Review Of Williamsburg's Historical Movie, “The Story Of A Patriot”  

You may not know, as I did not, that the difinitive movie “The Story Of A Patriot,” a movie created in 1957 for the recreated town of Williamsburg, was released on dvd in 2004. I have been to Williamsburg Virginia several times, first as a boy of 11, and a few times since. The first time I went was for a school trip. My parents and I returned the following summer as a vacation. The first thing I asked my parents when we arrived was, “They have a really great movie about Williamsburg, can we go see it?"

Several years later, my wife and I returned to Williamsburg for our honeymoon. As I watched the film again, being older, I noticed the quality wasn't really that good technically. It appeared dark and had the appearance of a film shot in 16mm. I had now gone to college and taken several photography classes and was familiar with different film stocks and how they appeared. This film was really showing it's age and I remember thinking it wouldn't be around in a few years because it was deteriorating so badly. It was faded, scratched, and overall looked pretty bad.

Well, several years on and four kids later, we returned as a family. Now the movie looked as if it were transferred to VHS tape and shown on a projected TV,  (if I recall correctly), and appearing as if they took the film, or what was left of it, and transferred it because the film itself would no longer hold up to projectioning.

Recently, we found out a dvd copy was available from the Williamsburg Foundation. My thoughts were that it probably would be the worst copy available. The sound would be almost inaudible. The picture would be dark and muddy with colors fading, scratches passing by, splices making the film appear to jump out of the sprockets like an old unrestored black and white silent film. Needless to say, I was surprised. However, when it arrived, the history of the film which I had not known, was revealed.

Apparently, the original was filmed in Technicolor and “Vista-Vision.” This is the same format “White Christmas” with Bing Crosby with all of it's beautiful hues and colors was filmed if you have seen any restored copies of that movie. The Williamsburg Foundation had the good sense to protect the original over the years and even had monochrome masters made for each color separation of the original film print. Over the years, these too had aged with time, but were still usable to make High Definition digital copies for all future use.

The six track Sound was mixed by Todd-AO, (think “The Sound Of Music”), and is in full Dolby Stereo! I never heard it in stereo before. All in all this is a wonderful copy and I hope will be digitally converted to blu-ray in the future. A full and hearty thumbs up goes to The Williamsburg Foundation on this project.

Although the film is a fictional one based on the character John Fry, (played by Jack Lord of Hawaii Five-O fame), the film is historically accurate and filmed in the authentically recreated town of Williamsburg. It also sports some other well known names but doesn't have the normal hollywood drama feel to it. This was a well made movie that accurately depicts the times in which the character might have lived. While the movie does not quite meet the restoration quality of some hollywood movies on blu-ray, it certainly is well worth owning.

The movie itself is only 38 minutes long and in wide-screen format enhanced for 16 X 9 televisions. Restoration liner notes can be viewed by clicking on the picture below.

More information on the movie is available at IMDB at this link here. The movie can be ordered at this link here.

Somehow, we received our copy for free. I think it was available through advertising paperwork we received as former members of Williamsburg. Our copy arrived in a cardboard sleeve. The copies available from the Williamsburg Marketplace have standard dvd cases and artwork included.

Although we received our copy for free it did not influence this review in any way. My wife ordered the dvd and I was thrilled to take it upstairs and watch the movie I had remembered from my childhood years and feel it is still worth owning if you have ever been to Williamsburg, plan to go there, or just want a good historical film for your children.