In terms of Sam Peckinpah’s work, CROSS OF IRON usually is ranked low down the list. Why? Well it would be honest to say it is at the end of his career. 
Just before he made a comeback of sorts with CONVEY (which rumours suggest is next up for Blu Ray release). I actually love CROSS OF IRON for its bite, talking as it does of divisions in masculinity and class that ring with me. Based on the novel by Will Heinrich, a writer of novels only based on his own experience as a solider who served in the second war, it translates the brutality, camaraderie and insanity of war through the actions of the Eastern Front.
Rolf Steiner (James Coburn) is a German corporal, Iron Cross winner and now stuck in the trenches of the Eastern Front. 
The Nazi war machine is imploding and he is cleaning up the body parts. Captain Stransky (Maximilian Schell) is an aristocrat with a posting to get the long desired Iron Cross. When he assumes charge of Steiner and his men, conflict ensues. The war is going badly and as the bodies line up, Steiner becomes incensed. After being injured by a shell in a Soviet assault, he sees the creeping corruption and apathy to those men, fighting a losing war. Returning to the front, he stands up to the nightmare and has to pay with the lives of his men and maybe even his own.
So to the difference between UHD and 4K Blu Ray. Well John Coquillon cinematography has been restored some what. 
The UHD looks and sounded better by a mile, with less colour loss and no jarring light balance in scenes, but there is a feeling that this is not fixing the overall issue that the stock has not been respected as it should. The sombre tones, with an autumnal pallet though are glorious occasionally and so make your eyes sing. Where the real quality is here is in the extras. Now I review the Blu Ray here (all of this is on the UHD in a single disc).
You, like me, will buy the Blu ray for the film and its core selling point. The commentary by Mike Siegal. The man knows Peckinpah, that we know. He is also soon to complete the Peck films on Blu ray. But he also is commentating with a rich diversity and intensity. With a touch of clarity. He knowns his stuff of course. 
He also delightfully searches through the making, creating and completion of the film. Finding along the way the marvel of Coburn, how Peck came to make CROSS OF IRON, what editing was like and how was a masterful film maker like Peck, crippled by drugs and studio indifference (or aggressive exclusion.) Everything else on Dics 1 is what I would call on set stuff. Stills of the making, stills of the promotion. On set films. Disc two is more exploratory, focused as it is on the stars, the feel of Peck and his War movie (which is actually a very good essay) and some of the stuff, found on the cutting room floor.
Blu-Ray Disc 1
- Audio Commentary by filmmaker and film historian Mike Siegel
- NEW Promoting STEINER
- NEW STEINER on the set
- NEW Filming STEINER
- NEW Filming STEINER pt 2
- NEW STEINER in colour
Blu-Ray Disc 2
- On Location: Sam Peckinpah
- On Location: James Coburn
- On Location: Maximillian Schell
- On Location: James Mason
- On Location: David Warner
- Passion and Poetry: Sam Peckinpah’s War
- Kruger Kisses Kern
- Vadim & Sam: Father & Son
- Cutting Room Floor
- Steiner in Japan: Ads filmed in 1977
- Mike’s Home Movies: Steiner & Kiesel Meet Again
- US/UK Trailer
- German Trailer
- US TV Spot
