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James Cagney - The Signature Collection (The Bride Came C.O.D. / Captains of the Clouds / The Fighting 69th / Torrid Zone / The West Point Story)

Actors: James Cagney, Jimmy Cagney
ASIN : B000MTEFV4
Sales Rank : 23438
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0085391137009
UPC : 085391137009
Release Date : December 24, 2007
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 489

Description

Warner Home Video will honor one of America's greatest motion picture stars with the release of James Cagney: The Signature Collection. The OscarÂ® winning screen icon comes to life in this collection that includes five new-to-DVD films - The Bride Came C.O.D., Captain of the Clouds, The Fighting 69th, Torrid Zone and The West Point Story. Cagney's versatile talent is on display opposite a star-studded array of screen favorites including Bette Davis, Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Virginia Mayo, Ann Sheridan and Pat O'Brien. Special features on each title in the Collection include the entertaining "Warner Night at the Movies" short subject galleries with vintage newsreels, vault treasures and classic cartoons.

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Spanning a lively decade in the career of one of Hollywood's greatest stars, The James Cagney Signature Collection highlights Cagney's versatility beyond the gangster roles he was best known for. You won't find any of Jimmy's hard-boiled classics in this five-disc set, but you'll find plenty to enjoy, with each film given the care and respect we've come to expect from Warner Bros.' archival DVD releases. From the World War I heroism of The Fighting 69th to the musical extravaganza The West Point Story, these five films represent fully one-third of Cagney's movie output from 1940 to 1950, and they're all above-average showcases for Cagney's enduring appeal. For sheer entertainment value, the best of the bunch is 1940's Torrid Zone, a still-delightful comedy teaming Jimmy with his best pal Pat O'Brien and Hollywood's "Oomph Girl," Ann Sheridan, in a savvy send-up of tropical adventure. Cagney loved working with O'Brien (who also costars in The Fighting 69th), and this collection also highlights Cagney's generous penchant for surrounding himself with some of Hollywood's best-loved character actors, like George Tobias, Alan Hale (Sr. and Jr.), George Brent, and others. And while 1941's The Bride Came C.O.D. teamed Cagney and Bette Davis for the second and final time (resulting in a breezy comedy that shows both stars at their most endearing), 1942's Captains of the Clouds is a standard-yet-sturdy example of Hollywood's wartime patriotism, with Cagney (in his first Technicolor feature) as a seasoned pilot recruited into the Royal Canadian Air Force. The latest film in this batch, 1950's The West Point Story, was conspicuously promoted to capitalize on Cagney's Oscar-winning role in 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy, and while it's the most dated movie in this set, it's still got plenty to offer in terms of Cagney's unique style of showmanship.

As with previous Signature Collections, Warner Bros. has done a spectacular job of bringing these films to DVD. Picture and sound quality are uniformly superb throughout, and each film is accompanied by a variety of "Night at the Movies" short subjects, specifically organized to approximate the experience of seeing these films in their original theatrical context. Vintage newsreels, Warner Bros. cartoons (both "Looney Tunes" and/or "Merrie Melodies"), documentary shorts, and movie trailers are all included here, some seen for the first time in decades and chronologically corresponding to the feature presentation. No other studio cares for its library as passionately as Warner Bros., and The James Cagney Signature Collection is further proof that there's a wide and appreciative audience for DVD sets that showcase great stars while honoring Hollywood's history and the nostalgic pleasure of "a night at the movies." --Jeff Shannon

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The Searchers (Two-Disc Anniversary Edition)

Actors: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood
ASIN : B000F0UUIM
Sales Rank : 15421
Director : John Ford, Nick Redman
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0085392891825
UPC : 085392891825
Release Date : December 06, 2006
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 119

Description

Working together for the 12th time, John Wayne and director John Ford forged The Searchers into a landmark Western offering an indelible image of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays an ex-Confederate soldier seeking his niece, captured by Comanches who massacred his family. He won't surrender to hunger, thirst, the elements or loneliness. And in his five-year search, he encounters something unexpected: his own humanity. Beautifully shot by Winton C. Hoch, thrillingly scored by Max Steiner and memorably acted by a wonderful ensemble including Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood and Ward Bond, The Searchers endures as "a great film of enormous scope and breathtaking physical beauty" (Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic).

