During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Italian movie industry made a number of World War II films. They ranged from trash to average to occasionally excellent. THE FIFTH DAY OF PEACE represents the best of the genre. Chances are you wouldn't be looking at the DVD if you didn't already know what the film was about. The DVD quality is appalling. The print is muddy and smeary, mastered from a video tape. You know how when a VCR may start to eat a tape, it leaves those crinkles on the actual tape and you get the telltale "skips" on the TV screen when you watch the damaged part of the tape? Well, those same type skips show up during part of the credits. The colors look worn out as well. The sound is monophonic and a little muffled. There is a brief yet loud and annoying buzz about 40 minutes into the film as well. The sound is not always in synchronization with the picture, either. It's not because of the dubbing, though. I have compared with my video copy. There are plenty of digital artifacts off and on as well. The screen-shots for the 10 chapter scenes and those of Johnson and Nero look excellent, but do not compare well to the picture quality of the actual film.
The DVD is 1.33:1, cropped from the original letterbox print of 2.35:1. Portions of words are missing from both the sides of the screen and the bottom of the screen during parts of the credits.
It looks as though the folks at Simitar might have just recorded this from a TV screen with a video camera. An enterprising way to save money but also a great way to lose business.
For "special" features there are 10 chapter searches, movie factoids which provide no information not found on the case, and abridged biographies and filmographies for Richard Johnson and Franco Nero.
I piad [a small amount] for this and still thought it was a waste. My video from Congress Entertainment, while still lower quality, is better than this DVD.
