Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14668 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-05-17
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 2.55:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 118 minutes

Special Features

• The Look Of Troy featurette
  
• Interviewing Helen featurette
  
• Sounds Of Homeric Troy featurette
  
• Theatrical trailer

DVD Technical Information:

• Soundtrack: Dolby Digital 5.1: English
  
• Running Time: 118 mins
  
• Region Code: 2
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.55 Wide Screen

Synopsis
A lavishly filmed epic about the Trojan War based on Homer's ILIAD, Robert Wise's HELEN OF TROY depicts the tale of the famed Helen (Rossana Podesta), the woman responsible for the battle. Young Trojan prince Paris (Jacques Sernas) journeys to Sparta, hoping to bring home a peace treaty that will end the war between Greece and Troy. However, his ship is forced to return to Troy in a storm after he has been swept overboard. Washing up on Sparta's shore, he is found by the beautiful Helen, with whom he falls head-over-heels in love, completely unaware that she is the queen of Sparta. At the palace he finds Greek king and Helen's husband Menelaus (Niall MacGinnis), Agamemnon (Robert Douglas), Ulysses (Torin Thatcher), Achilles (Stanley Baker), and others debating whether to go to war with Troy. Menelaus sees that Helen and Paris are in love and, pretending friendship, plots Paris's death. Paris flees back to Troy, taking Helen with him. Paris's action, however, makes matters even worse. The Greeks, who have been feuding among themselves, now unite and set off to attack Troy, devising a unique plan to get inside (which includes what was, at the time the film was made, the largest movie prop ever made). This sweeping film is laden with romance and action and, along with BEN-HUR and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, is one of the best of this genre.

Customer Reviews

A Helen For All Time
Forget all the knockers. This is just about the best of the Hollywood "epics" and a great film by any standards. I saw this film the last time when I was 11 when it came out in England in 1957. (It was the start of a love affair with Brigitte Bardot which I never got over.) Right there I knew it was a great film and viewing it again has confirmed I was not wrong.

Part of the appeal must be due to it being by Warner Bros. This ensures it has pace right from the beginning as Warners would never stand for the turgidity to which the genre is so often prone. It was Warner's sole venture into this territory and according to the add-in's they liked to compare it (with some justification) with their earlier pioneering of sound in movies. It was only the second of the Cinemascope era epics (after The Robe) and so for one thing was able to grab the best ancient story that was going.

Max Steiner was Warner's composer (surely the greatest film composer) and he was on board for this film. The music may not have the memorable melodies of GWTW or Now Voyager but Steiner's rapidly shifting, stirring power and weird, squeaky orchestration is all there. This can be relished in full during a rare nostalgic treat that nicely dates the film -a seven minute Overture. This is thankfully included in full on the DVD but this brings me to my one complaint about this issue. The final credits have been chopped. This is a crime as we are surely being denied more fantastic orchestration by Steiner. What a let down when The End means the end. Don't the makers know that some of us never miss a second on ANY final credit sequence, but with Max Steiner in full flow. Really! Too much!

Part of the appeal is also down to the date of the film. The fifties was a golden era in many ways. Designers then still understood the meaning of "classic" and that goes through everything in the look of the film. The colour systems of Warnercolor and Eastmancolor unaccountably got lost in the sixties but here the former can be appreciated in all its sumptuousness. (The garishness of early Technicolor tends to make us overlook the beauty of the alternative early systems.) The fifties, of course, was also high point of bra technology which admirably adorns the leading lady. (A less welcome period anachronism is her vaccination scars.)

The studio is to be congratulated for eschewing big Hollywood stars particularly going with Rosanna Podesta, a decision that must have put out a few egos at home. Once you have seen this film she will forever be YOUR Helen to which all others are mere flibbertigibbets. And we are comfortable in this context with the thespian English of Stanley Baker, Harry Andrews and others. The nasal Brooklyn of a Victor Mature is mercifully absent.

Now, a BIG point. I doubt that I am the only one who is through with computerized special effects. Mildly intrigued when they came along, just can't look at them any more. They have exactly the same effect as silicon implants, that is to say, the thing they are trying to enhance looses all its interest. Well, you are safe enough in a film from 1956 on either count. Yes, that army of thousands is real guys out there. OK, a lot of the boats are models, but it is seamlessly and artfully put together.

A great part of the pleasure of the film is certainly the aesthetic, for in costumes, buildings, hairstyles (especially Helen's), beards, weaponry, chariots and boats it is beautiful, convincing and inventive in every detail. (For an example, just look at Paris's hat when he is disguised as a merchant.) A slight niggle is that the architecture of Troy is too closely based on Sir Arthur Evans' reconstructions of ancient Minoa - a good reference point to be sure but the designers might have done a bit more with it.

Warner's "Helen of Troy" deserves to be better known and appreciated. It comfortably surpasses the 2004 "remake", "Troy", in every aspect. Rosanna Podesta's ravishing first appearance emerging from the water onto the beach preceded the copy by Ursula Andress in Dr No by five years. I know which I rate higher - the one that no one knows about.