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Commentary by Peter Bogdanovich
Documentaries:Behind the Cameras (4-parts): Meet Jeffrey Hunter, Monument Valley, Meet Natalie Wood, Setting Up Production
Documentary:The Searchers: An Appreciation
Featurette:A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne, and the Searchers
Introduction:Intro by Patrick Wayne
Theatrical Trailer:Theatrical Trailer The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

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A favorite film of some of the world's greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, John Ford's The Searchers has earned its place in the legacy of great American films for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most notably, it's the definitive role for John Wayne as an icon of the classic Western--the hero (or antihero) who must stand alone according to the unwritten code of the West. The story takes place in Texas in 1868; Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a Confederate veteran who visits his brother and sister-in-law at their ranch and is horrified when they are killed by marauding Comanches. Ethan's search for a surviving niece (played by young Natalie Wood) becomes an all-consuming obsession. With the help of a family friend (Jeffrey Hunter) who is himself part Cherokee, Ethan hits the trail on a five-year quest for revenge. At the peak of his masterful talent, director Ford crafts this classic tale as an embittered examination of racism and blind hatred, provoking Wayne to give one of the best performances of his career. As with many of Ford's classic Westerns, The Searchers must contend with revisionism in its stereotypical treatment of "savage" Native Americans, and the film's visual beauty (the final shot is one of the great images in all of Western culture) is compromised by some uneven performances and stilted dialogue. Still, this is undeniably one of the greatest Westerns ever made. --Jeff Shannon

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Cannibal! The Musical

Actors: Dian Bachar, Stephen Blackpool, Stan Brakhage, Dan Brother, Duster
ASIN : B00000K3TK
Sales Rank : 16642
Studio : TROMA ENTERTAINMENT INC.
Region Code : 0
Format : Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0790357998630
UPC : 790357998630
Release Date : December 01, 2000
Publisher : TROMA ENTERTAINMENT INC.
Manufacturer : TROMA ENTERTAINMENT INC.
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Label : TROMA ENTERTAINMENT INC.
Running Time : 95

Description

From the Makers of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, this is the musical that started it all! 3 Hours of bone chilling, flesh eating show-stopping hilarity! With vicious gore, laugh-inducing gags and rousing musical numbers such as "Snowman" and "Shpedoinkle Day," Cannibal! The Musical is the true story of the only person convicted of cannibalism in America - Alfred Packer. The sole survivor of an ill-fated trip to the Colorado Territory, while searching for gold and love, he and his companions lost their way and resorted to unthinkable horrors! Packer and his five wacky mining buddies sing and dance their ways into your heart...and then take a bite out of it! Cannibal! The Musical is Oklahoma meets Bloodsucking Freaks. Brought to you by the Troma Team and Trey Parker - the Rogers and Hammerstein of Horror!

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Alferd Packer was the only man in the United States ever convicted of cannibalism--what better hero for fellow Coloradan and future South Park creator Trey Parker to celebrate in music? Blue-eyed and boyish Parker was still in college when he wrote, directed, composed the songs for, and took the starring role as the innocent young Packer in this film, giving a gee- whiz performance as an ambitious pioneer who joins an ill-fated trek west that ends up stranded in the mountains. At times resembling a perverse community theater parody of Rodgers and Hammerstein ("My heart's as full as a baked po-ta-to!"), Parker bounces back and forth between cheery production numbers and goony songs ("Let's build a snowman," sings one starving-mad hiker) and grotesque gore (bloody body parts, festering sores, human hors d'oeuvres). It lacks in style and consistency and the juvenile gags and fart jokes wear thin over the course of a feature film, but Parker's sheer energy and inventiveness carry the overlong picture to a rousing conclusion. Regular Parker collaborators Matt Stone and Dian Bachar costar in this tuneful barbecue. --Sean Axmaker

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Walt Disney Treasures - Elfego Baca and The Swamp Fox - Legendary Heroes

Actor: Treasures
ASIN : B000ATQYV0
Sales Rank : 15045
Studio : Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Disney
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780788860614
ISBN : 0788860615
UPC : 786936292336
Release Date : December 06, 2005
Publisher : Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Disney
Manufacturer : Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Disney
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Label : Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Disney
Running Time : 282

