The Guns of Navarone 4K UHD Screenshots (Patreon)

Video

Marvelous work by Sony on this disc, who heads back in and produces a new 4K scan for this release. A stellar source shows no perceptible defects. The encode easily resolves a heavy grain structure minus any faults; it's perfectly transparent to the film stock. This results in texture to an extreme. Facial definition stands out when in close, while the location scenery capably pulls out every brick and rock in the ruins.

HDR brings added heft, brilliantly enriching the thick shadows, then bringing in additional contrast, peak brightness sensationally high. Dimensionality bests a majority of modern discs.

Equally dense color provides flesh tones with a classic Hollywood orange glaze. Boldness rushes into all primaries. Color all around takes on new power. This ranks among Sony's best catalog efforts in terms of color reproduction and contrast, right alongside Bridge of River Kwai, to at least draw an appropriate genre comparison.

Audio

Spread out into Atmos, this is an equally impressive upgrade. High ambiance around the islands fills the full soundstage with activity, whether wind or soft waves. This never sounds unnatural or added, but appropriately part of the original audio. Even the motion into height channels sounds just as organic as planes sweep past or airfields keep active. A storm at sea is reference grade stuff as waves bounce between the speakers, helped along by howling winds.

Bass is almost ridiculous, as if super-powered, giving the massive cannons appropriate scale when they fire. Then come plane engines, pushing enough power to rattle walls. It's surreal following the usual mono and 5.1 mixes that typically ignore bass to keep the mixes authentic. Sony's recent skills here and in Anatomy of a Murder reveal a definite effort to change the norms around vintage audio, and as long as the untouched original remains available, so be it.