Finally, director, Robert Wise, is a figure of such stature that often people tend not to notice him. Maybe, The Sound of Music, is held against him, but really he was just doing his job and doing it superbly well as always. In his films, every scene works - and works completely. That is why you can view them over and over again. . That is why this DVD is such a bargain.

Helen of Troy 1955
I first went to se this film when i was 8. so that dates me then...I recorded it on reel to reel tape from the first British Tv showing many years later..I was thrilled when it finally was released on DVD, as it brought back many happy memories for me of my childhood cinema going and my great love of all historical epics..well almost...dont count Richard Harris' "Cromwell" for example.
I was totally disappointed in odern revivals of Helen of Troy and Alexander,as Richard Burtons vesion, bar the awful drab music soudntrack, was far better.
I have a large format book on Hollywoods epic films, that did state that all voices of stars in the film were used except Jack Sernas, as the "tambre" of his voice did not match the rest of the actors.....as never actually heard his voice, can only presume his French accent, got in the way of the Englishness, of the others, even Rossana and Bridgette.
Rossanna and Jack were both far superior than the actors used in the latest TROY, as was the wooden horse and Max Steiners brilliant score, of which i brought a 78 recording of it in 1956 and still have it on reel to reel to this day......If the latest TROY, Helen, was the most beautiful woman in the world and lauched a 1000 ships I am definately missing something in my MATURER years..dux anyone elxe agree????
Tony Gleave stoke on trent

Long before there was "Troy," there was "Helen of Troy"
After watching the current big budget film "Troy" and complaining bitterly about what the screenplay did to Homer, Euripides, and other ancient writers it seemed time to finally check out the 1956 Hollywood version of "Helen of Troy," which stared Rossana Podestà in the title role and Jack Sernas as Paris. Podestà was an Italian sex siren her had to learn her lines by rote in English and who was picked over established stars including Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Rhonda Fleming, Ava Gardner and Yvonne DeCarlo for the part of Helen. Of course, it is hard to say she is the most beautiful woman in the film let alone the world since Brigitte Bardot is playing Andraste.

The script by Hugh Gray, N. Richard Nash, and John Twist, does a good job of including the goddesses Aphrodite and Athena without having them literally appear. The idea of the pact among the princes of Greece to decide who would win Helen's hand and the promise to defend anyone who violated the pact is ignored. Helen's father, the king of Sparta, just married her off to Menelaus (Niall MacGinnis), who, along with his brother, Agamemnon (Robert Douglas), is interested in attacking Troy to take its riches. The kings of Greece have gathered in Sparta to plan the attack when Paris comes along, falls in love with Helen, and steals her away to Troy.

Once there, nobody is happy to see this development. King Praimus (Cedric Hardwicke) and Hector (Harry Andrews) are upset over the fact the Greeks are going to come to attack Troy and the priestess Kassandra (Janette Scott) is crying gloom and doom, but, of course, nobody is listening to her. The people even come to throw things at Paris and his woman but he sways them with a short speech. Of course, nothing is going to stop the Greeks, because Helen is just an excuse for conquering the rich city that controls the Dardanelles (the importance of which is explained in the prologue), and we are treated to the spectacle of 30,000 men fighting it out on the plains of Troy in glorious Warnercolor.

In terms of Homer's "Iliad," the wrath of Achilles (Stanley Baker) has to do with the fact that he flat out does not like Agamemnon, which is made clear the first time we see them together in Sparta. At some point he starts pouting in his tent. The death of Patroclus (Terence Longdon) still sets into motion the chain of deaths that defined the end of the Trojan War, but the context is different and reinforces the idea that the Trojans are the good guys. The extension of that is that our young lovers deserve to live happily ever after. But will the screenplay violate the classical story that far? Wily Odysseus (Torin Thatcher) comes up with the stratagem of a rather impressive looking Trojan Horse and the end game of the ten year war is played out.

Like "Troy," this version also avoids the worst part of "The Trojan Women" by Euripides, allowing Andromache (Patricia Marmont) to flee with Aeneas (Ronald Lewis) instead of having her endure her baby boy being tossed off the walls of Troy (which reminds me: for future reference, finish looting a city before you start burning it). But once again Hollywood proves that when it comes to adapting Homer and the rest of the story of the Trojan War they always think they can improve on the original. Yet despite the spectacle there are no transcendent moments in this film, let along the dramatic highpoints of the epic poem by Homer.

The battle sequences are certainly spectacular and much better than the individual combat sequences, so it is hard not to favor the marching formations of the thousands of extras with their spears and shields over the CGI tens of thousands we saw in "Troy." Director Robert Wise gives the action a sense of classical splendor while Max Steiner's rousing score standing out a lot more than the dialogue. There is an interesting feel to that dialogue and the performance of actors, most of whom are British and classically trained. They are not doing Shakespeare, but they give the drama a certain weight. There is no real passion between Helen and Paris, but at least he has the virtue this time around of being a real prince of Troy, capable of going toe to toe with Ajax (Maxwell Reed).

The DVD contains the original trailer, with its hyperbolic titles, and a trio of black & white featurettes by Gig Young for some sort of 1950s television movie show in which he promotes "Helen of Troy." Ultimately this is a respectable version of the classical story and if it is not great at least it does not have any of those transcendantly bad moments found in so many of the European sandal-and-spear spectacles.