Description

Inspired by true life heroes, these are two of Walt's most exciting television shows, ELFEGO BACA and THE SWAMP FOX. Elfego Baca is a gunfighter (Robert Loggia) in the old west who changes his ways to become sheriff and then a lawyer. Elfego deals with rampaging cowboys, outlaws and more in this exciting series about law and order on the frontier. The Swamp Fox stars Leslie Nielsen (who starred in the classic film "Forbidden Planet," and would later become famous for the "Airplane" and "Naked Gun" movies) as Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. This patriot fought the British using unusual methods, and became known as "The Swamp Fox." In this superb series, Marion matches wits with the Tories in a story of adventure and action. Bonus materials will include an interview with Robert Loggia, star of "Elfego Baca;" "Tales of Courage and Adventure" a featurette that examines the origins of these historical figures and the fascinating story of their lives, still frame galleries from these TV shows, and more. Introductions by Leonard Maltin.

CONTENTS
* Elfego Baca: Nine lives of Elfego Baca
* Four Down and Five Lives to Go
* Attorney at Law
* Swamp Fox: Birth of the Swamp Fox
* Brother Against Brother
* Tory Vengeance

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After Davy Crockett scored a huge hit on TV and in theaters, Walt Disney looked for stories about other American heroes for Disneyland; among the ones he chose were Elfego Baca and Marion Francis, the Swamp Fox. Of the two, Elfego Baca, which ran for 10 installments from October 1958 through March 1960, is the more entertaining. Robert Loggia cuts a properly dashing figure as Baca, the New Mexico gunman who became a lawyer. In both capacities, he fought for justice and the spirit of the law, rather than its letter: If he found a law unjust--or inconvenient--he bent or ignored it to achieve his always honorable ends. Baca also stood out as a rare example of a Latino hero at time when Hispanics were rarely seen on American TV. Elfego Baca proved popular enough to be recut and released theatrically outside the United States.

During the Revolutionary War, Colonel Francis Marion led a string of unconventional campaigns against the British in the Carolinas. His skill at staging raids, then vanishing into the trackless marshes earned him the title "The Swamp Fox." As Marion, Leslie Nielsen lacks Loggia's panache. He's also required to make rather heavy-handed speeches about the rightness of the American cause and its inevitable victory that bring the story to screeching halt. And he always seems to pick the most obtuse members of the British army as targets. Although The Swamp Fox ran for six installments, from October 1959 through January 1961, it was eclipsed by more exciting Disney Americana, notably Texas John Slaughter (1958-1961). (Unrated, suitable for ages 8 and older: violence, alcohol and tobacco use) --Charles Solomon

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The Plainsman

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford, Helen Burgess
ASIN : B0001FVDWS
Sales Rank : 29641
Director : Cecil B. DeMille
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783255057
ISBN : 0783255055
UPC : 025192121029
Release Date : December 01, 2004
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
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Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 113

Product Description

Wild bill hickok calamity jane and buffalo bill go up againt indians and a gunrunner. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Gary Cooper James Ellison Run time: 113 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Cecil B. Demille

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Just maybe the most shamelessly enjoyable of Cecil B. DeMille's pseudo-historical epics, this rumbustious frontier saga offers a three-for-one Western legends combo--Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Calamity Jane, all cutting up in the 1870s, with George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln thrown in for good measure. (Wait a minute, Lincoln was assassinated in 1865--oh, never mind.) Truth to tell, Buffalo Bill doesn't really pull his weight, since (1) he is hopelessly distracted by virtue of having recently married and (2) he's played by James Ellison, an eternal juvenile normally relegated to second-banana duty in Paramount's Hopalong Cassidy series. However, Gary Cooper's Wild Bill and Jean Arthur's Calamity supply enough star power to light up the Dakotas and parts of Missouri.

