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Released by: The Film Detective
Released on: August 9th, 2022.
Director: Antonio Margheriti
Cast: Claude Rains, Bill Carter, Maya Brent, Umberto Orsini
Year: 1961
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Battle Of The Worlds – Movie Review:
Directed by Antonio Margheriti in 1961, Battle Of The Worlds introduces us to a pair of astronomers named Fred Steele (Umberto Orsini) and Eve Barnett (Maya Brent) who are employed by the High Command of Earth on a remote island in the middle of nowhere. Fred and Eve are madly in love and hope to get transferred to a new station, one that maybe isn’t as populated by oddball scientists as this one, and plan to get married soon.
Those plans are tossed aside when the station’s radar picks up a bizarre, unknown signal. Fred talks it over with associates Professor Cornfield (John Stacy), Professor Benson (Claude Rains) and their weirdly psychic secretary Mrs. Collins (Carol Danell) and they all assume it’s just a space storm of some sort but Benson knows better and quickly figures out that something is up, something that could very well throw the planets off of their axis’.
As time passes, they realize that this being is actually a lost planet of some sort. Commander Bob Cole (Bill Carter), the man in charge of High Command’s base on Mars inspects and almost pays the ultimate price when forced to tussle with a strong magnetic field. Meanwhile, as the planet seems to be on a crash course with Earth itself, chaos erupts. To set things right, Bob teams up with his wife Cathy (Jacqueline Derval), their son Lewis (Massimo Righi) and a random guy named Boyd (Jim Dolen) to head back into space and destroy this being dubbed 'The Outsider' before it collides with Earth - but what they don't count on is how the planet will fight back!
Every bit as dopey as it sounds, Battle Of The Worlds is a charming slice of low budget sci-fi from the boom years of the genre’s popularity in its native Italy. Margheriti directs with a good bit of flair and style, using miniatures effectively and attempting, sometimes successfully, to impress us with low budget effects set pieces and colorful sets and costumes. Never mind the fact that they’ve clearly been put together on the cheap, or that sometimes the interiors of the spaceship look to have been made with tinfoil, it all somehow works in spite of itself.
Set to a solid score from composter Mario Migliardi and featuring decent, if never amazing, cinematography from Marcello Masciocchi, the acting is pretty fun even if the script is hokey and goofy. There are interesting ideas at play here, as the movie explores the two romances central to its plot and the differences that exist between them, all while positing on the merits of human life and its relation to what else might be out there. Claude Rains is the best of the batch here, bringing some weight and some seriousness to his role that the rest of the cast can’t quite match. Still, Carol Danell and Maya Brent are fun to look at it Umberto Orsini and John Stacy both turn in decent work. Bill Carter, who didn’t do a whole lot more than this film with only a few bit part credits and minor B-movies to his name, makes for a likeable enough hero.
Battle Of The Worlds – Blu-ray Review:
Generally this AVC encoded 1080p transfer, framed at 1.85.1 and taking up 21.1GBS of space on the 25GB disc and restored from a 35mm archival print, looks good if never amazing. That said, there are spots where contrast looks a bit iffy and detail is softer than you might want. In other scenes, detail gets stronger and contrast looks fine. Some minor compression artifacts do show up here and there but there is very little print damage noticeable. Colors can be a bit flat and lean green at times. This transfer won't floor you, but it's decent enough and it definitely does take advantage of the enhanced resolution that Blu-ray offers over DVD.
The main audio option for the feature is an English language 16-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track. Subtitles are provided in English and Spanish. No problems here, the audio quality is quite good and it provides some depth to the score and the sound effects used throughout the movie. This isn't the most bombastic mix you'll ever hear but the levels are balanced and the clarity is fine.
Extras start with an audio commentary by author/film historian Justin Humphreys. It’s a good talk, well-researched and full of facts and trivia about the making of the movie. He gives us a good overview of Margheriti’s career with an emphasis on his low budget sci-fi output, compares this picture to some of his other efforts in the genre and details the biographies and filmographies of the different cast and crew members affiliated with the making of the movie.
From there, check out A Cinematic Outsider: The Fantastical Worlds of Antonio Margheriti, a new documentary short from Ballyhoo Motion Pictures. This thirty-one piece features narration from Tim Lucas and it goes over how he first came to see the feature before then going on to talk about the director's life and career in both sci-fi and horror productions, his penchant for the gothic, what makes his work interesting and quite a bit more. It’s quite interesting and a nice addition to the disc.
This release also comes packaged with a full color insert booklet that contains an essay by Don Stradley entitled Margheriti’s World that offers some welcome background information on the film and the man who made it.
Battle Of The Worlds – The Final Word:
Battle Of The Worlds is a pretty entertaining vintage Italian science fiction picture made better by Rains’ presence and, of course, Margheriti’s creative directorial choices and always enjoyable penchant for using miniatures as well as he does. The Blu-ray release from The Film Detective isn’t the best looking disc you’re ever going to see but it is a more than watchable high definition presentation with a pair of decent extra features exploring the movie’s history and that of its director.