Product Details

• Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
• Format: Full Screen, Black & White, NTSC
• Subtitles: Portuguese
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Classicline
• Run Time: 123.0 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000FLWL5G
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #374,541 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Brand new, factory sealed, fully licensed DVD manufactured in Brazil. NTSC format. Playable on any North American DVD player. High quality full screen black and white image. Original English dialog with optional subtitles in Portuguese. Portuguese subtitles do not appear unless turned on and they can be easily turned off. The following review appears in Amazon for the VHS release: "During World War II, Michael Powell and his writer-producer partner Emeric Pressberger were enlisted to make films in support of the British war effort. While many of their contemporaries turned out routine thrillers, Powell and Pressberger created inventive dramas with a patriotic purpose. The 1941 adventure The 49th Parallel, about a small German U-boat crew stranded in Canada off Hudson's Bay, is a prime example of wartime propaganda turned into rousing entertainment with smart writing, engaging characters, and creative cinema. As the Germans traverse the length of Canada, attempting to outrun authorities while seeking a passage to the still-neutral United States, they encounter a wide array of citizens from all walks of life, including French Canadian trapper Laurence Olivier (with a perhaps overenthusiastic accent), Hutterites Anton Walbrook and Glynis Johns, intellectual aesthete Leslie Howard, and two-fisted AWOL soldier Raymond Massey. As the Nietzschian sermons of Nazi leader Hirth (Eric Portman) fall on deaf ears, his party dwindles in number as the people of Canada rise up to stop his escape, not so much with violence as with pure defiance. The rhetoric isn't subtle--the film was designed to both strengthen ties to Canada and encourage America's entrance into the war--but the vivid location shooting provides a marvelous travelogue of Canada's landscapes and natural beauty and a loving portrait of the rich culture north of the 49th parallel. The picture earned Emeric Pressberger an Academy Award for his original story. This movie is also known as The Invaders. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exciting World War II adventure film, May 15, 2006

By 

Robert E. Nylund (Ft. Wayne, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 49TH PARALLEL with Laurence Olivier (Paralelo 49) (High Quality Import Edition-NTSC Region 1 Format-Playable in North America) (DVD)

"49th Parallel," also released as "The Invaders," is an exceptional adventure film made in the early years of World War II when the United Kingdom, along with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, faced both Nazi Germany and Japan in a desperate struggle to preserve the free world. The United States remained officially neutral, while providing the UK with help through the "Lend Lease" agreement between Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt.

To encourage U.S. support and show the dangers of Nazism, this film was given wide release, including the U.S. Despite some obvious propaganda, the film also displays considerable heroism and patriotism. It is still a thoroughly entertaining drama, enhanced by marvelous location shooting in Canada, and a very fine cast that includes Laurence Olivier, Anton Walbrook, Glynis Johns, Leslie Howard (in one of his last roles before his untimely death in 1943 while on a diplomatic mission), and Raymond Massey.

The film deals with a virtual "invasion" by the crew of a German sub stranded in the northern reaches of Canada. They try to make their way to the neutral U.S., hoping to evade capture by Canadian troops and imprisonment. Unfortunately for the Germans, everything goes wrong and they are pursued valiantly across the broad reaches of Canada. A final, dramatic confrontation takes place on a train that is about to enter the U.S. near Niagara Falls. Throughout, one is impressed with the memorably vivid black and white photography.

Superbly directed by Michael Powell, the film is one of the few to be scored by the legendary British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), who later scored "Scott of Antarctica." It remains a suspenseful, engrossing film that gives a good idea of the struggles the British Commonwealth faced early in World War II.