Browse Westerns. Classics

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Errol Flynn Westerns Collection (Montana / Rocky Mountain / San Antonio / Virginia City)

Actors: Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith, Randolph Scott, Miriam Hopkins
ASIN : B0018RU45U
Sales Rank : 9269
Director : Michael Curtiz
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Original recording remastered, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0085391188216
UPC : 085391188216
Release Date : December 26, 2008
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 389

Product Description

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 08/26/2008

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Errol Flynn is primarily recognized for his swashbuckling roles, but let's adjust that. As Frank Thompson notes in his characteristically droll and well-informed commentary on Virginia City, Flynn was born to star in period pictures, and that included Westerns. This son of Tasmania slipped into Stetson and six-gun mode without strain, and without having to conceal his somewhere-in-the-British-Empire accent. Which is only fair: the director of his first three Wild West outings was the Hungarian-born, English-language-mauling Michael Curtiz. Not to beat about the sagebrush, the best of Flynn's Westerns--the Curtiz-directed Dodge City (1939) and Santa Fe Trail (1940), plus Raoul Walsh's They Died With Their Boots On (1942)--are not included in this set. Of the four films that are, Curtiz's Virginia City (1940) is much the liveliest, and certainly the most handsome. Set in the closing months of the Civil War, it's about Confederate loyalists making one last effort to stave off defeat on the battlefields back East by transporting five million dollars in gold from the Nevada mining town of the title. Union spy Flynn spars with Rebel counterpart Randolph Scott, as both also vie for the love of saloon songstress and gold-plot mastermind Miriam Hopkins. Warner Bros. hoped to replicate the Dodge City hit formula, even recycling the same town set (albeit in black and white instead of Technicolor) and re-teaming cinematographer Sol Polito (who was better at black and white anyway), screenwriter Robert Buckner (strewing illogic and coincidence with abandon), and composer Max Steiner, as well as Flynn sidekicks Alan Hale and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams. But who thought of (mis)casting Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican bandito--possibly the nadir of Bogie's life as a contract player? On the upside, extensive location shooting around Flagstaff, Arizona, gave Virginia City by far the most striking scenery of any Flynn Western.

Flynn spent the WWII years concentrating on war-related films, but 1945 found him saddling up again for San Antonio (or did it?--he's clearly doubled in horseback longshots). He plays a Texas rancher turned de facto outlaw by virtue of losing his land in a cattle war and being driven into Mexican exile. Never fear, he's soon finessed his way back across the border and set about undermining those who wronged him and his friends. San Antonio was Flynn's fifth Western but only the second in Technicolor--bright, bold color, and lots of it. Truth to tell, it's a bit of a mishmash, with so much skulking around upstairs, downstairs, and backstage at chief villain Paul Kelly's Bella Union music-hall saloon that it begins to resemble Feydeau farce. The script is credited to Alan Le May (The Searchers) and W.R. Burnett, and the direction to David Butler--though Raoul Walsh is known to have lent a hand (surely "Get that drunken cat off the bar" is a Walsh touch). Leading lady Alexis Smith sings a few songs and her brassy red hair is grand for Technicolor, but her romance with Flynn is a pale shadow of their delightful pairing three years earlier in Gentleman Jim. Warner Home Video has yet to release Walsh's Silver River (1948), the last Flynn Western to boast grade-A production values and co-stars, so that leaves two virtual B movies from 1950 to round out the set. In the 76-minute Montana, an Australian sheepman ventures into Big Sky country, "where cattle was king," and overcomes years of bloody resistance to the idea that sheep and cattle can coexist not only peacefully but profitably. Alexis Smith, who had earned her first billing opposite Flynn in 1941's Dive Bomber and is paired with him for the last time here, inveigles him into a frontier duet.

