Brian G. Hutton made two very different world war ii movies in the late sixties/early seventies starring Clint Eastwood. Both of which are the subject of this review and have been recently released as a double feature Blu-ray for us to enjoy. Having enjoyed both films in the past and seeing the lack of worthwhile double feature Blu-ray’s out, Kelly’s Heroes & Where Eagles Dare have the potential to fill the void.
Films 
Kelly’s Heroes and Where Eagles Dare are two very different films covering the second World War. Where Eagles Dare was one of the films that inspired Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Kelly’s Heroes creates the mould for Three Kings to take shape in thirty years later as well as one of the pieces of score “Tiger Tank” was also used in Inglourious Basterds; thus everything comes full circle.
Kelly’s Heroes is a tale of soldiers who overhear that there’s millions in Nazi bouillon ready for the plucking in enemy territories, thus they’re encouraged to ready a ragtag group of soldiers and go looking for the gold. The humorous journey involves crossing dangerous terrain and also trying to outrun their overseeing officers who hear that they’re in enemy territory but think they’re trying to run a covert mission and thus want the credit. The premise is rather amusing and unfortunately the long running time takes away from some of the excitement as the film drags a bit, some air could’ve been let out making the whole experience a bit more entertaining but that didn’t stop the film from making it on Channel 4’s top 100 war films at number 34.
Where Eagles Dare is a more serious take on the second world war film ethos, where we have a group of soldiers of MI:6 soldiers and an American Ranger (good ol’ Clint Eastwood) trying to rescue a captured ally, however as the mission progresses it becomes apparent that all is not what it seems and a traitor may be amidst.
Both films centre around different perspectives on the war, both are very far-fetched, whereas Kelly’s Heroes is a story which shows the army as an almost Laurel & Hardy –esque environment where mischief can go on with so much ease. Where Eagles Dare is a story of how easy it is to penetrate a heavily guarded German facility with ease, as Tarantino said in an interview; that was the last war of white people against white people, so language and accents played such a big role in being a tell as to who may or may not be a spy. So Where Eagles Dare tries to fool us into believe that Clint Eastwood is so great with the eccentricities and the particulars of the German language, pronunciations and inflections that he can simply gain access. Both films are great nonetheless.
Video 
Both of these film’s use the VC-1 1080p codec and are displayed in their original 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Both films’ video quality are indicative of their time; they both contain some grain issues, which is apparent in night time scenes (especially Where Eagles Dare), the colours are almost muted at times due to the limitations of the original film stock and possible due to aging of the original negative.
Kelly’s Heroes has a softness issue and at times the contrast causes some loss of detail as well, however the image is fairly clean. However I think that the lack of grain is due to the softness issue.
The colours like I mentioned before are fairly muted, skin tones come off reddish at times, but the colour palette does lend to a desolate atmosphere that most war flicks tend to prefer, although I believe that this was due to aging rather than a conscious decision.
Where Eagles Dare’s video quality has more grain issues then Kelly’s Heroes due to the aforementioned softness issue of Kelly’s Heroes but on the other hand there is some nice sharpness. The detail and sharpness is most notable during scenes where destroyed cities lay in piles of rubble, you can clearly see the lines of bricks and beams. For both films the video quality is above mediocre but not superior enough over the DVD version to warrant a double dip.
Audio 
Both films’ audio comes at us in DTS-HD 5.1 in English, have a mono French track and a stereo Spanish track. Also there are subtitles in all the aforementioned languages. Both films are about equal in terms of audio quality.
There is some flatness to the mix, which is common for films of the era, but at times there were a few dynamic showcases of low end and high end sounds. Being war films, it’s hard not to compare it to some of the recent releases, Saving Private Ryan’s mix comes to mind and unfortunately these classic catalogue releases can’t keep when compared to the fantastic mix of a film like that. The gunshots and explosions have a little power behind them, but I wish a updated mix was considered when releasing two great WWII flicks.
The dialogue comes through nicely and I never had an issue trying to hear anything. Some sound effects definitely have that “canned” sound to them, which makes it easy to spot the stuff added in foley. But overall it’s not a bad sounding set of films.
Special Features 
Considering the age of these films and the fact that they’re being packaged together to help boost sales of one another, I didn’t expect much from the special features. There’s a theatrical trailer for both films and a featurette on the making of Where Eagles Dare. The featurette isn’t very insightful and I found it to be a rather underwhelming watch, I expected a bit more depth, but again a lot times these double features are usually quick cash grabs so they’re slapped together pretty quickly.
Final Thoughts
Although the films have merit the technical qualities of the films and the lack of special features make this a rental at the most. If you already have the DVD’s of these films then I’d suggest keeping them, there’s nothing new found on the Blu-ray and the quality isn’t as much of an improvement to warrant buying again unless you’d want both films in one package to save space on the shelf. However if you’re interested in the film and are a newcomer then this may be a great rental to catch both flicks.
