Product Description

Author Joseph Heller's classic anti-war novel was spun into a gargantuan, surrealistic discourse on the madness of army life by director Mike Nichols. Yossarian (Alan Arkin), a WWII bomber pilot feigning insanity to stop being sent on flying missions, leads a colorful gallery of characters, portrayed by Bob Newhart, Orson Welles, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Jon Voight, and Paula Prentiss. 121 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital mono, French Dolby Digital mono; Subtitles: English; audio commentary by Nichols; photo gallery; theatrical trailer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9986 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2001-05-22
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.com
Joseph Heller's novel was one of the seminal literary events of the 1960s, but Mike Nichols's film ultimately proved too literal in its attempt to bring Heller's fragmented fiction to the screen. Still, Nichols, who made this on the heels of The Graduate, seemed the ideal candidate to tackle this Buck Henry adaptation. The story deals with bomber pilot Yossarian (Alan Arkin), who has flown enough missions to get out of World War II but can't because the number of missions needed for discharge keeps getting raised. The satire and absurdity of Heller's book get lost in Nichols's effort to give screen time to the members of his all-star cast, which includes Orson Welles, Jon Voight, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Richard Benjamin, and Martin Sheen, among others. --Marshall Fine