FLYING CLIPPER: 4K UHD Blu-ray combo (Bavaria/Triglav Films, 1962) Flicker Alley

With its mainsail clearly pointed toward the success of Louis De Rochemont’s 1958 Cinamiracle doc-u-tainment, Windjammer: The Voyage of the Christian Radich, the first German release in 70mm ‘wonderama’, Flying Clipper (a.k.a. Mediterranean Holiday, 1962), co-directed by Hermann Leitner and Rudolf Nussgruber, is a bit of a fiasco. In the U.S., it featured a narration and several songs sung by the beloved Burl Ives. And although the itinerary of this latter sea-faring expedition, substituted for Radich’s tropical ports of call, is a veritable TripTiks from Greece to Italy, Portugal to Turkey, Monte Carlo to Beirut, the former Yugoslavia, and, Egypt, the ship-to-shore antics, as depicted by Leitner/Nussgruber, are pure rip-off of that aforementioned exhilarating journey. Flying Clipper is so transparently trying to catch Windjammer’s headwind, it cannot help but be unfairly compared to its predecessor. Flying Clipper is not a terribly prepossessing flick, although one sincerely wonders whether director, John Frankenheimer was influenced by the staging of its Monaco Formula 1 racing sequence; enough to make the infinitely superior, Grand Prix (1966) a scant four years later. The Formula 1 sequence also features unexpected cameos from their Royal Highnesses, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. As a vintage snapshot from that fabled couple’s fairy tale romance, Flying Clipper holds a certain soft spot in my heart. I adore Grace Kelly. If only the rest of its truncated vignettes had lived up to the spectacle of these stolen moments.

Italian-born composer, Riz Ortolani, whose score for MGM’s The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) had a huge intercontinental hit with ‘Forget Domani’ and the ebullient and quirky main title, and whose career franchise in North America would be resurrected by Quentin Tarantino’s hiring Ortolani to compose underscore for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012), delivers his usual quota in lushly romanticized and string-laden orchestral fluff on Flying Clipper, ably abetted by his wife, Katina Ranieri, who warbles the movie’s ballad ‘Wherever You May Go’ – inserted repeatedly and ad nauseam as the central theme.  Ortolani, who studied music at the Conservatorio Statale di Musica in Pesaro and began as a musical arranger for the Italian network RAI, would later find his niche in Los Angeles, garnering attention after a brief night club stint at the renowned Ciro’s on the Sunset Strip. If nothing else, we have Ortolani’s score to fall back on here, and, for better or worse, it remains the one bright spot in an otherwise largely forgettable film.

The movie’s premise – following Captain Skoglund and his crew of impressionable young boys halfway around the world, with brief respites devoted to lapping up the local culture in their respective ports of call, foregoes any great mischief unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The fellas, all scrubbed, fresh-faced and barely able to shave, let along to have grown hair on their chests or parts south of the equator, have their special – if antiseptic – charm on ‘holiday’ with comely young girls, riding scooters through the alpine twisting roads in Yugoslavia, indulging in a spirited carriage race in Turkey, riding camels in Egypt, and, indulging in the ya-ya-twist at an outdoor night carnival in Greece. Otherwise, these ‘kings of the sea’ keep their honorable intentions intact. Flying Clipper is obviously anchored in its appreciation of all those great Cinerama adventures that preceded it in the mid-1950's, but, by 1962 were fast becoming a passé part of the picture-making biz. And Flying Clipper does nothing to resurrect the travelogue sub-genre, despite some breathtaking aerial views, captured by a small army of cinematographers: Tony Braun, Siegfried Hold, Heinz Hölscher, Klaus König, and, Bernhard Stebich.

The biggest disappointment here is Burl Ives’ who warbles a few sea-chants with effortless aplomb, but whose narration, at times, just seems to be going through the motions of scripted dialogue with which he is quite obviously bored. It is as though Ives is asking the proverbial ‘Are we there yet?’ even before the audience has run out of reasons to remain seated. And at 2 hrs., 33 min., there is enough fanny-twitching to go around.  Of course, the real star of this movie is the Flying Clipper, a 600-tonne, Swedish, three-mast tall ship, shown off from bow to stern to her best advantage in 70mm. The ambition to shoot Flying Clipper in 70mm derived from the concept that audiences would become more engaged with clearer, sharper images projected onto the screen, drawing them closer into the action. Prior to its introduction, 35mm had been the standard bearer. Even Cinerama employed 3 separate 35mm panels to create its vast canvas, while anamorphically stretched Cinemascope fast became the norm from 1954 onward.  And ‘scope’s’ elongated framing was still 35mm; the result, frequently grainy and soft, especially around the edges. 70mm promised a different viewing experience altogether, with razor-sharp depth of field from end to end, or, technically speaking, 1,100 square millimeters of pure undiluted image, projected onto a canvas four times larger, and, with zero loss of clarity or density, filling an audiences’ peripheral vision with an astonishing 180-degree enveloping vantage point.