Every once in a while, DeMille and his small army of writers stumble upon an actual historical fact. Bill Cody did fight to the death with an Indian chief named Yellow Hand. George Custer and James Butler Hickok did both buy the farm in the summer of 1876. (Custer's Last Stand is handled imaginatively, if cheaply, as a vision narrated by a wandering Cheyenne warrior--none other than C.B.'s son-in-law Anthony Quinn in one of his earliest screen appearances.) Jack McCall (veteran weasel Porter Hall) did find himself in Deadwood, South Dakota, at the same time Wild Bill was drawing aces and eights in a poker game ... though McCall was not necessarily affiliated with DeMille's favorite villain, Charles Bickford, in the business of running guns to the Indians. --Richard T. Jameson

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Wild Bill

Actors: Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, John Hurt, Diane Lane, Keith Carradine
ASIN : B000056H2G
Sales Rank : 33394
Director : Walter Hill
Studio : Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792849292
ISBN : 0792849299
UPC : 027616859082
Number Of Discs : 1
Release Date : December 02, 2002
Publisher : Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Manufacturer : Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
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Label : Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Running Time : 98

Description

He was a legend in his own time...and for all time. Jeff Bridges portrays Wild Bill Hickok, the hard-drinking, quick-shooting gunslinger who lived on the edge. Hickok's amazing story is told with a stunning visual style and lightning-fast pace, illuminating one of the most exciting heroes of the American West. Wild Bill is "an action-packed masterpiece" (Paul Wunder, WBAI Radio). In the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, Wild Bill must face his most lethal enemy. A mysterious stranger (David Arquette) has arrived announcing that he will not leave until Hickok is dead. Wild Bill finds comfort in the arms of sexy Calamity Jane (Ellen Barkin), but he is haunted by the memory of the one woman he truly loveda longing that could ultimately bring about his downfall. As Hickok andhis opponent near their explosive confrontation, the stage is set for a powerful climax unsurpassedin high drama and edge-of-your-seat excitement.

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Audiences overlooked this film, one of the better westerns in several years, featuring yet another terrific performance by Jeff Bridges, America's most underrated movie actor. As James Butler Hickock, he captures the sense of a man at the end of his career, one of the first media superstars who discovers that his legend is more burden than blessing. As he heads toward his final hand of poker in Deadwood, South Dakota, he flashes back to his younger days and the events that built his reputation, even as he copes with encroaching blindness caused by syphilis. Walter Hill blends action and elegy, utilizing a screenplay based both on Pete Dexter's novel Deadwood and on Thomas Babe's play Fathers and Sons. Wild Bill features strong supporting performances by John Hurt (as a Hickock sidekick) and Ellen Barkin (as the tough, lusty Calamity Jane)--but the centerpiece is the sad, manly performance by Bridges, who more than measures up to the part. --Marshall Fine

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Ford At Fox - The Collection

Actors: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Linda Darnell
ASIN : B000WMA6HI
Sales Rank : 47538
Director : Andrew Bennison, John Ford
Brand : FORD,JOHN
Studio : 20th Century Fox
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, NTSC, Closed-captioned
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0024543482864
UPC : 024543482864
Release Date : December 04, 2007
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : 20th Century Fox
Running Time : 2399

Description

John Ford is considered by many to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His sphere of influence touched contemporaries such as Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles; as well as George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. For much of his early career, Ford's home was Twentieth Century Fox where he made more than 50 films for the studio from 1920 through 1952, including such classics as The Grapes of Wrath, My Darling Clementine, Drums Along the Mohawk and How Green Was My Valley. It was one of the most productive director/studio relationships in the history of American film. Celebrating the legacy of the collected works of John Ford and their part in the Studio's heritage and pedigree, Ford at Fox: The Collection features 24 films as well as the new documentary "Becoming John Ford" by Academy Award nominated documentary maker and Ford historian Nick Redman. The beautifully packaged collection also includes an exclusive hard-cover book which features rare, unpublished photographs from Ford's career, lobby card reproductions, production stills and an in-depth look at this maverick's work.

