The Glenn Miller Story [DVD] [1954]

Anthony Mann's The Glenn Miller Story, starring James Stewart, was one of Universal's big "money" pictures of the 1950s, right up there with Joseph Pevney's Away All Boats and Tammy, and it has been well preserved in general and well presented on this DVD. The film has been transferred in the correct non-anamorphic aspect ratio of 1.85:1, in about as sharp an image and bright colors as any Universal title of the era. There's a little instability at 16 minutes into the movie, in the close-up shots of June Allyson, but otherwise the disc is quite beautiful, and the audio is excellent, the band sequences having a full, rich sound. The film has been given a reasonably generous 20 chapters, accessible through an easy-to-use menu and adequate for the nearly two-hour running time, but there are no extras or bonus features, which is a disappointment. One would have hoped, perhaps, that Universal and Fox could have come up with a cross-promotion, using this DVD to promote the two movies that Miller made at Fox (which aren't even out as of 2005), and vice versa, for Fox's promotion of this disc; and newsreel footage of and concerning Miller does exist. Due to all of that -- in addition to the fact that The Glenn Miller Story is another collaboration between Stewart and Mann, who made a brace of notable movies together in the Western genre -- a commentary track is not only called for, but practically begged for.