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Der Schatz im Silbersee aka The Treasure of Silver Lake [Blu-ray]
(Harald Reinl, 1962)
Review by Gary Tooze
Production: Theatrical: Rialto Film Preben Philipsen Video: Universum Film
Disc: Region: FREE! (as verified by the Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player) Runtime: 1:51:03.990 Disc Size: 23,706,845,837 bytes Feature Size: 19,428,587,520 bytes Video Bitrate: 19.25 Mbps Chapters: 12 Case: Standard Blu-ray case Release date: December 3rd, 2010
Video: Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio German 1877 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1877 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit) DTS Audio English 320 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 320 kbps / 16-bit DTS Audio German 320 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 320 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitles: English, German, none
Extras: • Interview with Horst Wendlandt (1:38) • Interview Documentary in German (21:31)• Trailer option of English, German or English with subtitles (1:53 - SD) • Restoration featurette (9:08) • Trailer adverts for collections • BD-Live
Bitrate:
Description: In order to get the treasure map of Silver Lake, the unscrupulous Colonel Brinkley (Herbert Lom - The Mysterious Island) cold-bloodedly murders the father of young Fred Engel (Götz George). But, it seems, the father only had one-half of the map, the other one belongs to the farmer Patterson. Without further ado Brinkley, and his band of thieves, kidnap his beautiful daughter, Ellen Patterson (Karin Dor - You Only Live Twice). Hot on the case are blood-brothers Old Shatterhand (Lex Barker of Tarzan fame) and his faithful Apache companion Winnetou - in pursuit of olde-west justice. Infringing in the land of Utah Indians, they are attacked and must negotiate. Will they ever thwart the ruthless band of criminals who will stop at nothing to retrieve the treasure of Silver Lake?
The Film:
By the 1960s the German film industry was on the way to recovery after
the damaging effects of the Second World War. After a decade of small
scale dramas and neo-realist productions the film companies had the
budgets to make films on a grander scale - the obvious source of
inspiration for these films were the novels of Karl May - widely read
across the German speaking world, they were incredibly popular. While
the later European Westerns were often politically charged and gritty,
the Karl May Westerns were family targeted adventure films with big
scale action scenes reminiscent of the classic American Westerns and
classic black and white good/evil characterisation:
Image : NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc. The Treasure of Silver Lake has had a restoration and looks highly impressive on Blu-ray. Wow. Colors are ultra-bright and the image is clean and detailed. The location shooting in Croatia (Paklenica National Park) is visually brilliant. Skin tones lean a little warm, some contrast flares and there seems to be some cinemascope mumps (horizontal stretching) but this single-layered image has plenty of positives to recommend. The background grain is fine and consistent producing a pleasing texture. Black levels are notable and may have had some boosting but it is not readily apparent that manipulation has hurt the integrity of the image quality. It looks substantially better than I was anticipating. This advances handily over the SD medium and produces quite stellar visuals that I will 'demo' to fans of the western genre.
CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio :There is a German-language lossless track in a fake 5.1 bump and an English language stereo track in standard Dolby . The English doesn't come across as a weak DUB - it is acceptably smooth. Martin Böttcher did a lauded score with some nice orchestral music. I didn't notice any disturbing hiss and while the action was relatively flat it exported the appropriate results. There are both English and German subtitles and my Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.
Extras : There are some supplements - about a half-hour's total worth of interviews (Horst Wendlandt and others), a documentary, and a piece, with split-screens, on restoration but it is all in German with only a trailer offered in English. The disc has an untested BD-Live ability and trailer adverts of similar western-adventure collections.
BOTTOM LINE: Gary Tooze August 8th, 2011
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About the Reviewer: Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out new film experiences. I currently own approximately 9500 DVDs and have reviewed over 3500 myself. I appreciate my discussion Listserv for furthering my film education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver. Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our Amazon links.
Although I never wanted to become one of those guys who
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find HD is swiftly pushing me in that direction. 60-Inch Class (59.58” Diagonal) 1080p Pioneer KURO Plasma Flat Panel HDTV PDP6020-FD
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