Disc 1: WHAT PRICE GLORY Disc 2: MY DARLING CLEMENTINE Disc 3: HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY Disc 4: TOBACCO ROAD Disc 5: GRAPES OF WRATH Disc 6: DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK Disc 7: WEE WILLIE WINKIE Disc 8: YOUNG MR. LINCOLN Disc 9: PRISONER ON SHARK ISLAND Disc 10: STEAMBOAT AROUND THE BEND Disc 11: WORLD MOVES ON Disc 12: PILGRIMAGE/BORN RECKLESS Disc 13: DOCTOR BULL/JUDGE PRIEST Disc 14: FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER/SEAS BENEATH Disc 15: WHEN WILLIE COMES HOME/UP THE RIVER Disc 16: FOUR SONS Disc 17: THREE BAD MEN/HANGMAN'S HOUSE Disc 18: JUST PALS Disc 19: BECOMING JOHN FORD DOCUMENTARY Disc 20: THE IRON HORSE SPECIAL EDITION UK VERSION DISC 1 Disc 21: THE IRON HORSE US VERSION: DISC 2

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For anyone with a passion for vintage American cinema, it's difficult to imagine a more spectacular or more deeply gratifying occasion than the DVD release of Ford at Fox: The Collection. This mega-box is like a film archive unto itself ... or maybe permanent browsing rights over a wing of the Library of Congress. To be sure, there have been plenty directorial boxed sets, including several devoted to John Ford; and Ford made quite a bit of film history--and many of his best movies--away from Fox Films and its post-1935 avatar, 20th Century–Fox. But this treasure trove of 21 discs, encompassing just about half of the 50 titles Ford directed for Fox between 1920 and 1952, is unparalleled.

It isn't just the career highlights, though those have been treated royally. The Iron Horse, the epic 1924 Western that became a breakout success for its 30-year-old director, is presented in two editions, a British release version and the American version. Three Bad Men (1926), Ford's even better, last silent Western, is here, as well as the two pictures that brought him back-to-back best director Oscars in 1940-41, The Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley. The Grapes of Wrath has been newly restored, and you'll find three other towering collaborations with Henry Fonda: Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), and My Darling Clementine (1946)--both the director's preview cut and the release version.

Yet the real richness of Ford at Fox isn't limited to the known masterpieces. Some of it has to do with the dozen-and-a-half titles that are far from household words--the movies that put us in touch with the self-described "picture man" who did a "job of work" for the studio where he was under contract for much of the three decades beginning with Just Pals in 1920. Some of these are great films awaiting proper recognition. But even the least among them give off the ozone snap of discovery, affording simultaneous insights into the evolution of an artist, a medium, and a distinctive studio.

In this regard, the new feature-length documentary Becoming John Ford is an invaluable element of the set. Premier Ford biographer Joseph McBride, screenwriter Lem Dobbs, Peter Fonda, and others astutely testify about not only the life, artistry, and cantankerous personality of the director but also Fox studios and the mogul who served as a key Ford collaborator, Darryl F. Zanuck. Ford famously despised producers, but he respected Zanuck's movie sense and was content to leave the cutting of their films to him. (To the nighttime scene in The Grapes of Wrath when Tom Joad wanders outside the fruit-pickers' barracks and finds the strikers' encampment, Zanuck added the sound of crickets--a touch that made the superbly composed and lighted moment more "Fordian" than ever.)

Fox was the studio most identified with Americana, even before Zanuck--the favorite son of Wahoo, Nebraska--took charge. And so the legacy of Ford at Fox includes the three pictures he made with the beloved actor, comedian, and national political scold Will Rogers. Doctor Bull (1933) is a scrappy adaptation of a James Gould Cozzens novel, notable chiefly for its wintry New England atmosphere (Ford was a native Down Easter), but Judge Priest (1934) and Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) are luminous fables from the rural South. Judge Priest is especially remarkable for its subversive playing-off of Rogers' wily-rascal persona against the sly Stepin Fetchit in profoundly egalitarian comic scenes; the movie has been neglected because of Fetchit's infamous political incorrectness, but it has, and deserves, a place of honor here.

Also very fine is the 1936 The Prisoner of Shark Island, about the martyrdom of Dr. Samuel Mudd (Warner Baxter), who unwittingly set the leg John Wilkes Booth broke following his assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The moment of Lincoln's death, the president virtually passing into history before our eyes, is a mystical triumph by Ford and cinematographer Bert Glennon. Critic Joe McBride claims Pilgrimage (1933) as one of Ford's early masterpieces and likens the dark-hearted Hannah Jessop, played by stage actress Henrietta Crosman, to the similarly driven Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (not a Fox picture and not included in this set). The setting is again the rural South, and to break up her son's romance with a local girl, Hannah forces him to march off to war in France--where he is killed. The rest of the film becomes, spiritually and then literally, a redemptive journey for Hannah. This stark character study lacks marquee names but has Ford's heart and some of his most powerfully visualized sequences.