The somewhat better Rocky Mountain (83 minutes) borrows a leaf from Virginia City to propose another Confederate adventure in the West, an Army patrol attempting to join with Rebel sympathizers in California and foment an armed uprising. The mission gets sidetracked at Ghost Mountain, where the presence of hostile Shoshone Indians urges Rebs and Yankee cavalry to make common cause. Flynn plays it low-key throughout, as though his character, a man of honor in a world that scarcely recalls the notion, had already accepted the lostness of his cause. Each member of Flynn's small command has enough of a backstory to sit around and philosophize about--a narrative tactic anticipating how 90 percent of screentime in the coming decade of Westerns on TV would be filled. William Keighley (who would direct Flynn's last Warner film, The Master of Ballantrae, in 1953) breaks things up as best he can with the multi-tiered rockscape setting. Incidentally, Flynn's leading lady this time is his third and final wife, Patrice Wymore, cast as a Union officer's fiancée whose stagecoach gets ambushed nearby. Each of the films rates its own disc, with accompanying "Warner Night at the Movies" shorts and trailers from the season when the movie was released. Only two boast a commentary, and of these, only the one on Virginia City is worth the listen. Visual and technical quality is excellent overall. --Richard T. Jameson

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Big Valley - Season 2, Volume 1

Actors: Richard Long, Lee Majors, Linda Evans, Barbara Stanwyck, Peter Breck
ASIN : B000K7VHOQ
Sales Rank : 5783
Brand : Twentieth Century Fox
Studio : 20th Century Fox
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0024543403845
UPC : 024543403845
Release Date : December 30, 2007
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 1 to 2 days
Label : 20th Century Fox
Running Time : 771

Description

BIG VALLEY Season 2 Volume 1 continues the adventures of the wealthy and powerful Barkley family in the untamed Old West.

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Eugene Barkley, we hardly knew ye. The youngest of the Barkley sons (quick--who portrayed him? That's right; Charles Briles) is nowhere to be found in The Big Valley's sophomore season. But lawyer Jarrod (Richard Long), hot-headed Nick (Peter Breck), soulful "bastard son" Heath (Lee Majors), and coltish daughter Audra (Linda Evans) get into all the trouble and two-fisted action they can handle. And there's nothing the close-knit Barkleys, headed by matriarch Victoria (regally billed as "Miss Barbara Stanwyck") can't handle, whether it's defending the family name against the false accusations of an unscrupulous, grudge-bearing politician, rescuing Heath from a Mexican prison, or being abandoned in the desert. The drama of Heath's heritage, a focus of season 1, is settled once and for all in the season opener, "The Lost Treasure," in which a con man claims to be Heath's father. By episode's end, even Nick is calling Heath "brother."

Season 2 boasts an impressive roster of character actors, several at the beginning of their careers. Buddy Hackett, sporting a Lucky Charms leprechaun brogue, is the con man in "The Lost Treasure," with Bruce Dern as one of his marks, and Dub Taylor tending a ghost town bar. Colleen Dewhurst guest stars in the episode "A Day of Terror, as outlaw Annie Morton, who holds Victoria and Audra hostage while her injured son recuperates in a church. James Whitmore is the mud-slinging candidate in "Target." Warren Oates heads a band of bumbling brothers trying to open a stubborn railroad station safe in "The Great Safe Robbery." And that's the future Jan Brady, Eve Plumb as a little girl trapped in a well in "Hide the Children," an excellent episode that deals with intolerance as gypsy-hating Nick gets a change of attitude when he accompanies a gypsy bride and her family to her wedding. The Big Valley was never a ratings rival to the venerable Gunsmoke or Bonanza, which still ruled the prime time roost in 1966. But Western buffs will feel right at home with this sprawling family saga and its larger than life characters. Buyers, though, will be paying a higher premium for the Barkley property this time around. Priced the same as the season 1 set, this collection contains only the first 15 episodes of season 2 and no extra features. --Donald Liebenson

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The Alamo

Actors: Laurence Harvey, Richard Widmark, John Wayne, Frankie Avalon, Patrick Wayne
ASIN : B00004ZBVE
Sales Rank : 10165
Director : John Wayne
Brand : TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792847878
ISBN : 0792847873
UPC : 027616855503
Release Date : December 19, 2000
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer : MGM (Video & DVD)
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Label : MGM (Video & DVD)
Running Time : 167

Description

John Wayne produces, directs and stars in this "bigger than life" (Life) chronicle of one ofthe most remarkable events in American history. At the Alamoa crumbling adobe mission185 exceptional men joined together in a sacred pact: they would stand firm against an army of 7,000 and willingly give their lives for freedom. Filmed entirely in Texas, only a few miles from the site of the actual battle, The Alamo is a visually stunning and historically accurate celebration of courage and honor. Co-starring Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey and Chill Wills, and garnering seven OscarÂ(r) nominations*, it is a "truly memorable movie spectacle" (Leonard Maltin). *1960: Picture, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Sound (winner), Editing, Score and Song

