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Ill Met by Moonlight AKA Night Ambush
R2 - United Kingdom - DD Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Samuel Scott (12th October 2013). |
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The Film
 ***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's final film together after an epic partnership that produced such classics as A Matter of Life and Death, The Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. On Nazi-occupied Crete, British officers Ferror (Dirk Bogarde) and Moss (David Oxley), aided by local patriots, are assigned the job of kidnapping German commander-in-chief Kreipe (Marina Goring). The operation, if successful, will be an incredible propaganda coup for the Allies; while the abduction goes smoothly, the resultant chase across the rocky Cretan landscape proves anything but.
Video
DD Home Entertainment's DVD release of Ill Met by Midnight is unfortunately not in the original aspect ratio of 1.66:1, but rather 1.78:1. It has been anamoprhically enhanced however, and looks quite good. Considering the feature is over fifty years old, there is not much damage to talk about here. There's some very occasional scratches, a little dirt every now and again, and the odd blemish, but for the majority of the runtime, it looks as though quite a lot of work has gone into restoring the print at some point. Blacks are surprisingly deep and solid, whilst the scale of shades is quite extensive. Often, older black and white movies can suffer from flare/glisten from filming outdoors, but there are no such problems here. This is likely the best the film has looked on home media to date, but it can certainly be improved upon. Hopefully, this will eventually be released as a Blu-ray. The disc is PAL, and the feature runs 100:04.
Audio
There is a single audio option available here: - English Dolby Digital 2.0 Dual Mono This mono track is of course as originally intended, but unfortunately it has a few problems. There are a few scenes, mainly at the beginning of the movie, where there is some crackle. When the narrator announces his first lines, there is some prominent hiss, but that doesn't affect later scenes too much. Dialogue is clear at all times, and there are no dropouts. Optional English subtitles have been included.
Extras
Just a theatrical trailer (2:43).
Overall
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