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Released by: Twilight Time
Released on: June 9, 2015
Director: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Tom Courtenay, Donald Pleasance, Joanna Pettet, Philippe Noiret, Charles Gray, Coral Browne, John Gregson, Nigel Stock, Christopher Plummer, Michael Goodliffe, Gordon Jackson, Patrick Allen, Harry Andrews, Howard Vernon
Year: 1967
Purchase From Screen Archives
The Movie:
A German agent posing as a prostitute in Nazi-occupied Warsaw is savagely murdered. Abwehr (Defense) Major Grau is called in to investigate and quickly learns that the killer wore a pair of red-striped general's uniform pants. Believing that one of three generals currently stationed in Warsaw—Gabler, Kahlenberg, or Tanz—is guilty, he oversteps his rank in an effort to find justice for the murdered woman. His comrades warn him to give up the case, and one of the generals has him transferred to Paris. A couple of years later, the three generals again come into Grau's orbit, and the murder of another prostitute leads Grau to the long sought-after culprit. However, shock waves from a failed plot to assassinate Hitler thwart an arrest. It isn't until two decades after the end of the war that the killer is at last brought to an abrupt brand of justice.
The Night of the Generals was produced by Sam Spiegel, who had an eye for great stories. He had already overseen some of cinema's most popular and acclaimed films, including The African Queen (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Suddenly Last Summer (1959), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). In Hans Helmut Kirst's 1962 novel Die Nacht der Generale, which in 1965 was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America, Spiegal found his next great film. Joseph Kessel and Paul Dehn wrote the script, and the film went into production in Europe in 1966 with a mostly British cast and crew.
While The Night of the Generals remains Spiegel's film in almost every way, the often overlooked director Anatole Litvak deserves credit for its visual success. Born in Ukraine in 1902, Litvak entered the German studio system in 1930. With the success of his 1936 film Mayerling, he was invited to Hollywood, where he signed a contract with Warner Brothers. The Night of the Generals came toward the end of his forty-year career, which included such revered classics as Sorry, Wrong Number and The Snake Pit (both 1948). Three years after The Night of the Generals was released, he would direct his last film (The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun), but Generals proved for all intents and purposes his artistic swan song.
Some critics have called the film workmanlike and visually flat. In fact, Litvak manages a high degree of subtle visual flair, much of it evident in the beautiful patches of color that dot landscapes of somber brown and drab green. The scene in which flamethrowers are used to torch a building housing resistance fighters is a standout, as are various external sequences shot on location in Germany, Poland, and France.
Skillful direction and superb writing aside, the number one reason to watch the film is for its world-class performances from stalwarts of stage and screen. A relatively young Omar Sharif, fairly fresh off his career-defining role in Doctor Zhivago (1965), steals many a scene as Grau, while Tom Courtenay and Joanna Pettet are appealing as young lovers divided by class. Smaller roles are filled by the likes of Christopher Plummer, Gordon Jackson, and Patrick Allen, and even uncredited roles are essayed by the likes of Howard Vernon and Valentine Dyall.
But it's the actors playing the eponymous generals who make it all work. No doubt Spiegel hoped to recreate the success of Lawrence of Arabia with the casting of Peter O'Toole as Tanz. The only problem (and really, the only problem with the film overall) is Litvak's apparent inability to hold O'Toole's overacting in check; it's an over-the-top performance better suited to a Corman Poe entry than a serious and thoughtful dissertation on war's ability to turn men into monsters. It's a display made even more embarrassing when placed beside those of O'Toole's immediate costars, Donald Pleasance and Charles Gray. (Pleasance had a tendency to overact as well, but here he reins it in, while Gray is his usual acerbic, reliable self.) Thankfully, O'Toole's hammy histrionics do little harm to what emerges as a great film, a tightly-done mystery thriller/war drama hybrid that credits both genres.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Twilight Time once again presents a Columbia-lensed title on Blu-ray in high-definition 1080p. The disc is MPEG-4 AVC encoded, with the film in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Sony's new 4K transfer is a sight to behold, with an organic grain field that is neither obtrusive nor invisible. Detail is solid, particularly in location shots where the streets of Paris or Warsaw, with their historic architecture and sights, are in full view. Some reviews have complained about the drab colors, but this is a product of Litvak's direction. The film intentionally tends toward browns, grays, and fir greens, with Litvak usually adding a single touch of color to many frames. For example, in the flamethrower sequence, the image is mostly burnt sienna, but a single bright green plant framed by the window of a deserted building stands in relief against the cold, sterile world of Nazi-occupied Poland. Other viewers have complained that the transfer results in ashen faces and reds verging on purple. We here at Rock! Shock! Pop! did notice a few ashen faces, but reds are often bright and colorful, leaving us to wonder whether some of those pale, ashen faces were a product of makeup rather than poor color timing. In many ways, the image is very similar to what can be found on Twilight Time's BD releases of A Man for All Seasons (1966), To Sir, with Love (1967), and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), which is to say that it's excellent, and most viewers will be quite pleased with what they see.
There are two audio options: the film's original English-language soundtrack in DTS-HD Master Audio Mono and an isolated score in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Both tracks are clean with no hiss, drop-out, or other issues. Sound is a little boxy in the former, and the remastering reveals the limitations of the original elements. (The dubbing on a cabaret singer, for example, is atrocious until a sudden Nazi shakedown cuts the performance mercifully short.) The 2.0 track, which is comprised solely of Maurice Jarre's gorgeous score, is more robust and well worth a listen. For those who are deaf or hearing impaired, subtitles are included. Unfortunately, Twilight Time has not provided its usual audio commentary featuring film historians Nick Redman, Julie Kirgo, and a guest, but Kirgo does provide some fantastic liner notes in an eight-page insert.
Extras are sparse but do include the film's original theatrical trailer, which runs a little over four minutes, and a teaser, which runs approximately a minute and a half. Both clearly have been given hi-def transfers with some restoration.
There is also the usual Twilight Time catalogue featuring up-to-date (as of press time) listings of which titles are still available and which have fallen into moratorium.
The Final Word:
It's almost impossible to describe to those who have not seen it just how good The Night of the Generals is. A mystery thriller of epic proportions, it grabs the viewer's interest from its first frame and does not let go for nearly three hours. The overwhelming majority of the performances are excellent, as are the script and direction. Sony and Twilight Time have given the film the respect it deserves, with a new Blu-ray that should win it a number of new fans.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