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John Wayne drew on what he learned from John Ford, Howard Hawks, and practically everyone who directed him during his long career when he made his own directorial debut on this labor of love. The Alamo is a sprawling, unabashedly patriotic epic of the sacrifice made by 187 men defending the Alamo from Santa Ana's bigger and better equipped army. Wayne stars as Col. Davy Crockett, the straight-talking, fun-loving frontiersman turned senator, with Laurence Harvey as the stiff, by-the-book Col. William Travis and Ricahrd Widmark as the legendary Jim Bowie who bristles under Travis's military protocol. The mix of regular army soldiers, Texican irregulars, scouts, and civilians makes for a volatile melting pot, but they all come together in a time of crisis in this metaphor for Wayne's heroic vision of America. Wayne spared no expense in this, one the last of the old fashion Westerns, re-creating the Alamo in exacting detail and corralling a cast of Western icons and old friends, including Richard Boone, Chill Wills (who earned an Oscar nomination), Hank Worden, Denver Pyle, Ken Curtis, and Olive Carey, in addition to teen heartthrob Frankie Avalon and Wayne's son Pat. Even old pal and spiritual godfather John Ford lent a hand shooting second-unit footage. Wayne is no Ford, but despite himself (and a talky script), he delivers an entertaining film full of intriguing characters and excellent action scenes, earning the film an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in 1960. Remember the Alamo! --Sean Axmaker

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The Rare Breed

Actors: James Stewart, Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Juliet Mills, Don Galloway
ASIN : B00008CMT1
Sales Rank : 13643
Director : Andrew V. McLaglen
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783278940
ISBN : 0783278942
UPC : 025192262722
Release Date : December 06, 2003
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 97

Product Description

An english widow her daughter and a drifter go to texas to breed her hereford bull with a ranchers longhorns. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 08/23/2005 Starring: James Stewart Brian Keith Run time: 97 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Andrew V. Mclaglen

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A very offbeat subject gives this Western its beefy flavor: English lady Maureen O'Hara brings a prize Hereford bull to the Wild West, where she plans to introduce its hardy bloodline into longhorn country. Cattle puncher James Stewart finds the idea suspect, but he likes this redhead, so he manages to tag along through stampede, gunfight, and blizzard. Director Andrew V. McLaglen generally steers a pleasing course, although the movie occasionally stumbles between brawling comedy and western drama. One stunt sequence, a run of longhorns through a desert canyon, qualifies as a hair-raiser. Brian Keith, wearing a gigantic red beard, does a Scots accent as a cattle baron, and veteran cowhands Ben Johnson and Jack Elam are around to lend atmosphere. The big bull's name is Vindicator, and he obeys whenever Juliet Mills whistles "God Save the Queen"--did we mention this is a very offbeat subject for a Western? --Robert Horton

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Gunsmoke - 50th Anniversary Collection, Volumes 1 & 2

Actors: James Arness, Milburn Stone, Amanda Blake, Ken Curtis, Glenn Strange
ASIN : B000BITUYI
Sales Rank : 13749
Director : Antony Ellis, Clyde Ware, Gary Nelson, Harry Horner, John Dunkel
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Subtitled, Color, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0097360413441
UPC : 097360413441
Release Date : December 03, 2006
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 1145

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Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for bringing law and respectability to the Dodge City in this western action-drama. The show still holds the record for being the longest running primetime drama series in television history.

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Gunsmoke: 50th Anniversary Edition Volume 1 is a winning collection of episodes from the long-running CBS Western's first nine seasons, with an accent on special guest stars who had yet to find fame. A few key storylines are in the mix, too, including Gunsmoke's first episode, dated September 10, 1955 and introduced by John Wayne, who more or less suggests that the series' beefy star, James Arness, is cut from the same heroic cloth as the Duke himself. No matter who drops in for a guest spot, however, or whether Gunsmoke was a half-hour or hour-long program (the show doubled its running time by season 8), the running storyline and core characters are as constant as the prairie stars.

