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The John Wayne Western Collection (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance / True Grit / Hondo / McLintock! / Big Jake / The Shootist / Rio Lobo / The Sons of Katie Elder / El Dorado)

Actors: John Wayne, James Stewart, John Ford, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin
ASIN : B000O179GS
Sales Rank : 4296
Director : John Farrow, Howard Hawks, Henry Hathaway
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0097361230542
UPC : 097361230542
Release Date : December 22, 2007
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 1028

Product Description

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 05/22/2007

Tremors Attack Pack (Tremors/ Tremors 2 - Aftershocks/ Tremors 3 - Back to Perfection/ Tremors 4 - The Legend Begins)

Actors: Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire
ASIN : B000ASATZ8
Sales Rank : 4158
Director : Brent Maddock, Ron Underwood, S.S. Wilson
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9781417059157
ISBN : 141705915X
UPC : 025192834523
Release Date : December 29, 2005
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 402

Description

Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward star as two country handymen who lead a cast of zany characters to safety in this exciting sci-fi creature comedy. Just as Val McKee (Bacon) and Earl Basset (Ward) decide to leave Perfection, Nevada, strange rumblings prevent their departure. With the help of a shapely seismology student (Finn Carter), they discover their desolate town is infested with gigantic man-eating creatures that live below the ground. The race is on to overcome these slimy subterraneans and find a way to higher ground, in this enjoyable thriller co-starring Michael Gross and Reba McEntire.

They’re back! The giant underground creatures that terrorized a desert town in Tremors are now plowing their way through Mexican oil fields, gobbling up everything and everyone around-and only one man can stop them! In the style of its predecessor, this comedy sci-fi creature feature reunites Fred Ward as down-on-his-luck Earl Basset and Michael Gross as gung-ho survivalist Burt Gummer, two desert desperados who take on the task of destroying the monsters. Partnered with them is Christopher Gartin, a young guy in need of kicks, cash, and a career change, and Helen Shaver, a sexy and intrepid scientist who’s seen it all…until now. Together they devise an ingenious plan for tracking and killing the creatures. Tremors 2 is filled with high-speed action and plenty of laughs-until the predators wise up.

Those morphing, man-eating monsters are shaking things up again in the dusty little town of Perfection, Nevada – and survivalist Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) is the only solution to the latest in evolution! Aided by a couple of young local entrepreneurs (Shawn Christian and Susan Chuang), Burt pits his impressive knowledge of weaponry against the newest and deadliest generation of Graboids. If Burt and his new partners can’t find a way to stop them, then the creatures that put Perfection on the map will wipe it right off the face of the earth. Tremors 3 promises earth-shaking, explosive, edge-of-your-seat entertainment.

Get ready to be shaken to your core by the all-new prequel to the original Tremors! When workers in a remote mining town of Rejection, Nevada, fall prey to an unseen creature, the mine’s owner, Hiram Gummer (Michael Gross), great-grandfather to Tremors’ Burt Gummer, hires a mercenary to destroy the carnivorous creatures before they swallow up his profits. What follows is an all-out assault that takes the battleground from deep in the earth to a suspense-filled showdown on the streets of Rejection! Tremors 4:The Legend Begins will thrill you with incredible action sequences, awesome bonus features and earth-shaking special effects created by the award-winning team behind the original box-office hit, Tremors.

The Complete James Dean Collection (East of Eden / Giant / Rebel Without a Cause Special Edition)

Actors: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Raymond Massey
ASIN : B0007TKNK6
Sales Rank : 6351
Director : Ara Chekmayan, Elia Kazan, George Stevens, Nicholas Ray
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9781419805011
ISBN : 1419805010
UPC : 012569683327
Release Date : December 31, 2005
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 430

Product Description

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 11/13/2007

Amazon.com

The Complete James Dean Collection includes two-disc special editions of the three major films Dean made during his meteoric career: East of Eden (1955, never before available on DVD), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and Giant (1956). In addition to new transfers, the films collect new and vintage documentaries, commentary tracks, publicity materials, and even the infamous "Drive Safely" commercial spot Dean filmed shortly before his death in an auto accident.

