Viva Las Vegas (HD DVD)

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I couldn't help thinking as I watched "Viva Las Vegas" how almost quaint the city looked back in 1963 when they made the film. Everything was just as glitzy as it is now, but much flatter. There were few of the high-rises we see today. And Elvis was still young and trim. Weren't we all?

Video:
The HD picture quality looks excellent, which should come as no surprise to anyone has seen what Warner Bros. did with their newest standard-definition version. The studio obviously had a good master print to work with, which they cleaned up and transferred to disc at 1080 resolution. They preserved the movie's original 2.40:1 aspect ratio, and they ensured the film's colors remained fast, deep, and realistic. Hues are natural, never gaudy or bright, despite the movie's setting. Black levels are solid, reds are flaming, and whites glisten. Yet nothing is glassy or oversaturated. What's more, as with the SD edition, the screen is clear and clean, with hardly a trace of grain in sight (except in a couple of pieces of stock outdoor footage), and definition is vivid. The video quality makes the movie quite a pleasure to watch, and given that it was made over four decades ago, that's saying a lot. It looks better than most new films on disc.

Audio:
The film's soundtracks come in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Dolby Digital Plus 5.1, and Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural (for that one purist who wants to hear the movie's original mono). The TrueHD 5.1 remix is ultrasmooth, with a good stereo spread across the front speakers. While there is not much energy in the frequency extremes and not much more than a little musical bloom in the rears, the dynamics are reasonably vigorous, and the midrange is well balanced. In DD+ we get a slightly more forward sonic image than in TrueHD, with not quite as much depth perception or polish; but, as always, the differences are minor. About the only thing I would fault is that the new audio formats sometimes make voices in dialogue sound a trifle nasal, as though they were dubbed later.

Extras:
The several bonus items on the HD DVD are carried over from the SD Deluxe Edition, and they all come in standard definition. The first attraction is an audio commentary by Steve Pond, author of the book "Elvis in Hollywood." His comments are not only informative, they are unusually honest. He admits, for instance, that most of Elvis's movies were mediocre, with "Viva Las Vegas" at least having a decent budget and production values. The second major attraction is a newly made featurette, "Kingdom: Elvis in Vegas," a twenty-minute segment recounting the final phase in Elvis's career, his love affair with Las Vegas in the 1970s and his headline nightclub acts.

Beyond those things, the disc contains twenty-four scene selections but no chapter insert; a widescreen theatrical trailer for "Viva Las Vegas"; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired. As always, the HD DVD also includes pop-up menus, bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, an indicator of elapsed time, and an Elite Red HD case.

Parting Shots:
"Viva Las Vegas" gave Elvis's fans exactly what they wanted: music, pretty girls, music, dancing, and more music, all set amid the glamour and glitter of America's fanciest city. Today, I'd say dedicated fans might still find that about all they want, so WB's new HD transfer, as nice as it looks and sounds, is probably a godsend. For the rest of us, the movie might not be quite the pinnacle of Hollywood romantic comedies or movie musicals we'd hope for, and it might not hold quite the allure.

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