HOPE AND GLORY [1987 / 2017] [Blu-ray + Digital Download] [UK Release] An Energetic, Imaginative, and Richly Human Drama set in Suburban London during the Second World War!
From acclaimed director John Boorman comes a tale of hope and courage set amongst the rubble-strewn streets of bomb-ravaged London during the Second World War.
Seen through the eyes of a young boy, the “fireworks” provided by the Blitz every night are as exciting as they are terrifying. His family do not see things in quite the same way and, as the bombs continue to drop, their will to survive brings them closer together. The nightly raids do not provide the only drama, however, as his sister falls for a Canadian airman and, finding her life turned upside down, soon discovers how valuable the bonds of family can become.
‘HOPE AND GLORY’ paints a picture of a world riven by conflict and yet united in resistance to the creeping tide of war that seems to be marching ever closer. Wining numerous awards worldwide and nominated for both BAFTAs and Academy Awards® and this film is truly a modern classic. Narrated by John Boorman.
FILM FACT No.1: Awards and Nomination: 1987 British Society of Cinematographers: Win: Best Cinematography Award for Philippe Rousselot. 1987 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards: Win: Best Picture. Win: Best Director for John Boorman. Win: Best Screenplay for John Boorman. 2nd place: Best Cinematography for Philippe Rousselot. 1987 New York Film Critics Circle Awards: 3rd place: Best Film. 3rd place: Best Director for John Boorman. 3rd place: Best Screenplay for John Boorman. 1988 Academy Awards®: Nominated: Best Picture for John Boorman. Nominated: Best Director for John Boorman. Nominated: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for John Boorman. Nominated: Best Cinematography for Philippe Rousselot. Nominated: Best Art Direction and Set Decoration for Anthony Pratt and Joanne Woollard. 1988 Golden Globes: Win: Best Motion Picture in a Comedy or Musical. Nominated: Best Director in a Motion Picture for John Boorman. Nominated: Best Screenplay in a Motion Picture for John Boorman. 1988 BAFTA® Awards: Win: Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Susan Wooldridge. Nominated: Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Ian Bannen. Nominated: Best Actress for Sarah Miles. Nominated: Best Cinematography for Philippe Rousselot. Nominated: Best Costume Design for Shirley Russell. Nominated: Best Direction for John Boorman. Nominated: Best Editing for Ian Crafford. Nominated: Best Film for John Boorman. Nominated: Best Make Up Artist for Anna Dryhurst. Nominated: Best Original Screenplay for John Boorman. Nominated: Best Production Design for Anthony Pratt. Nominated: Best Score for Peter Martin. Nominated: Best Sound for John Hayward, Peter Handford and Ron Davis. 1988 Evening Standard British Film Awards: Win: Best Film for John Boorman. Win: Best Technical/Artistic Achievement for Anthony Pratt. 1988 London Critics Circle Film Awards: Win: Film of the Year. 1988 Writers Guild of America: Nominated: Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for John Boorman.
FILM FACT No.2: The main film set was built on the disused runway at the former Wisley Airfield in Surrey and other scenes by the river were shot near Shepperton Lock that is on the River Thames, England. The "newsreel" footage shown in the local cinema contains scenes from the 1969 ‘Battle of Britain’ film.