I suppose it is saying much of German ingenuity, that co-creators, Rudolf Travnicek and Rudolf Englberth undertook the risk to initiate their own widescreen 70mm format, christened ‘MCS 70’ (the call letters standing for ‘Modern Cinema Systems’), despite the overwhelming international competition. MCS 70 was actually developed by Norwegian engineer, Jan W. Jacobson, rather ingeniously retrofitted to squeeze a 65mm negative that could then be reduction printed onto 35mm Cinemascope, 35mm wide-screen, or even 16mm Cinemascope to accommodate virtually any theatrical venue and its ‘shortcomings’, all the while retaining much of the original detail and quality of the 70mm image.  Those fortunate enough to have seen Flying Clipper in its general release at an A-list movie palace were also treated to an immersive 6-track stereophonic soundtrack – again, capable of being down-sampled to 4-channel ‘scope’ prints in either true stereo or monophonic-split optical.  Technologically, then, Flying Clipper was about as state-of-the-art as movie went in 1962. And certainly, from a technological aspect, the picture is a marvel – of sorts. That it treads with far too great a narrative familiarity, borrowing from the aforementioned Windjammer in tone and premise, is a miscalculation – making it appear as a ‘hand-me-down’ from whence, arguably, the movie never quite recovers. Cinematically, Flying Clipper lacks the polish and spark of originality to successfully set sail on its globe-trotting holiday.

The unease with which this co-directed ‘holiday’ takes its cue from old European gemutlich splendor, blended at intervals with cutting edge Formula 1 racing, and, jet fighters taking off and landing on the USS Shangri-La – scenes that might as easily have come from other Cinerama-styled adventures (and, in fact, have reasonable facsimiles elsewhere in the Cinerama catalog) – renders Flying Clipper with a distinct whiff of ennui.  In the end, the results are less exhilarating than exhaustive; Leitner and Nussgruber throwing everything they have at the screen to see what sticks. Not much of it does, however. And despite the picture’s modest popularity in 1962, today, it plays as far more the quaintly realized, turgid time capsule than cutting edge excursion into 70mm picture-making.

We could say as much for the rather lack-luster Blu-ray/UHD 4K Blu-ray combo, prepared for disc by Busch Media Group and re-issued states’ side by Flicker Alley. 4K carries with it a certain level of expectation. And while, the 4K scan of these original camera elements more than adequately reveals fine grain, textures and a subtly nuanced color palette, corrected from a sincerely flawed and badly faded magenta print master, what is inexcusable herein is the amplification of age-related artifacts that have not been afforded even the basic luxury of a ‘dust busting’ clean-up program. Flying Clipper has endured many ravages since its release, and all of them are woefully on display in ultra-hi-rez; horizontal and vertical tears that dart from left to right or right to left, wobbly splices, dot crawl, white speckling, and, other dirt and heavy scratches abound. Although they appear more glaring during dissolves, fades and the crude optically printed main titles, even when the image settles into its nominal level of ‘cleanliness’ the time-ravaged print reveals far more imperfections that make their glaring presence known.  

As problematic, the way this movie ends. I would have expected an ‘end title’ and ‘exit music’ to accompany this release, as 70mm road shows from the sixties were often accompanied by orchestral fanfare. And while Flying Clipper does feature a gorgeous orchestral overture by Riz Ortolani that precedes the feature, the intermission and entr’acte score is missing, as is the ‘exit’ music. The movie suddenly fades to black in the middle of a shot of the Flying Clipper heading for home; Ortolani’s cue playing a few extra seconds before fading away too. Even so, the counter continues for nearly another full minute thereafter, with no video or audio. While I have never seen Flying Clipper theatrically, and was unable to locate any information on whether or not the original theatrical presentation, in fact, included, ‘exit music’, the remastered soundtrack album, released in 2007, features a two-and-a-half minute cue, entitled ‘finale’ that is a reprise of Ortolani’s overture, main theme, and the song, ‘Wherever You May Go’, sung by Katina Ranieri.  This is not the cue that closes out the movie.

As already stated, color correction has been applied to resurrect the original palette from this horrendously faded work print. And while colors do pop – particularly reds and greens, the overall spectrum just seems off. Sailors’ navy-blue suits appear more of a deep purple, as does the ocean, while flesh tones veer from ruddy orange to burnt pinks and the occasional ‘blood-pressure-inducing’ burgundy. Shadow delineation is solid, and contrast is uniformly excellent. The utmost care has been taken to preserve the original 6-track audio in multiple formats, including a newly minted Dolby Atmos, and a 5.1 DTS. Aurally, the picture sounds light years younger than it looks. Extras are limited to four ‘interview’ featurettes; the first, with camera operator, distributor/film chronicler, Jürgen Brückner; the second, with Herbert Born - 70mm restorationist; the third, with Marcus Vetter, a projectionist, who explains the importance of seeing 70mm in 70mm, not digital; and finally,  Christoph Engelke, who sheds light on the remastering of the movie’s soundtrack. We also get a montage of lobby card and poster art, a side-by-side restoration comparison, a trailer gallery for this and other Busch Media UHD releases; plus, a reproduction of the original program booklet. Bottom line: Flying Clipper is hardly a classic. Despite it being ‘a first’ for German 70mm film production; on this occasion, ‘first’ does not equate to ‘best.’ Add to this an imperfect remastering effort and…well, you might just as easily pass and be very glad that you did. Stick with Cinemiracle’s Windjammer for high seas adventure in ultra-widescreen and leave this one for history to remember. Regrets.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

1

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

3