The Wings of Eagles (Blu-ray)

John's Wayne and Ford collaborative efforts yield another melodrama in which, increasingly, Wayne was expected to eschew his one-time, Teflon-coated masculinity and play vulnerable instead. It's the subtleties in that nuanced representation of pain and quiet, manly suffering, that helps The Wings of Eagles be a compelling drama. It's the awkwardness in Frank Fenton and William Wister Haines' screenplay that makes the transition rather jarring.

The first act of this flick plays like the John Wayne of yore, back in the saddle (or in this case, cockpit) again. We get a tough bruising Wayne with the proverbial heart of gold, wooing his favorite leading lady, Maureen O'Hara, who has enough vim and vinegar in her to make us recall their epic, complex and rewarding sparing matches in Ford's The Quiet Man, made only five years earlier, but otherwise, a lifetime away from where these two troopers are now. O'Hara's more reticent here, and awkwardly so. Her love/hate relationship with Wayne's lumbering stud turned lame is weirdly lacking in something.

The rest of the cast really haven't a leg to stand on. But Wayne and O'Hara have done their best work elsewhere.

WAC gives us a competent mastering effort that belies the shortcomings of vintage MetroColor. While everything has been done to stabilize the image, colors do vary, and not just from scene to scene, but occasionally, from shot to shot. Overall, everything looks great. Just don't expect perfection and you'll be…