Pilgrimage, like the late silents Four Sons and Hangman's House (both 1928), displays evidence of how influenced Ford was in that period by German director F.W. Murnau, who had come to Fox in 1927 to make Sunrise; Four Sons, a mostly German-set story, was even shot on sets left over from the Murnau picture. The essential Ford style was based on dynamism defined within a fixed frame, but watching the director experiment here with elaborate camera movement is fascinating. Similarly, the gangster movies Up the River and Born Reckless (both 1930) and the WWI naval adventure Seas Beneath (1931) take their interest not from their slapdash scenarios but from Ford's crash course in accommodating the presence of sound. Seas Beneath is especially striking among early talkies for being filmed almost entirely in the open air, on the water and on picturesque Catalina Island, with astonishing long-take, real-time coverage of submarines surfacing and submerging, boats sinking, and a naval artillery duel nerve-wracking in its relentless slowness.

For much of his tenure at Fox, Ford had little to say about what films he'd be assigned, or who'd be cast in them. His response was to fill the backgrounds of his movies with his personal stock company of memorably ugly mugs (supremely, Jack Pennick), and to improvise passages of visual poetry or comedy (a baseball game amid the WWI section of Born Reckless!) to keep from getting bored. Apart from some anthology-worthy battlefield sequences, the 1934 The World Moves On is so diffuse and devoid of interest in its rambling family saga, we suspect it might have been the film that inspired one of the great Ford legends: how, advised by the front office that his current production was falling behind, he tore a handful of pages out of the script and said, "Now we're back on schedule."

Mostly, though, the picture man triumphed in spite of himself. Saddling John Ford with a Shirley Temple movie would seem to border on insult, but the director turned the Kipling-based Wee Willie Winkie (1937) into something enchanting instead of cloying. Also partly set on the Indian frontier, Four Men and a Prayer (1938)--a preposterous Boy's Own Adventure tale that hops from India to England to Latin America to Egypt as the titular quartet of British brothers try to clear their late father's name--was just about Ford's last obligatory assignment before embarking on the amazing 1939–41 streak of The Grapes of Wrath et al.; he disliked the story (and the British), but he turned an Indian saloon scene into a classic "Oirish" brawl, and invested a night of civil war in a Latin American town with a memorably surreal air of shock and terror.

How might Ford at Fox have evolved if WWII hadn't intervened? The director spent the war years shooting documentaries (several are included on the Becoming John Ford disc). Upon mustering out, his ambitions focused on developing personal productions for Argosy Pictures, the company he had formed with Merian C. (King Kong) Cooper before the war. Apart from My Darling Clementine, Ford directed only two more pictures for Fox, When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950) and an inferior remake of the silent Raoul Walsh classic What Price Glory (1952)--both semi-musicals featuring Fox's new star Dan Dailey. So, anticlimactically, Ford at Fox: The Collection ends there. But let's not dwell on that; this big box is very full. "There is no fence round time," the narrator says in How Green Was My Valley, "you can go back and have of it what you will." The films of John Ford are forever. --Richard T. Jameson

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James Cagney - The Signature Collection (The Bride Came C.O.D. / Captains of the Clouds / The Fighting 69th / Torrid Zone / The West Point Story)

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The Searchers (Two-Disc Anniversary Edition)

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Cannibal! The Musical

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Walt Disney Treasures - Elfego Baca and The Swamp Fox - Legendary Heroes

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The Best of Blu-ray - Action (Troy Director's Cut / Blood Diamond / Wyatt Earp / Alexander Revisited The Final Cut) [Blu-ray]

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The Plainsman

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Wild Bill

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Buffalo Girls

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The Best of Blu-ray Disc, Volume Three (Blazing Saddles / The Departed / GoodFellas / Superman - The Movie) [Blu-ray]

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Ford At Fox - The Collection

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