The Robe (Special Edition)
May 2009 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Nowadays movie producers figure television and video profits into their overall budgets, but in the early 1950s television was viewed by Hollywood as an evil entity that sucked revenue away from the theaters. Pressured to combat the growth of television, Hollywood sought to produce new formats that would entice people to come back to the movies; 3D was one of them, and Cinerama was another. In the cities where it could be shown, Cinerama drew capacity crowds and made big profits, but Cinerama required three synched projectors and the installation of a new screen. Only the largest Metropolitan areas had Cinerama theaters.

Fox pursued the idea of widescreen in a different way, using an anamorphic lens that would squeeze the picture on the negative into the normal space required for an Academy-ratio film and then unsqueeze when projected. They called the process Cinemascope and decided upon The Robe, Lloyd C. Douglas’s story of early Christians surviving in Rome, as the first release. Though Cinemascope could be more easily set up than Cinerama, not every town had the capability to show it because of the widescreen and stereophonic sound it required; I remember traveling from Chapel Hill, NC, my home, to nearby Durham to see The Robe. It was worth the journey. Though it is not bad in the drama department, with some very credible acting by Richard Burton, the reason to go see it was not for the story but for the spectacle.

The producers of the film knew that not all theaters could show it in Cinemascope, so they simultaneously shot an Academy-ratio (1.33:1) version. Though it was never released, this has been rumored for years, and one of the most interesting features of this Blu-ray release is that it can be seen, with commentary, as a picture-in-picture extra. It’s fascinating to see the different ways the widescreen image was altered to fit the old ratio. Sometimes the picture was merely cropped, but not always from the same direction, and often scenes were completely recomposed, with key characters being moved so they all could fit in the frame.

Other extras include a very informational short on Cinemascope that discusses how Fox got it and how it was used. There’s even a discussion about its limitations and how these would be eliminated by the Panavision process that eventually replaced Cinemascope. There’s also an interesting commentary track with film composer David Newman and film historians Jon Burlingame, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman. From Scripture to Script: The Bible and Hollywood is an interesting study, and Alfred Newman’s magnificent score is offered on music-only tracks.

The picture has been thoroughly restored, and the colors are much truer than in the earlier laserdisc version. The picture has good definition; if it seems a bit soft at times, this is due to the anamorphic lens that was used to film it. According to one of the extras, there were three films being simultaneously shot in the new process, and How To Marry a Millionaire got the sharpest lens. The sound has been convincingly transferred to DTS. There’s good voice location up front, but not too much sound from the surrounds, except during the crucifixion scene, where thunder rolls around the room most impressively.

All in all, Fox has done an excellent job at putting this classic on Blu-ray. The presentation is both entertaining and educational.

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