hull of the ship (an act that was accomplished, but never happened on Hindenburg's last trip).
The end result is somewhat sparse, even strangely emotionless for the most part. Despite the overall blandness in tone, the film is compelling to watch anyway (thanks in large part to the cast and the effects).
Knowing as we do what will eventually happen at Lakehurst, one cannot help but marvel at the ironic line the Hindenburg's Captain Proust utters several times throughout the course of film. In regards to the United States' bad luck with dirigibles he remarks, "It's no wonder they lose all their airships."
The ending of the film seems to mystify some viewers today, but it is, in reality, an incredibly artistic, stylish (and daring), choice on the part of director Robert Wise and the producers. Capturing the action in black and white, with actual newsreel footage of the disaster added, and freezing images in place, Wise makes a stunning montage of the disaster and of the cast members as they flee the impending peril. Even though the end result is only partially effective, the montage makes an artistic statement nevertheless, the kind that Hollywood avoids today. With noisy garbage like "XXX" and "Ace Ventura" littering our cineplexes, it's nice to know that at one time in the recent past, there was room in Hollywood for some creative and bold artistry in films! Would that it could become fashionable again!
An interesting side note here is the night time launch of the Hindenburg. The ship is lit with searchlights that create odd, circular patches of light on the airship's hull. Five years later, Wise directed the critically panned "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". In that film, the Starship Enterprise is lit in a similar fashion, with spotlights on the ship's various insignia that create pools of light from odd angles.
Movie Review: Effective dramatic recreation leading up to the Hindenburg crash....
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Hindenburg" (1975) was directed by Robert Wise (The West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Andromeda Strain). The movie covers pretty much all of the theories about the crash of the Hindenburg from the bomb theory to the leaking of hydrogen gas.The film begins with a Universal Newsreel that gives a history view of the lighter-than-air craft, and ends with actual black and white footage of the crash which is weaved with invented footage. George C. Scott portrays Colonel Franz Ritter who has been placed on board the Hindenburg with the intention of protecting the air ship since numerous threats have surfaced preceding the flight. The film creates a sort of perfect storm of problems that possibly besieged the flight which led to its fate. All in all the film is an effective dramatic portrayal of the speculated events, with perhaps the real highlight being that one has the chance to see a recreation of the mammoth air ship (245 meters in length) from the outside, and within its interior labyrinth of metal corridors that ran through the frame. The creaking frame seemed to portend to its fatal demise.
The DVD has not been remastered, and is very grainy, as it resembles a VHS digital transfer. There are many instances of dust showing, but the colors and black levels appear quite good.
Movie Review: Technically excellent but the story is pretty pro-forma
Summary: 3 Stars
The best aspect of this film is the cinematography--the viewer truly gets the feeling that he or she is cruising across the Atlantic on the Hindenburg. That is no small feat, and this film pulls it off brilliantly. Unfortunately, the storyline does not live up to the special effects. George C. Scott competently portrays a German Luftwaffe intelligence officer assigned to prevent sabotage to the Hindenburg, as it makes a cruise between Nazi Germany (1937) and New Jersey. In actuality no one has ever proven the cause of the famous explosion that destroyed the Hindenburg, but this film's story involves sabotage. Other than Scott, the characters never really come alive, and the storyline plods along to its pre-ordained conclusion. This is a watchable film, but probably not one that many viewers will watch more than once. RJB.