East of Eden is an acknowledged classic, and the starring debut of James Dean lifts it to legendary status. John Steinbeck's novel gave director Elia Kazan a perfect Cain-and-Abel showcase for Dean's iconic screen persona, casting the brooding star as Cal, the younger of two brothers vying for the love of their Bible-thumping father (Raymond Massey) in Monterey, California, at the dawn of World War I. Massey is a lettuce farmer, striving for market domination with an ill-fated refrigeration scheme. Having discovered that his presumed-dead mother (Oscar winner Jo Van Fleet) is a brothel owner in nearby Salinas, Cal convinces her to finance an investment that will restore his father's lost fortune, but neither money nor the tenderness of his brother's fiancée (Julie Harris) can assuage Cal's anguished need for paternal acceptance that comes nearly too late. Kazan's oblique camera angles and Dean's tortured emoting may seem extreme by latter-day standards, but their theatrics make East of Eden a timeless tale of family secrets and hard-won affection.

When people think of James Dean, they probably think first of the troubled teen from Rebel Without a Cause: nervous, volatile, soulful, a kid lost in a world that does not understand him. Made between his only other starring roles, in East of Eden and Giant, Rebel sums up the jangly, alienated image of Dean, but also happens to be one of the key films of the 1950s. Director Nicholas Ray takes a strikingly sympathetic look at the teenagers standing outside the white-picket-fence '50s dream of America: juvenile delinquent (that's what they called them then) Jim Stark (Dean), fast girl Judy (Natalie Wood), lost boy Plato (Sal Mineo), slick hot-rodder Buzz (Corey Allen). At the time, it was unusual for a movie to endorse the point of view of teenagers, but Ray and screenwriter Stewart Stern captured the youthful angst that was erupting at the same time in rock & roll. Dean is heartbreaking, following the method acting style of Marlon Brando but staking out a nakedly emotional honesty of his own. Going too fast, in every way, he was killed in a car crash on September 30, 1955, a month before Rebel opened. He was no longer an actor, but an icon, and Rebel is a lasting monument.

Giant got its name because everything in the picture is big, from the generous running time (more than 200 minutes) to the sprawling ranch location (a horizon-to-horizon plain with a lonely, modest mansion dropped in the middle) to the high-powered stars. Stocky Rock Hudson stars as the confident, stubborn young ranch baron Bick Benedict, who woos and wins the hand of Southern belle Elizabeth Taylor, a seemingly demure young beauty who proves to be Hudson's match after she settles into the family homestead. For many the film is chiefly remembered for James Dean's final performance, as poor former ranch hand Jett Rink, who strikes oil and transforms himself into a flamboyant millionaire playboy. Director George Stevens won his second Oscar for this ambitious, grandly realized (if sometimes slow moving) epic of the changing socioeconomic (and physical) landscape of modern Texas, based on Edna Ferber's bestselling novel. The talented supporting cast includes Mercedes McCambridge as Bick's frustrated sister, put out by the new "woman of the house"; Chill Wills as the Benedicts' garrulous rancher neighbor; Carroll Baker and Dennis Hopper as the Benedicts' rebellious children; and Earl Holliman and Sal Mineo as dedicated ranch hands.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Actors: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien
ASIN : B00005ASGG
Sales Rank : 2119
Director : John Ford
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792172666
ISBN : 0792172663
UPC : 097360611441
Release Date : December 05, 2001
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 123

Product Description

A tenderfoot lawyer and a powerful rancher are rivals in lovet who stand together against a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 04/11/2006 Starring: James Stewart Vera Miles Run time: 123 minutes Rating: Nr Director: John Ford

