Up Periscope
DVD - Single-disc
Warner Home Video 111208 - Region 1
111 minutes

List Price: $19.97 (Check Price at Amazon.com)

Available on DVD 12/19/2006

	Theatrical	This DVD
Aspect Ratio:	2.35:1	2.35:1
Audio:	Mono	Dolby Digital Mono

Disc 1 Contents

• Movie
• Theatrical Trailer

About the Movie

When I was a kid, we lived many miles away from the closest movie theater. The Saturday afternoon movie on one of our local TV stations was the best way to be entertained without having to leave the couch. While I don't recall "Up Periscope" being one of those movies (Tarzan and Godzilla are the first ones that come to mind), watching this movie brought me back to those times. It just seems like a great war movie that was light on the reality of war and heavy on the bravado and quasi-drama that a war backdrop provided.

While lightweight by today's action movie standards, this 1959 movie is still very watchable. 

How Does it Look?

The video quality was acceptable, but showed its age with occasional color shifts and other artifacts that were probably more a result of a poor master than a poor quality encoding. That said, none of these artifacts got in the way of enjoying the movie, and quite possibly, it contributed to the feel of an older movie being watched on a Saturday afternoon in years past.

My Pioneer DVD player reported an average of a range of bit rates between 4.5-7.5 Mbps during several samples in the movie.

How Does it Sound?

The original movie was good old mono, and this disc produces that soundtrack as such, with no annoying attempts at adding channels that didn't exist in the first place. Of course, this means that "Up Periscope" won't be on your demo list, but this movie doesn't necessarily need cool sound effects to get its point across. No artifacts or problems were noticed.

Extras

I like to see the theatrical trailer included with every movie, which is a feature that's becoming less common. I think it provides a nice context in which to understand how the studio was marketing the movie to audiences at the time of theatrical release. It's interesting to see how much emphasis was placed on Garner's turn in the "Maverick" TV show.

Conclusion

For any fan of Saturday afternoon movies, "Up Periscope" is definitely worth watching. I think it probably makes more sense to rent something like this than own it, but having it handy when a lazy Saturday presents itself or when you can't sleep at night may cause you to make it part of your collection!

Recommended Reading

Don't just take our word for it, check out these resources for more reviews of the movie and of the DVD.

• DVD reviews
• Jeff Swindoll of Monsters and Critics
• Bill Gibron of DVD Verdict
  

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