Hindenburg, the [DVD]

Finally! This is the Stereo 2.0 DVD we Hindenburg buffs have been waiting for! This 1976 picture won an Academy Award for effects wizard Peter Berkos' incredible sound-effects. Alas, there has been no Region 2 DVD that does justice to the 70 mm Six-Track stereo audio track ... until now.

The difference between the mono VHS/DVD versions of this movie and the new Stereo 2.0 DVD release is incredible. THIS is how the movie was meant to be experienced!

The musical soundtrack by David Shire soars in stereo as the Hindenburg looms into view in the opening shot. Forget the actors, the airship is the REAL star of this movie. And the stereo fun really begins when the four diesel-powered propellers roar to life with a thunder when the Hindenburg lifts off from Frankfurt. The stereo sound is incredible.

And then there's the storm, with claps of thunder booming all around you as the airship fights her way out over the Atlantic.

The stereo sound recording creates a fabulous atmosphere inside the airship. Duraluminium struts creak and groan and guy-wires squeal against the backdrop of the roar of the motors -- with sounds coming from all sides. Any Hindenburg buff who has watched this movie in mono in the past has a real thrill in store. The stereo sound experience is like watching this film for the first time.

The aural high point, of course, is when the two crewmen are attempting to repair a hole in the port-side horizontal fin. The musical score combines with the sound effects to heighten tension, and when Capt. Pruss gives the order for full-power on all four motors and elevator up 5 degrees -- the stereo sound effects make you feel you are about to be blown off the fin yourself!

This is a "must" for any dirigible buff. You have watched this movie hundreds of times in "mono" and think you know it forwards and backwards. But unless you have seen it in "Stereo 2.0", you have never seen this movie the way it was meant to be experienced. Remember: this picture won only one Academy Award -- and that was for stereo sound effects!

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."

Anchor Bay's UK PAL DVD offers no extras, but the 2.35:1 widescreen transfer is much better than Universal's Region 1 NTSC disc.

I can remember seeing this at the cinema and I had not then seen the original newsreel, clips of which are included in this film, or the later documentary that investigated the disaster.

The story here is based upon the truth but with additions that add little to the story and these revolve around the on-board and hastily-arranged entertainment. Events such as that may well have occurred as there was a serious attempt to match the passenger experience to that on a luxury liner. Other sub-plots also embellish the facts.

There is no evidence of any conspiracy such as that portrayed and it is now generally accepted that static build-up on the skin of the craft as it passed through clouds and heavy weather in the hour or two before coming in to dock was dissipated to ground via the damp mooring lines as they were dragged along the tarmac.

Well-acted for the most part, with some questionable casting decisions.