Amazon.com essential video

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." That's more than the code of a newspaperman in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; it's practically the operating credo of director John Ford, the most honored of American filmmakers. In this late film from a long career, Ford looks at the civilizing of an Old West town, Shinbone, through the sad memories of settlers looking back. In the town's wide-open youth, two-fisted Westerner John Wayne and tenderfoot newcomer James Stewart clash over a woman (Vera Miles) but ultimately unite against the notorious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Ford's nostalgia for the past is tempered by his stark approach, unusual for the visual poet of Stagecoach and The Searchers. The two heavyweights, Wayne and Stewart, are good together, with Wayne the embodiment of rugged individualism and Stewart the idealistic prophet of the civilization that will eventually tame the Wild West. This may be the saddest Western ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose. --Robert Horton

Gunsmoke - The First Season

Actors: James Arness, Amanda Blake, Milburn Stone, Dennis Weaver
ASIN : B000PHX5KU
Sales Rank : 5587
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Black & White, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0097368521346
UPC : 097368521346
Release Date : December 17, 2007
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 1051

Description

Marshall Matt Dillon is responsible for keeping the law and respectability in Dodge City in this western action-drama. Gunsmoke captured the courage, character and spirit of the Western Frontier.

Amazon.com

A TV series doesn't get a more auspicious launch than did Gunsmoke, the first episode of which, broadcast on Sept. 10, 1955, was introduced by none other than John Wayne ("Some of you may have seen me before"). In this historic prologue (included in this first-season round-up), Wayne hypes Gunsmoke as "honest, adult, and realistic." Of James Arness, starring as United States Marshal Matt Dillon, Wayne predicts, "He'll be a big star, so you might as well get used to him." Viewers did more than get used to him. "Mr. Dillon," as his sidekick Chester (Dennis Weaver) calls him, became a television icon who literally stood tall as a steadfast, incorruptible symbol of justice through two of America's most tumultuous decades. The Bravo network ranked him among TV's 50 greatest characters. Gunsmoke was television's longest running Western, and Arness's 20-year stint as Dillon would be matched only by Kelsey Grammer's Frasier Crane (and, by the way, Milburn Stone, who costarred with Arness as crusty, "vinegar face" Doc Adams).

For those who grew up with Gunsmoke's full-hour color episodes, this first season will be something of a revelation. The show is in black and white, and, at a half-hour, lean and gritty. Not that Dodge City is Deadwood, by any means, but its reputation as "the Gomorrah of the plains," as Dillon notes in the first episode, is well earned. Most episodes begin with Dillon setting the stage, Dragnet-style, like a frontier Joe Friday. "A man will choose his gun quicker to make a point than he'll draw on his logic," he ruminates at one point. "That's where I come in." Gunsmoke has its share of shootouts and traditional Western action, but the best episodes are gripping psychological dramas. In "Reward for Matt," the embittered widow of a racist Dillon was forced to gun down puts a price on his head. In "The Killer," Dillon exposes a gunslinger (guest star Charles Bronson) for the coward he is. Even an otherwise light-hearted holiday episode, "Magnus," in which Chester's backwards, backwoods brother comes to visit, is darkened by a twisted man gunning for "wicked" dance hall woman Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake), queen of the Longbranch saloon (and a close friend of the marshal—just how close is only hinted at). John Wayne was right: More than 50 years later, Gunsmoke remains "the best thing of its kind to come along." --Donald Liebenson

Beyond Gunsmoke

More TV Westerns

50th Anniversary Collection

Director’s Collection

Stills from Gunsmoke: The First Season (click for larger image)

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Actors: John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr.
ASIN : B000O599NK
Sales Rank : 1926
Director : John Ford
Brand : She
Studio : Turner Home Ent
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0053939791525
UPC : 053939791525
Release Date : December 22, 2007
Publisher : Turner Home Ent
Manufacturer : Turner Home Ent
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Turner Home Ent
Running Time : 103

Product Description

Studio: Turner Hm Entertainm Release Date: 05/22/2007 Run time: 103 minutes Rating: Nr

