The Robe: Special Edition Blu-ray Disc Review

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Title: The Robe: Special Edition

Region: A

Media: Blu-ray Disc

Genre: Religious Epic

Stars: Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Michael Rennie, Jay Robinson, Dean Jagger, and Thorn Thatcher

Writers: Albert Maltz, Philip Dunne, and Gina Kaus

Based On The Novel By: Lloyd C. Douglas

Director: Henry Koster

Feature length: 135 minutes

Extras: Introduction By Martin Scorsese, Commentary With Film Composer David Newman and Film Historians Jon Burlingame, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman, Isolated Score Track, The Making Of The Robe Featurette, The Cinemascope® Story Featurette, From Scripture To Script: The Bible And Hollywood Featurette, Audio Interview With Screenwriter Philip Dunne (1969), BONUSVIEW Picture-In-Picture – The Robe Times Two: A Comparison Of Widescreen and Standard Versions, BONUS VIEW Picture-In-Picture – A Seamless Faith: The Real Life Search For The Robe Interactive Featurette, Fox Movietone News, Still Galleries, Interactive Pressbook

Languages: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround Sound, English Dolby Surround 4.0, and French Monaural

Subtitles: English Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired and Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean Language Subtitles

Packaging: Elite Blue BD Case

Chapter Stops: 20

Sound: DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround Sound, Dolby 4.0 Surround Sound, and Monaural Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 1953/Blu-ray Disc Release: 2009

Theatrical Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox

Home Video Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

The Robe was the first CinemaScope film ever released and changed the way audiences viewed films forever by ushering in the era of widescreen theatrical presentations. Adapted from the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas, Richard Burton and Jean Simmons are star-crossed lovers at the time of the crucifixion, which he oversees. When he wins the robe of Christ from gambling at the feat of the crucifixion of Jesus, his life is forever changed, as he becomes a convert to Christianity and an enemy to Rome under the rein of the mad Caligula.

One of the screen’s greatest biblical epics, The Robe earned Academy Awards® for Best Picture and Best Actor for Richard Burton. A sequel entitled Demetrius And The Gladiators followed a year later.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment released The Robe onto DVD back in 2001, but in the nine years since that release, an extensive restoration process that took over a year and a half to complete was commenced between Twentieth Century Fox, the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation, which is the leading non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation founded by filmmaker Martin Scorsese (who provided a film print from his personal collection that was used to aid the restoration process). The results are quite stunning and reveal aspects of the film that I never either noticed or appreciated before. The colors now burst fourth especially in the sequences that take place in and around Rome and the contrast between Rome and Palestine is even more greater with detail in the costuming immediately that is noticeable. Perhaps it is only me that really took notice before, but I was surprised at how many sets in the film, including exteriors were actually on stage sets with gorgeous matte paintings in the background almost like a curtain extending the sets. Obviously the technology for creating illusions like this has improved immensely, but even so, the quality of the work and the style is very impressive and also quite indicative of the kind of matte artwork I’ve seen used in the 1950s. For instance, in a scene where Demetrius is rescued in Rome, the matte work looked as though the same artist or artists hired later would go on to do matte work on classic 1950s science fiction, such as Universal’s This Island Earth. Stylistically I found that particular moonlight painting reminiscent of the alien world where the flying saucer lands in This Island Earth.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment presents The Robe on a 50 gigabyte dual layered Blu-ray Disc featuring AVC encoding at 21 mbps and at 1080p (where available) high definition picture resolution that beautifully conveys the widescreen (2.55:1) aspect ratio presentation that is rich and colorful and also preserves the manner in which the film was theatrically exhibited as close as possible for home video users. I recommend Blu-ray users to try and watch The Robe on as large a screen as possible since on smaller HDTVs the presentation will look letterboxed even though it is not. Profile 1.1 compliant players will gain access to bonus view material that includes picture-in-picture comparisons of the widescreen and full screen versions of the film, which makes one truly appreciate the work that has gone into the making the film as well as realize just how much is lost when the film is cropped to (1.33:1) instead of it’s original (2.55:1) widescreen presentation. A new English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround Soundtrack accompanies the new video presentation, but while being more discrete, I found it difficult to discern too much of a difference between the DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround Soundtrack and the original English Dolby 4.0 Surround Soundtrack that has been carried over from the 2001 DVD release and made available here. A French Language Monaural Soundtrack along with English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean Language Subtitles are also encoded onto the Blu-ray Disc as options.

Extra value features include in additional bonus view picture-in-picture interactive featurette entitled A Seamless Faith: The Real Life Search For The Robe, which can also be watched as a separate historical documentary. There is also a 25-minute high definition featurette profiling Hollywood’s fascination with brining Biblical scripture to the screen as well as featurettes covering the making of The Robe (31:00), the CinemaScope story and it’s impact on Hollywood filmmaking (19:00), and there is audio interview with screenwriter Philip Dunne recorded in 1969. The film’s isolated score is also provided along with a feature length audio commentary by Film Composer David Newman and Film Historians Jon Burlingame, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman. Martin Scorsese provides a short video introduction too (1:20).

15-second celebrity introductions with Susan Hayward, Dan Dailey, Richard Widmark, Robert Wagner, and Clifton Webb as well as Fox Movietone news clips (6:00), two theatrical trailers (5:00), a poster gallery and a lobby card gallery wrap up the extra value features on this Blu-ray Disc release, which also features beautifully animated seamless interactive menus that are easy to navigate.

The Robe: Special Edition is available on Blu-ray Disc now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

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