Arness plays plain-speaking U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, who keeps the peace over a wide territory from his perch in Dodge City, Kansas, a rough-and-tumble town where prospectors, farmers, bounty hunters, outlaws, and the occasional lunatic pass through. Dennis Weaver lends support as Dillon's deputy, Chester, a courageous clown; Amanda Blake is saloon keeper Kitty; and Milburn Stone plays irascible Doc, apparently Dodge City's only physician. Volume 1 highlights feature a couple of episodes with Charles Bronson, including "The Killer," in which the future Death Wish star portrays a psychopath preying on the weak. Mogul Aaron Spelling, at one time a character actor, appears as a spacey wanderer who nearly gets lynched in "The Guitar." Cloris Leachman is very good as a woman with a diabolical edge in "Legal Revenge," Angie Dickinson is memorable as an Arapaho Indian whose marriage to a white settler incites racial anger, and Jack Lord portrays a pair of brothers who threaten Doc's life. Burt Reynolds, who joined the cast of Gunsmoke as the half-white, half-Comanche character Quint, is introduced in the very effective drama "Quint Asper Comes Home," while Ken Curtis, whose goofy Festus effectively replaced the departing Chester in season 9, enters the series in "Prairie Wolfer."

Volume 2 picks up exactly where Volume 1 ends, with the long-running series entering its 10th year, each episode an hour long and Ken Curtis now a permanent member of the cast as the buffoonish Festus. A couple of other actors will come and go as cast regulars, but the core group remains: James Arness as U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, Amanda Blake as saloon keeper Kitty, and Milburn Stone as Doc. This collection of programs cherry-picks its way through season 19, emphasizing guest stars of note including Leonard Nimoy, excellent as a wry Indian and skinner in "Treasure of John Walking Fox," and William Shatner as a wily outlaw posing as a deputy sheriff in "Quaker Girl." (Arness, who provides a brief, vocal introduction to each episode, notes that Shatner was already starring on Star Trek by the time "Quaker Girl" was broadcast in 1966.)

Bette Davis, Bruce Dern, and Tom Skerritt all appear in "The Jailer" (the first color episode in this collection), in which the legendary Davis plays a vengeful widow who kidnaps Kitty in order to lure Matt to his own execution. Ed Asner provides optional commentary for "Hung High," in which he stars, while a young Dennis Hopper turns up as a villain out to kill a bounty hunter (a charismatic John D. Barrymore, father of Drew). Carroll O'Connor is very effective in "The Wrong Man," Jon Voight (in the same year as Midnight Cowboy) makes a splash as a convicted murderer who saves Kitty's life in "The Prisoner," and Kurt Russell is solid and sympathetic as a young man determined to avenge the death of his father in "Trail of Bloodshed." Special features include a couple of gag/blooper reels, a 1968 Emmy Award presentation to Milburn Stone, and a pair of old television interviews with Amanda Blake. --Tom Keogh

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Stranger On Horseback

Actors: Walter S. Baldwin, James Bell, John Carradine, Robert Cornthwaite, Nancy Gates
ASIN : B001CR4966
Sales Rank : 9612
Director : Jacques Tourneu
Studio : VCI Entertainment
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Restored, Widescreen
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0089859057823
UPC : 089859057823
Release Date : December 16, 2008
Publisher : VCI Entertainment
Manufacturer : VCI Entertainment
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : VCI Entertainment
Running Time : 66

Product Description

Joel McCrea brings law and order to the range in Stranger on Horseback . McCrea portrays a circuit judge Richard Thorne, who comes to a small western town in the course of making his rounds. There he finds the town and surrounding area under the feudal thumb of an oldline family headed by Josiah Bannerman (John McIntire). Despite wholehearted opposition and obstacles, Thorne fingers Bannerman s spoiled son, Tom (Kevin McCarthy) for murder and smokes out the necessary frightened witnesses and defies the whole clan by seeing that justice is done. In doing so he even wins the grudging respect of the old cattle baron, gains the love of the latter s strong-willed niece, Amy (Miroslava Stern), and awakens the sheriff (Emile Meyer) to a new sense of duty. Bonus Features: Scene Selection, Trailers, Radio Hour: Radio Shows: Tales of Texas Rangers, Audio biographies by Joel Blumberg, Original Theatrical Trailer, Adlets: Lonesome Trail DF, Tall Texan, Western Noir DF, Great Jesse James Raid & Other Legendary Outlaws Product Specs: DVD9; Dolby Digital; 66 minutes; Color; 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA NR; Year 1955; SRP - $14.99