Amazon.com essential video

The second installment of John Ford's famous cavalry trilogy (which also includes Fort Apache and Rio Grande), this meditative Western continues the director's fascination with history's obliteration of the past. It features one of John Wayne's more sensitive performances as Capt. Nathan Brittles, a stern yet sentimental war horse who has difficulty preparing for his impending military retirement. All things considered, he refuses to leave before fulfilling his obligation to the local Indian tribe. It's a film about honor and duty as well as loneliness and mortality. And Oscar-winner Winton C. Hoch beautifully photographs it in Remington-like Technicolor tones (you've never seen such stunning cloud-covered skies). The combination of melancholy and farce (Victor McLaglen makes a perfect court jester) evokes comparisons to Shakespeare. Best of all, the scene in which Wayne fights back tears when receiving a gold watch from his troops is unforgettably bittersweet. If you view the whole trilogy, it actually makes sense to save this for last. --Bill Desowitz

Dances with Wolves - Extended Cut (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

Actors: Kirk Baltz, Tantoo Cardinal, Maury Chaykin, Tom Everett, Wayne Grace
ASIN : B00008PBZZ
Sales Rank : 3531
Brand : TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code : 1
Format : Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780792855682
ISBN : 079285568X
UPC : 027616880598
Release Date : December 20, 2003
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer : MGM (Video & DVD)
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : MGM (Video & DVD)
Running Time : 180

Description

A "truly spectacular" (The New York Times) film that combines action, romance and breathtaking adventure, Dances With Wolves is "a cinematic masterpiece" (American Movie Classics) that is nothing short of "a triumph" (Roger Ebert)!Sent to protect a US outpost on the desolate frontier, Lt. John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) finds himself alone in the vast wilderness. Befriending the very people he's sent to protect the outpost from, the Sioux Indians, Dunbar slowly comes to revere those he once feared. But when the encroaching US Army threatens to overrun the Sioux, he is forced to make a choiceone that will forever change his destiny and that of a proud and defiant nation.

Amazon.com essential video

Kevin Costner's 1990 epic won a bundle of Oscars for a moving, engrossing story of a white soldier (Costner) who singlehandedly mans a post in the 1870 Dakotas, and becomes a part of the Lakota Sioux community who live nearby. The film may not be a masterpiece, but it is far more than the sum of good intentions. The characters are strong, the development of relationships is both ambitious and careful, the love story between Costner and Mary McDonnell's character is captivating. Only the third-act portrait of white intruders as morons feels overbearing, but even that leads to a terribly moving conclusion. Costner's direction is assured, the balance of action and intimacy is perfect--what more could anyone want outside of an unqualified masterpiece? --Tom Keogh

W.C. Fields Comedy Collection (The Bank Dick / My Little Chickadee / You Can't Cheat an Honest Man / It's a Gift / International House)

Actors: W.C. Fields, Cora Witherspoon, Una Merkel, Evelyn Del Rio, Jessie Ralph
ASIN : B0002MHDY2
Sales Rank : 5827
Director : Edward F. Cline
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9781417015740
ISBN : 1417015748
UPC : 025192578120
Release Date : December 09, 2004
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 373

Description

W.C. Fields is an American original, the curmudgeonly master of wit and good, mean fun. In this collection of madcap classics, the famously top-hatted Fields unleashes his unique comic zing, proving himself the king of the one-liner. This special DVD collection includes The Bank Dick, My Little Chickadee, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, It's a Gift and International House. The W.C. Fields Comedy Collection is Fields at his finest, and a must-have for anyone who loves to laugh!

