Browse Westerns. Western Directors

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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 : 9974
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

Product Description

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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Bend Of The River

Actors: James Stewart, Rock Hudson, Arthur Kennedy, Julie Adams, Lori Nelson
ASIN : B00008CMRL
Sales Rank : 13256
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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The Wild Bunch - The Original Director's Cut

Actors: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates
ASIN : 0790731037
Sales Rank : 14484
Director : Sam Peckinpah
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790731032
ISBN : 0790731037
UPC : 085391403425
Release Date : December 21, 1997
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
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Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 134

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Director sam peckinpahs masterpiece is a world class western notable for its daring cinematography and landmark violence. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 06/07/2005 Starring: William Holden Run time: 145 minutes Rating: R Director: Sam Peckinpah

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Here's how director Sam Peckinpah described his motivation behind The Wild Bunch at the time of the film's 1969 release: "I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line." All of these statements are true, but they don't begin to cover the impact that Peckinpah's film had on the evolution of American movies. Now the film is most widely recognized as a milestone event in the escalation of screen violence, but that's a label of limited perspective. Of course, Peckinpah's bloody climactic gunfight became a masterfully directed, photographed, and edited ballet of graphic violence that transcended the conventional Western and moved into a slow-motion realm of pure cinematic intensity. But the film--surely one of the greatest Westerns ever made--is also a richly thematic tale of, as Peckinpah said, "bad men in changing times." The year is 1913 and the fading band of thieves known as the Wild Bunch (led by William Holden as Pike) decide to pull one last job before retirement. But an ambush foils their plans, and Peckinpah's film becomes an epic yet intimate tale of betrayed loyalties, tenacious rivalry, and the bunch's dogged determination to maintain their fading code of honor among thieves. The 144-minute director's cut enhances the theme of male bonding that recurs in many of Peckinpah's films, restoring deleted scenes to deepen the viewer's understanding of the friendship turned rivalry between Pike and his former friend Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who now leads a posse in pursuit of the bunch, a dimension that adds resonance to an already classic American film. The Wild Bunch is a masterpiece that should not be defined strictly in terms of its violence, but as a story of mythic proportion, brimming with rich characters and dialogue and the bittersweet irony of outlaw traditions on the wane. --Jeff Shannon

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One of the best action movies ever made, in a cleaned-up print restoring crucial parts of the story. No cavalry ever rode in with more epochal impact than the Wild Bunch in the legendary opening scene. Their steel-eyed leader, Pike (William Holden), and his robbers in stolen army uniforms help an old lady across the street, and then spark a massacre led by Pike's old crony Thornton (Robert Ryan), sprung from jail to hunt down his old gang. In just a few minutes, Sam Peckinpah sets the scene--a dusty Texas town in 1913--sketches a dozen vividly individualized characters, and choreographs one of the most realistic, influential, brilliantly photographed shootouts under the pitiless sun. The cast is superb (even Ernest Borgnine!), the dialog crackling, the bitterly ambiguous moral of the story hard-earned. It's the deeper, dark flip side to 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Consider buying the letterbox Wild Bunch, the review collection Doing It Right, and the Peckinpah bio "If They Move... Kill 'Em!" --Tim Appelo

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My Darling Clementine

Actors: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Cathy Downs, Walter Brennan
ASIN : B00005JLUH
Sales Rank : 11928
Director : John Ford
Studio : 20th Century Fox
Region Code : 1
Format : Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0024543103189
UPC : 024543103189
Release Date : December 06, 2004
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer : 20th Century Fox
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Label : 20th Century Fox
Running Time : 97

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Henry Fonda, Victor Mature and Walter Brennan star in John Ford's acclaimed film that climaxes with the famous gunfight at O.K. Corral. As Wyatt Earp (Fonda) and his brothers head for a peaceful life of ranching in 1880's California, tragedy moves Wyatt to pin on a badge once more. But when he becomes the law in Tombstone, home to Doc Holliday (Mature) and the Clanton boys, it's only a matter of time until the Earps and Doc face the Clantons in one of the most remembered battles of the Wild West. Featuring Linda Darnell and Ward Bond, My Darling Clementine is considered to be one of Ford's finest films.