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Bend Of The River

Actors: James Stewart, Rock Hudson, Arthur Kennedy, Julie Adams, Lori Nelson
ASIN : B00008CMRL
Sales Rank : 20969
Director : Anthony Mann
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0025192262425
UPC : 025192262425
Release Date : December 06, 2003
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
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Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 91

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An ex-outlaw and a horse thief lead a wagon train of farmers to oregon before a gold rush. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 05/06/2003 Starring: Lori Nelson Rock Hudson Run time: 91 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Anthony Mann

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Besides being a terrific movie in its own right--and the second entry in a remarkable eight-film series teaming director Anthony Mann and star James Stewart--Bend of the River is also fascinating as a variation on one of the greatest Westerns. With or without anyone else's knowledge, screenwriter Borden Chase reworked scenes, character configurations, and much of the structure of Red River, the screenplay of which he had cowritten (from his own novel) for director Howard Hawks six years earlier. Seeing what Hawks and Mann did with some of the same scenes--a spooky night skirmish with Indians, for instance--makes for a compelling lesson in the transformative power of directorial style.

Instead of Texas and the Chisholm Trail, Bend of the River is set in the Oregon river country, with a wagon train substituting for an epic cattle drive. Wagonmaster Stewart, a man with a secret past he's determined to redeem, rescues another, not-so-ex-renegade (Arthur Kennedy) from a lynching. Stewart finds Kennedy a powerful ally in a fight but ultimately has to face him as a mortal enemy--and to revert to his old savage ways in order to save his adopted community. Along the trail, they are variously companioned and/or menaced by the likes of slick gambler Rock Hudson (compare the Cherry Valance part in Red River) and hard cases Harry (then Henry) Morgan, Royal Dano, and Jack Lambert. There's knockout scenery, as usual with Mann, and fight-to-the-death action as bracing as a plunge into an icy river. --Richard T. Jameson

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Ride the High Country

Actors: John Anderson, R.G. Armstrong, Edgar Buchanan, John Davis Chandler, James Drury
ASIN : B000BT96DW
Sales Rank : 12374
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790792293
ISBN : 079079229X
UPC : 012569690721
Release Date : December 10, 2006
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 94

Description

An ex-lawman agrees to escort a shipment of gold cross-country, but runs into trouble when the men hired to help him turn out be not be as moral as their boss, and plot to steal the gold.

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Ride the High Country is the one Sam Peckinpah movie about which there has never been controversy--save at MGM in 1962, when a new studio regime opted to dump this beautiful, heartbreakingly elegiac Western into the bottom half of a double-bill. Westerns rarely even got reviewed back then, so it's wellnigh miraculous that critics discovered the movie and raved about it. Newsweek called it the best American picture of the year.

Veteran cowboy stars Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea portray aging gunslingers in the twilight of the Old West. McCrea's character, Steve Judd, signs on to transport a shipment of gold from a remote mining camp. Gil Westrum (Scott), an old crony now trick-shooting in a carnival, agrees to help but really aims to seduce Judd into stealing the treasure. The slow-building tension between longtime friends--one still true to the code he's lived by, the other having drifted away from it--anticipates the tortuous personal dilemmas played out to the death by Peckinpah's Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and Benny and Elita in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

The action scenes are powerful, if only beginning to suggest the radical technique with which Peckinpah would astonish audiences in just a few years. But his feeling for flavorsome dialogue, Rabelaisian humor, and full-blooded character acting is already unmistakable. Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, and John Davis Chandler are among the "redneck peckerwoods" complicating the journey, and Mariette Hartley is fresh and saucy in her big-screen debut. As for McCrea and Scott, they are simply superb. The two proposed that they swap roles before filming got underway, and the question of who got first billing was settled by flipping a coin. Both men retired once the film was in the can. They knew they'd never top it. --Richard T. Jameson

Browse Classics Online

Errol Flynn Westerns Collection (Montana / Rocky Mountain / San Antonio / Virginia City)

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Big Valley - Season 2, Volume 1

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The Alamo

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The Rare Breed

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Gunsmoke - 50th Anniversary Collection, Volumes 1 & 2

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Stranger On Horseback

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Wanted: Dead or Alive - Season Two

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Bend Of The River

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Ride the High Country

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Saddle the Wind

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