Murphy's War

[yoloswegmaster]

WORLD WAR TWO IS ENDING, WORLD WAR MURPHY HAS JUST BEGUN…

Iconic actor Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, The Stunt Man) joins forces with director Peter Yates (Bullit, The Friends of Eddie Coyle) in this blisteringly acerbic, wildly entertaining film about the absurdity of war.

During the last days of WWII, the merchant ship ‘Mount Kyle’ is sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Venezuela and the sailors machine-gunned in the water. Only Murphy (O’Toole) survives, making his way to shore where he is nursed to health by Dr. Hayden (Sian Phillips), a pacifist Quaker who runs a missionary settlement near the mouth of the Orinoco River. When Murphy discovers that the U-boat is now hiding further up the river using the jungle for cover, he becomes obsessed with retribution and begins a one man war to sink the German U-boat, no matter the cost.

With a script by Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night, The Poseidon Adventure), cinematography by the legendary Douglas Slocombe (The Italian Job, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and a supporting cast that includes Philippe Noiret (La Grande Bouffe, Cinema Paradiso) and Horst Janson (Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, Shout at the Devil), Murphy’s War is an underseen gem.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
- High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
- Original lossless mono audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Running Out of War, a new visual essay by film critic David Cairns
- A Great Adventure, an archive interview with assistant director John Glen
- Dougie, Chic and Me, and archive interview with focus puller Robin Vidgeon
- One Man Army, an archive interview with film critic Sheldon Hall
- Theatrical trailer
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain
- Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critic Philip Kemp

[domino harvey]

It appears the “archive” interviews are from Indicator’s release — I can’t remember, was Paramount the label that held rights for any new extras a boutique label produced on their discs, rather than the label? I thought it was Sony/Columbia, but I guess it could be more than one studio doing it too

[MichaelB]

HandMade owns the UK rights, Paramount the US rights. Hence the Indicator release being UK-only.

[Drucker]

Meaningfully different color timing than the Indicator release according to DVD Beaver screenshots.

[MichaelB]

It's a different rightsholder on either side of the Atlantic, so Arrow will have used Paramount's master.

I also gather that the subtitles translating the German are burned in, which I suspect is also true of the master.

The European master that fuelled the Indicator release was unsubtitled (presumably because non-UK/Irish releases actively wouldn't want an English translation), so I created optional translation subtitles in a similar font to the theatrical ones (the default playback option, but they can be switched off), and because they were optional that meant that I could also offer combined SDH/translation subtitles in the usual font.

[tenia]

Oof, that's some magenta pushed HD master.

[AxeYou]

[...] so I created optional translation subtitles in a similar font to the theatrical ones [...]

Interesting. I thought each label/studio had a fixed font they pick for every release. I guess this is an exceptional case. I also thought the labels simply supplied text, timecodes, and a font to the authoring house, who would generate the PGS.

On that topic Michael, I've always wondered why subtitles on Blu-rays are so absurdly large and obstructs a sizable portion of the picture. When compared to DCPs of foreign language films, the proportion of subtitle to picture size is astounding on Blu-rays.

I do tend to turn the subs on since English is not my native tongue, especially when more eccentric accents are involved. But they block so much of the picture. Fortunately with my UB820, I can shift them down into the black bar when there is one. But this often results in another nuisance when labels try to be helpful by moving the subs to the top to avoid blocking on-screen text at the bottom—I'd end up with giant subs right in the middle of the screen : )

[MichaelB]

Unless I'm specifically trying to mimic the look of theatrical subs, as I did on Murphy's War, Gray Lady Down, Geronimo, The Pillow Book and one or two others, I use the standard house-style font that's been in place since before I started at Indicator, and which I believe is in use across several labels (Arrow, for instance).

And here's a random freeze-frame of two-line Indicator subs in practice, so others can assess whether hyperbolic terms like "so absurdly large" and "obstructs a sizable portion of the picture" are really justified.

[AxeYou]

Apologies for the unintended dramatizing! My reference point has been text-based subs on streaming services or desktop players that are easily tucked away.

Your example still a bit large for my personal taste, but I can see how others can find it reasonable.

Also I’m definitely not calling out any work you’ve done! Just curious about how the font size came to be. I find Universal’s subs to be especially obstructive, not helped by the fact that they like to align the subs with the character on screen. This is 25-30% of the picture’s height:

[MichaelB]

I've never overseen subs with more than two lines, and they only display elsewhere in the frame if there's an obvious reason - usually onscreen text such as credits, although in one case I moved a subtitle in Arrow's Closely Observed Trains because it was obscuring a subtle half-smile at the end of a scene that I felt was absolutely pivotal. (It's the scene where the mother is ranting away - hence the need for subtitles - but her apparently terminally depraved and corrupted daughter doesn't seem the least bit bothered.)