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The most famous and sublime treatment of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, John Ford's My Darling Clementine is by any measure one of the most classically perfect Westerns ever made. Henry Fonda plays a hard, serious Wyatt Earp leading a cattle drive west with his brothers when a stopover in the wild town of Tombstone ends in the murder of his youngest brother. Wyatt takes up the badge he had turned down earlier and tames the wide-open town with his brothers (Ward Bond and Tim Holt), all the while waiting for the wild Clantons (led by Walter Brennan's ruthless Old Man Clanton) to make a mistake. Victor Mature delivers perhaps his finest performance as the tubercular gambler Doc Holliday, an alcoholic Eastern doctor escaping civilization in the Wild West. Ford takes great liberties with history, bending the story to fit his ideal of the West, a balance of social law and pioneer spirit. Though the film reaches its climax in the legendary gunfight between the Earps (with Doc Holliday) and the Clantons, the most powerful moment is the moving Sunday morning church social played out on the floor of the unfinished church. As Earp dances with Clementine (Cathy Downs)--Fonda's stiff, self-conscious movements showing a man unaccustomed to such social interaction--Ford's camera frames them against the open sky: the town and the wilderness merge into the new Eden of the West for a brief moment. --Sean Axmaker

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The Steve McQueen Collection (The Great Escape / Junior Bonner / The Magnificent Seven / The Thomas Crown Affair)

Actors: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence
ASIN : B0007O38YY
Sales Rank : 16691
Director : John Sturges, Norman Jewison, Sam Peckinpah
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0027616926333
UPC : 027616926333
Release Date : December 17, 2005
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer : MGM (Video & DVD)
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Label : MGM (Video & DVD)
Running Time : 502

Product Description

Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 10/14/2008

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A stirring example of courage and the indomitable human spirit, for many John Sturges's The Great Escape (1963) is both the definitive World War II drama and the nonpareil prison escape movie. Featuring an unequalled ensemble cast in a rivetingly authentic true-life scenario set to Elmer Bernstein's admirable music, this picture is both a template for subsequent action-adventure movies and one of the last glories of Golden Age Hollywood. Reunited with the director who made him a star in The Magnificent Seven, Steve McQueen gives a career-defining performance as the laconic Hilts, the baseball-loving, motorbike-riding "Cooler King." The rest of the all-male Anglo-American cast--Dickie Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, James Garner, Charles Bronson, David McCallum, James Coburn, and Gordon Jackson--make the most of their meaty roles (though you have to forgive Coburn his Australian accent). Closely based on Paul Brickhill's book, the various escape attempts, scrounging, forging, and ferreting activities are authentically realized thanks also to technical advisor Wally Flood, one of the original tunnel-digging POWs. Sturges orchestrates the climax with total conviction, giving us both high action and very poignant human drama. Without trivializing the grim reality, The Great Escape thrillingly celebrates the heroism of men who never gave up the fight.

Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven (1960) effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys. The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum....

Millionaire businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is also a high-stakes thief; his latest caper is an elaborate heist at a Boston bank. Why does he do it? For the same reason he flies gliders, bets on golf strokes, and races dune buggies: he needs the thrill to feel alive. Insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) gets her own thrills by busting crooks, and she's got Crown in her cross hairs. Naturally, these two will get it on, because they have a lot in common: they're not people, they're walking clothes racks. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) is a catalog of '60s conventions, from its clipped editing style to its photographic trickery (the inventive Haskell Wexler behind the camera) to its mod design. You can almost sense director Norman Jewison deciding to "tell his story visually," like those newfangled European films; this would explain the long passages of Michel Legrand's lounge jazz ladled over endless montages of the pretty Dunaway and McQueen at play. (The opening-credits song, "Windmills of Your Mind," won an Oscar.) It's like a "What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?" ad come to life, and much more interesting as a cultural snapshot than a piece of storytelling.