Cast: Sebastian Rice-Edwards, Geraldine Muir, Sarah Miles, David Hayman, Sammi Davis, Derrick O'Connor, Susan Wooldridge, Jean-Marc Barr, Ian Bannen, Annie Leon, Jill Baker, Amelda Brown, Katrine Boorman, Colin Higgins, Shelagh Fraser, Gerald James, Barbara Pierson, Nicky Taylor, Jodie Andrews, Nicholas Askew, Jamie Bowman, Colin Dale, David Parkin, Carlton Taylor, Sara Langton, Imogen Cawrse, Susan Brown, Charley Boorman, Peter Hughes, Ann Thornton, Andrew Bicknell, Christine Croshaw, William Armstrong, Arthur Cox, John Boorman (Narrator) (uncredited), Neville Chamberlain (archive footage) (uncredited), Graham Cole (uncredited), Vic Flick (uncredited) and King George VI (archive footage) (uncredited)
Director: John Boorman
Producers: Edgar F. Gross, Jake Eberts, John Boorman and Michael Dryhurst
Screenplay: John Boorman
Composer: Peter Martin
Cinematography: Philippe Rousselot, A.F.C., A.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audio: English: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo
French: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo
German: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo
Português: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Português, Spanish, Swedish and Turkey
Running Time: 112 minutes
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Columbia Pictures / Nelson Entertainment / Goldcrest / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘HOPE AND GLORY’ [1987] is an utterly charming examination of civilian life during wartime Britain. John Director Boorman based the film's screenplay on his own experiences in and around London during the blitz. Just a boy at the time, John Boorman found himself regularly bedazzled by the action unfolding around him, whether it involved night-time buzz-bomb attacks, captured German pilots, or his sister’s escapades with assorted Allied soldiers. Although ‘HOPE AND GLORY’ was nominated for a handful of Oscars® and made a bit of money when it was originally released, it remains one of the more unjustly under-appreciated films of the 1980s. It's inviting from beginning to end and totally different to the polar opposite of the film ‘Deliverance’ [1972].
Director John Boorman's charming protagonist is the 9-year-old Bill Rohan [Sebastian Rice-Edwards], a content young boy whose family is suddenly forced to deal with the fact that Britain is under nightly attack by the German Nazi regime. The Second World War has turned his life into a chaotic series of incidents that range from the humorous to the horrifying. His father Clive Rohan [David Hayman], volunteers for service, even though he isn't legally required to do so, leaving Bill Rohan, his younger sister Sue Rohan [Geraldine Muir], his blossoming teenage sister Dawn Rohan [Sammi Davis], and in the sole care of all three children of their emotional mother Grace Rohan [Sarah Miles].
This leads to a series of winning episodes that eventually coalesce into an emotionally charged narrative. Bill Rohan grows up considerably quickly during the war time adventure, but the same could not be said of every other member of his family. Bill Rohan’s sister finds love, and his mother re-visits an old flame. Even his old Grandfather George [Ian Bannen] comes out of it a changed man. It takes a while to get used to the idea that ‘HOPE AND GLORY’ isn't going to be a straight forward tragedy. The story contains moments of sadness and death, just as one would expect from a war-based drama film. But John Boorman is far more interested in recreating the sense of adventure that he felt while cavorting through the bombed-out ruins of his neighbourhood.
A great deal of time and energy went into re-creating the street that John Boorman grew up on as a child. For lack of a fitting stand-in, Rosehill Avenue was constructed virtually from scratch, but in a rather unique manner. Anthony Pratt, John Boorman's head of production design, created an ingenious set that relied a great deal on optical illusions. The houses that stand closest to the camera, are facades built on scaffoldings. The houses that fade into the distance down the way are actually painted in perspective to suggest a long road; and some of the "houses" were only a few feet high. There was also a cut-out of the London skyline in the distance, as well as a moveable St. Paul's Cathedral. Nowadays, vaguely unconvincing digital effects would surely trump the possibility of such brilliant handiwork, but here the effects are seamless.
Director John Boorman, as you might suspect while watching the film ‘HOPE AND GLORY,’ was based on many of the characters on his real-life relatives. John Boorman wasn't too sure how his aged mother would react when she saw herself portrayed in a motion picture, and, as John Boorman wrote in his autobiography, it didn't go quite as well as he had hoped: "As the crowd poured out from the premiere, press and television surrounded my mother, demanding to know how his mother felt about seeing her life on the screen. “It was quite good in its way,” was her faint praise, “but personally I prefer a good thriller.” John Boorman suspected that the film had stirred up long dormant, conflicted emotional feelings in his mother. "She enjoyed the attention," he wrote, "but . . . felt I had stolen something from her. His mother never said as much, but I knew it was so." But all in all, the antics of the colourful characters and its fast-paced story line give the film ‘HOPE AND GLORY’ all the spontaneity of a child at play. Yet director John Boorman works from his head as well as from his heart and this film is an energetic, imaginative, and richly human drama set in suburban London during World War II. There is also a surprising amount of choreography present, as John Boorman employs several action-packed long and tracking shots and it is a consistently great-looking film. And though Bill Rohan is surrounded by decimation and the smoking remnants of ruined lives, his sense of enchanted wonderment and innocence in the face of man’s most destructive folly affect him in a way that alters his life forever and the film's ending is especially sweet, affirming the boyish sense of wonder and bemusement that informs us all.
