Battle of Britain DVD

[JBoyle]

Sorry if this is old news to some...

Earlier this year it was released in Europe,now the extra-filled DVD of "The Battle of Britain" has been released in North America (NTSC format).

I bought mine at COSTCO for $17.49 (about 10 pounds) and I'm looking forward to enjoying the extras...alternative film score, commentaries, "making of" features, etc.

Christmas came a bit early...now if I could get the "Making of ..." book about the filming.

BTW: Accorting to James Gilbert's excellent 1969 book "The Great Planes"
at the tilmr of filming he estimated only 20 Spitfires were airworthy...so things have improved in the last 35 years.

[TimAPNY]

Glad I have held off on buying it, I back of buying DVDs when I start seeing them on sale everywhere. That seems to be a good sign somethig better is coming out.

[Mike]

Christmas came a bit early...now if I could get the "Making of ..." book about the filming.

Then I've got some good news for you: Robert Rudhall's book is due to be re-published soon!

http://www.victorybooks.co.uk/new.htm

[Dennis Bergstrom]

There are also a number of used copies available on http://www.abebooks.com of the 1969 book The Battle of Britain: the Making of the Movie by Leonard Mosley.

Dennis

[Mudge]

At Flying Legends this year, there was an interview with the Director, Guy Hamilton, that was quite interesting. He recounted much of the often wild, occasionly weird, sometimes dangerous and frequently humorous stuff that went on during the filming.

Mudge the BoB fan

[CH2Tdriver]

I just got around to watching the first issue of the MGM BOB DVD that I picked up in Best Buy for $9.99. I watched it on my new Sony 36" flatscreen tv with the 5.1 channel surround sound cranked up of course.

Now considering that my previous experience watching it was on a VHS copy off of tv when it was on TNT or something like that, all I can say is WOW! The DVD is of course in the large screen format as originally shown. What suprised me was the little details the I picked up that I never noticed before. You can practicaly count rivets due to the clarity.

Having gone to Duxford this past May also helped. I kept picking out buildings in the scenes and saying, "Yep I was there". Too bad they actually had to blow up that hangar though! I'm sure today IWM could really use the display space rather than have to hang planes from the ceiling when they open the new super hangar.

My question is are the extra features really worth purchasing the new copy? What do you get beside the different score? Is the making of feature show any footage or just interviews?

Peter B

This is the US Amazon link to the new version of the DVD.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000AS ... d&v=glance

A reviwer on amazon said

Several documentary type programs, added commentary and even restored original musical score. I recommend this to everyone who may be interested in this historic event. (and especially to those who may already own either the VHS or earlier DVD)

We might ask the UK contingent, most of whom will own this DVD already about the aviation content of Disc 2

And some bits and pieces from Amazon and IMDB

The present (2004) US DVD copies that have different main titles also have slightly different end titles with a different Churchill quote ("The end of the beginning" rather than the one about "the few"). Since William Walton originally was supposed to write the entire score, one might also presume that these alternate main credits were the ones originally intended before Maurice Binder and Ron Goodwin (whose Battle of Britain Theme over the end credits have been replaced with Walton music) was brought in.

The 2004 U.K. DVD release features two audio versions of the film: the original theatrical release audio featuring Ron Goodwin's score, and a secondary audio track with the restored William Walton/Malcolm Arnold score. A surviving member of the film crew painstakingly tracked down and restored the Walton session recordings.
The 2004 UK DVD issue also restore the "original" Maurice Binder Main Title credits.

Sir William Walton was first hired to write the score, which would have been his last. Because of his advanced age, he turned to friend Sir Malcolm Arnold for assistance with the orchestrations (which Arnold supplied, as well as writing additional cues). Producer Harry Saltzman rejected the score, stating it wasn't long enough. Ron Goodwin was hired to write a new score, but when told he would be replacing one of Walton's, his first reaction was, "Why?" Goodwin eventually wrote the replacement score, but Laurence Olivier threatened to have his name removed from the credits if none of Walton's original was used. For this reason, Walton's original music was kept for the "Battle in the Air" sequence towards the end of the film.

Rob / Kansan