Amazon.com

For anyone who loves classic comedy, the W.C. Fields Comedy Collection is absolutely essential. Film for film, this may be the best DVD showcase ever devoted to a single comedian, including all five of Fields's acknowledged classics in a sturdy, beautifully designed library-quality slipcase. One could easily lament the relative lack of bonus features (it would have been nice to have some vintage Fields radio shows and newsreel footage), but the inclusion of A&E's 1994 Biography documentary W.C. Fields: Behind the Laughter is sufficiently informative about Fields's life, career, irascible personality, and tragic alcoholism. That's all that's really needed when the films themselves are so timelessly entertaining, and they're all remarkably pristine in sound and image quality. The best way to appreciate Fields's evolving screen persona is to view these films in chronological order: In International House (1933), Fields was merely one of many Paramount stars of screen and radio (including Rudy Vallee, Burns & Allen, Bela Lugosi, Sterling Holloway, and manic bandleader Cab Calloway), but he handily steals the show, invading a Shanghai hotel in his airplane/helicopter and delivering the classic line (to Franklin Pangborn), "Don't let the posy fool ya!" It's one of Paramount's best all-star revues.

It's a Gift (1934) is a remake of Fields's 1926 silent It's the Old Army Game, and was the first sound feature devoted to Fields's inimitable talent. As beleaguered husband and would-be orange farmer, Fields revives vintage routines from Vaudeville and Broadway, and his first encounter with Baby LeRoy is comedy gold. You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939) features Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy and Fields's classic, still-hilarious ping-pong routine, while 1940's My Little Chickadee matches Fields (as "Guthbert J. Twillie") with Mae West, whose unforgettable on-screen banter with Fields shows no sign of their notorious off-screen animosity. In his raucous masterpiece The Bank Dick (also 1940), Fields is "Egbert Souse," lowly bank guard, unlikely hero, and manic driver in perhaps the greatest slapstick car-chase scene ever filmed. Despite the regrettable absence of Fields's final starring feature Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, this classy five-disc set is a veritable cornucopia of comedy, offering ample proof of Fields's comic genius through classic one-liners, physical routines, memorable costars, and perfect bits of business that never grow old. --Jeff Shannon

High Noon (Collector's Edition)

Actors: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, Katy Jurado
ASIN : B00006JMRE
Sales Rank : 3384
Director : Fred Zinnemann
Brand : Lions Gate
Studio : Republic Pictures
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0017153125719
UPC : 017153125719
Release Date : December 22, 2002
Publisher : Republic Pictures
Manufacturer : Republic Pictures
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Republic Pictures
Running Time : 85

Product Description

A newly married town marshal defends an ungrateful town against outlaws. Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 02/01/2005 Starring: Gary Cooper Run time: 85 minutes Rating: Nr

Amazon.com essential video

One of the greatest Westerns ever made gets the deluxe treatment on this superior disc from Republic Home Video's Silver Screen Classics line of special-edition DVDs. Written by Carl Foreman (who was later blacklisted during the anticommunist hearings of the '50s) and superbly directed by Fred Zinnemann, this 1952 classic stars Gary Cooper as just-married lawman Will Kane, who is about to retire as a small-town sheriff and begin a new life with his bride (Grace Kelly) when he learns that gunslinger Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) is due to arrive at high noon to settle an old score. Kane seeks assistance from deputies and townsfolk, but soon realizes he'll have to stand alone in his showdown with Miller and his henchmen. Innovative for its time, the suspenseful story unfolds in approximate real time (from 10:40 a.m. to high noon in an 84-minute film), and many interpreted Foreman's drama as an allegorical reflection of apathy and passive acceptance of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist campaign. Political underpinnings aside, this remains a milestone of its genre (often referred to as the first "adult" Western), and Cooper is flawless in his Oscar-winning role. The first-rate DVD gives this landmark film all the respect it deserves, beginning with a digitally remastered transfer from the original film negative. Additional features include the exclusive documentary The Making of High Noon, hosted by film historian Leonard Maltin and featuring interviews with the late Lloyd Bridges (who played Cooper's rival ex-deputy), director Fred Zinnemann, and producer Stanley Kramer. Also included is the original theatrical trailer and a special chapter stop highlighting the Oscar-winning song "Do Not Forsake Me." Offered in English and dubbed French and Spanish, with English closed-captioning or Spanish and French subtitles. --Jeff Shannon