HOPE AND GLORY MUSIC TRACK LIST
BEGIN THE BEGUINE (Written by Cole Porter) [Performed by Sammi Davis]
THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER (Written by Walter Kent and Nat Burton)
FLAT FOOT FLOOGIE (Words and music by Slim Gaillard, Slam Stewart, and Bud Green) [Performed by Benny Goodman]
WE’LL MEET AGAIN (Written by Ross Parker and Hugh Charles)
GOD SAVE THE KING (Traditional)
IN THE MOOD (Written by Wingy Manone, Andy Razaf and Joe Garland)
Prelude No. 4 (Written by Frédéric Chopin)
Serenade in G K.525 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik) (Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Blu-ray Image Quality – Sony Pictures Home Entertainment brings you this superb Blu-ray disc in a wonderful evocative 1080p image presentation that really reflects the films period set in the Second World War and is equally enhanced with its Original Theatrical aspect ratio 1.66:1 to really show off the film in its full potential. And this new Blu-ray transfer is about as good as the film is ever likely to look and to make this is a really great transfer, especially for a film showing you what people had to put up with in England in the Second World War in a rose tinted way, compared to how really tough it was to live through that period in and around London during the devastating blitz. You also get to view great sharpness that is totally excellent throughout the film, and the colours are quite rich and have totally excellent natural looking facial flesh tones and overall the image is excellently clean, with nice pleasant colours depicting the era the film is depicting. On top of all that the contrast has been consistently maintained, and black levels are extremely very good and are now surprising of excellent quality, so all in all for a film released in 1987 that maintains a very nice and excellent “filmic” look, and there is a lack of any apparent edge enhancement and definitely another great presentation that looks even better than when the film was released and once again the transfer for a 1987 film is of excellent quality transfer, so top marks and well done Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for a job well done.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – Sony Pictures Home Entertainment brings you the sounds of the Second World War with a brilliant and evocative 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo experience and was made from a restored mono optical soundtrack negative and the audio sounds are very clean, clear and well balanced throughout the film and though the more ambient aspects of the soundtrack are well represented. Range wise the sound is really good, and the dialogue is very clear and always very audible, and also has a sound mix that has fine fidelity, that really plays to the film's strength. While the music heard throughout the film is very nicely reproduced and again Sony has come up trumps with their professional outlook. There is a great deal of appreciable sense of atmosphere to this audio track that allows most scenes to have plenty of space and dimensionality and the mix is very stable and consistent throughout the film so you should not need to adjust your volume once you have it at a comfortable level and once again Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have a done a really sterling professional job for a film released in 1987.
Blu-ray Special Features and Extras: Sadly there are no Special Features or Extras, which is a crying shame, as I am sure they have some behind-the-scene filming and interviews.
Finally, ‘HOPE AND GLORY’ is a delightful Second World War film. It was a personal triumph for director John Boorman who received Oscar nominations for best film and as producer, best director and best original screenplay, while Philippe Rousselot's cinematography and Anthony Pratt and Joan Woollard's art direction/set decoration were rightly nominated, too. Especially showing off London’s upheaval during the Blitz, and also showing a young boy the devastation that presents a fabulous adventure and especially when Bill Rohan is later sent to live with his grandfather, in whom he discovers a wonderfully eccentric and playful friend. ‘HOPE AND GLORY’ has a terrific luminous look to the film and the period feeling that is both unusual and very convincing, to which Shirley Russell's costumes are a particularly key contribution towards the film. The ensemble acting is uniformly entertaining, and the pacing almost dreamlike. It was a personal triumph for John Boorman who rightly received an Oscar nomination for best film, producer, best director and best original screenplay, while Philippe Rousselot's cinematography and Anthony Pratt and Joan Woollard's art direction/set decoration were rightly nominated, too. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
