Customer Reviews

The Hallelujah Trail

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you can imagine a comic twist on Wild West legends, it's probably in this film. Burt Lancaster shows a part of his talent that few are aware of: he is a superior comic actor. A sprawling lampoon of Calvary vs Indians, whiskey-swilling miners vs temperance workers and man vs woman, the Hallelujah Trail is a mad-cap roller coaster ride through the back trails of the classic western. If you love boots and saddles, comedy or Burt Lancaster, this is a must see. Just keep the tissues handy and find a soft place for falling out of your chair or off the couch. They don't get much better.

John Sturges directed so many of my favorite films, from "The Great Escape" to "The Magnificent Seven", that I have to pay hommage to his great humorous homage to The West. One of the earliest films to lampoon it's leads (but nicely) it stands out as both a tribute to all the great Westerns as well as a campy send-up as well.

And what a cast! Burt Lancaster demonstrated a talent for comedy that I would never have thought at the time. And Jim Hutton, Brian Keith, Lee Remick....

One of Sturges' regular contributers, Elmer Bernstein wrote an emcompassing score that went right to the heart of things.

Very recommended, especially if you loved westerns.

Just received my DVD of Hallelujah Trail. If not in your collection, add it! One fantastic funny classic movie you'll watch again and again, but....

My old VHS duel tape copy was mastered from a better copy of the film than the DVD. Several spots where film burns are noted, grainy, pixilated, jumpy too. And audio? Just causing the Dolby light to turn on is not Dolby (plus it is a mix down Dolby audio).

I'm Very Very disappointed, not in the movie, but by the lack of quality and

attention given to the transition to DVD. If not for the longevity of the DVD to preserve this classic it would not be worth the purchase price. I would hope someone takes the time to view the DVD a see the very poor attempt to create a DVD.

Thank you MGM for taking the time to make the DVD available, but I had hoped the expected quality would have been preserved....

MGM has made the decision to offer this presentation of Hallelujah Trail on one side (two layers) of a DVD disc, requiring more compression of the video image than we normally see on higher quality DVD's. This has resulted in a DVD that is positively painful to watch due to digital artifacts. MGM should be embarrased about releaseing such an inferior product.

I was looking forward to seeing one of my favorite western films on widescreen DVD for the first time. How disapointing! The Hallelujah trail was full of white spots(film burns) and the picture in spots would shimmer so much that it was almost unwatchable. I would expect this kind of DVD transfer and quality from Good Times Video and other cheap companies, but not MGM. They should have taken the time to find a good quality copy of the film to transfer or touched up the master to preserve this classic western film. Hopefully they someday release a restored DVD version. I wouldn't recommend this DVD version to anyone. The film deserves five stars, but this DVD version only gets one star due to widescreen.

Wonderfully silly saga of a shipment of booze to the alcohol-starved city of Denver sometime in the 1870s. Martin Landau and his Indian tribe want to capture and drink the shipment. Lee Remick and her temperance marchers want to destroy it. Wagonmaster Brian Keith has labor troubles. Burt Lancaster and his cavalry regiment have to protect them both, and the Denver Free Militia want to fight off everyone else. Great slapstick, fun performances, wide open spaces and a marvelous Elmer Bernstien score combine in this epic send-up of westerns from a time when westerns were still good box-office. And you've never seen Donald Pleasance until you've seen him as drunken, mountain-man seer Oracle Jones!

What a bad looking DVD! I completely agree with the two negative reviewers. MGM has used exactly the same transfer as for the TEN year old Laser Disc; not one of the millions of white speckles has been erased! This time they even forgot to put in the still frame during the overture! It's really boring to look at a black screen - in the old days we could watch a nicely lit curtain at least. On the Laser Disc the aspect ratio was not correct, and this DVD is just as misframed. "The Hallelujah Trail" was shot in ULTRA Panavision (anamorphic 70 mm), which means that the aspect ratio should be 2.75:1, just as the newly released DVD's of "Ben-Hur" and "the Greatest Story Ever Told". In other words: lots of picture information is still missing on the sides. Actually the only improvements on the DVD are slightly better sharpness and less chroma noise, which is to be expected from all DVD's. I'm very grateful to MGM for releasing such a lot of old classics these days, but if the results will look like this dud, they better slow down their output and rather concentrate on careful quality control. Please give us a new "Hallelujah Trail"! It's not a masterpiece, but it deserves far better than this!

This release of a classic big event comedy/western is ruined by a simply awful transfer to DVD. The picture quality as seen line-doubled on my Pioneer Elite 700 HD set is nearly unwatchable. I hope MGM will try again with a goal of creating a much better transfer. This is one of the worst-looking DVDs I have seen.

Too bad because the movie is enjoyable.

THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL is a glorious western comedy, permeated with crisp performances and some beautiful cinematography. The story is about a gun-ho temperance leader called Cora Templeton Massingale (Lee Remick), who discovers that a dried-up town in Denver is about to get a fresh shipment of whiskey. She gathers a small army of women and parades out into the wild to stop the shipment en route. Out to curtail their activities is Colonel Gearhart (Burt Lancaster). The story dissolves into a comedic farce with Cora and Gearhart in the eye of the storm.

John Sturges' attempt at an epic-sized comedy caper comes off quite well, with Remick and Lancaster ideally-suited to their roles. The finely-assembled screenplay by John Gay (based on the novel "Hallelujah Trail" by Bill Gulick) allows each character to have his or her own payoff and moment to shine. Co-starring Pamela Tiffin, Jim Hutton, Donald Pleasence, Brian Keith and Martin Landau. The DVD has the film in a beautiful anamorphic print, with the trailer.

This movie stays true to the old western while still poking fun at everything about the old west. It's not particularly campy and it has a touch of romance. Classic actors like Burt Lancaster make this movie a must have for people who love Westerns. Not to mention this is a great movie where Donald Pleasance actually had more than just one emotion.