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [Blu-ray]

Actors: Tom Aldredge, Michael Copeman, Alison Elliott, Ted Levine, Mary-Louise Parker
ASIN : B0010V60XE
Sales Rank : 1059
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 0
Format : AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Binding : Blu-ray
EAN : 0012569829725
UPC : 012569829725
Release Date : December 05, 2008
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 160

Description

Everyone in 1880s America knows Jesse James. He’s the nation’s most notorious criminal, hunted by the law in 10 states. He’s also the land’s greatest hero, lauded as a Robin Hood by the public. Robert Ford? No one knows him. Not yet. But the ambitious 19-year-old aims to change that. He’ll befriend Jesse, ride with his gang. And if that doesn’t bring Ford fame, he’ll find a deadlier way. Friendship becomes rivalry and the quest for fame becomes obsession in this virile epic produced in part by Ridley Scott and featuring gripping portrayals by Brad Pitt (winner of the Venice Film Festival Best Actor Award) as Jesse and Casey Affleck as the youth drawn closer to his goal…and farther from his own humanity.

Amazon.com

Of all the movies made about or glancingly involving the 19th-century outlaw Jesse Woodson James, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the most reflective, most ambitious, most intricately fascinating, and indisputably most beautiful. Based on the novel of the same name by Ron Hansen, it picks up James late in his career, a few hours before his final train robbery, then covers the slow catastrophe of the gang's breakup over the next seven months even as the boss himself settles into an approximation of genteel retirement. But in another sense all of the movie is later than that. The very title assumes the audience's familiarity with James as a figure out of history and legend, and our awareness that he was--will be--murdered in his parlor one quiet afternoon by a backshooting crony.

The film--only the second to be made by New Zealand–born writer-director Andrew Dominik--reminds us that Dominik's debut film, Chopper (2000), was the cunningly off-kilter portrait of another real-life criminal psychopath who became a kind of rock star to his society. The Jesse James of this telling is no Robin Hood robbing the rich to give to the poor, and that train robbery we witness is punctuated by acts of gratuitous brutality, not gallantry. Nineteen-year-old Bob Ford (Casey Affleck) seeks to join the James gang out of hero worship stoked by the dime novels he secretes under his bed, but his glam hero (Brad Pitt) is a monster who takes private glee in infecting his accomplices with his own paranoia, then murdering them for it. In the careful orchestration of James's final moments, there's even a hint that he takes satisfaction in his own demise.

Affleck and Pitt (who co-produced with Ridley Scott, among others) are mesmerizing in the title roles, but the movie is enriched by an exceptional supporting cast: Sam Shepard as Jesse's older, more stable brother Frank; Sam Rockwell as Bob Ford's own brother Charlie, whose post-assassination descent into madness is astonishing to behold; Paul Schneider, Garret Dillahunt, and Jeremy Renner as three variously doomed gang members; and Mary-Louise Parker, who as Jesse's wife Zee has few lines yet manages with looks and body language to invoke a wellnigh-novelistic backstory for herself. There are also electrifying cameos by James Carville, doing solid actorly work as the governor of Missouri; Ted Levine, as a lawman of antic spirit; and Nick Cave, composer of the film's score (with Warren Ellis) and screenwriter of the Aussie "Western" The Proposition, suddenly towering over a late scene to perform the folk song that set the terms for the book and movie's title.

Still, the real costar is Roger Deakins, probably the finest cinematographer at work today. The landscapes of the movie (mostly in Alberta and Manitoba) will linger in the memory as long as the distinctive faces, and we seem to feel the sting of its snows on our cheeks. Interior scenes are equally persuasive. Few Westerns have conveyed so tangibly the bleakness and austerity of the spaces people of the frontier called home, and sought in vain to warm with human spirit. --Richard T. Jameson