Junior Bonner (1972) is director Sam Peckinpah's lovely, elegiac look at the world of the rodeo--and his only film with nary a bullet wound. Steve McQueen, engagingly easygoing but determined, is the title character, a rodeo rider out to win a big bull-riding contest in his hometown. Even as he confronts his dwindling days on the circuit, he also must deal with his feuding parents, marvelously played by Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. Preston is particularly good as the randy old con artist; he and Lupino strike real sparks. Peckinpah's slow-motion camera is put to particularly good use filming the balletic violence of the rodeo, at once more terrifying and awe-inspiring than any gun battle. A lovely country-western valentine to a dying breed.

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The Far Country

Actors: James Stewart, Ruth Roman, Corinne Calvet, Walter Brennan, John McIntire
ASIN : B00008CMSY
Sales Rank : 13933
Director : Anthony Mann
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783278933
ISBN : 0783278934
UPC : 025192262524
Release Date : December 06, 2003
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
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Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 97

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Two wyoming cattlemen drive a herd to gold-rush alaska and find trouble. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 02/27/2007 Starring: James Stewart Harry Morgan Run time: 97 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Anthony Mann

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The far country of the title is Alaska, where James Stewart, a cold-hearted cattleman, and his sidekick Walter Brennan, a garrulous old codger, drive a herd of cattle to cash in on the gold rush. Stewart is the ultimate loner, a point the film takes pains to paint as he watches helpless miners murdered by a gang of thugs without lifting a finger. John McIntyre plays his nemesis, a magnetic but corrupt Roy Bean-like judge and merchant who preys off the miners passing through his town and steals Stewart's cattle in the name of justice. Stewart, after signing on to lead saloon owner Ruth Roman's wagon train to the mining camp, steals back his herd and makes himself a respectful enemy: "I'm gonna like you. I'm gonna hang you, but I'm gonna like you," grins McIntyre. The rest of the film is a battle for Stewart's soul, between resolute individualism and community activism, between bad woman Roman and good girl Corinne Calvet (one of the film's weakest elements, admittedly, as the sparks between Stewart and Roman are far more exciting than Calvet's silly kewpie doll in flannel). The Far Country is largely shot on studio sets and pulls out familiar Western tropes not usually seen in his films, but Mann brings an edge to the drama with explosions of cold-blooded violence and a brilliant final shootout that plays out on a split-level plain. --Sean Axmaker

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West Texas in the years after the Civil War is an uneasy meeting ground of two cultures, one white. The other native American. Elvis portrays Pacer Burton. The son of a white rancher (John McIntire) and his beatiful Kiowa Indian wife (Dolores DelRio). When fighting breaks out between the settlers and natives, Pacer tries to act as a peace maker, but the "flaming star of death" pulls him irrevocably into the deadly violence.

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Definitely a contender for the underwhelming title of Best Elvis Movie, this handsomely shot Western actually makes Elvis act, rather than coast on his personality. (As though to underscore the point, the two obligatory songs are dispensed with under the opening credits and in the first scene.) Don Siegel was probably the best director the King ever worked with, and he draws a quietly smoldering performance from Elvis, who was still undeniably raw. Even better, Siegel captures an existential starkness to homestead and town, and calmly makes a pro-Native American case without preaching (Elvis plays a half-breed caught between sides in an Indian vs. settlers dustup). Yes, this was 30 years before Dances with Wolves--there were actually quite a few such movies during this era. All in all, a decent picture, and an indication of where Elvis's career might have gone if he hadn't given himself over to fluff. --Robert Horton

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A Fistful of Dollars (2-Disc Collector's Edition)

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volontè, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp
ASIN : B000OPOAOI
Sales Rank : 22358
Director : Monte Hellman, Sergio Leone
Brand : TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Collector's Edition, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0027616077387
UPC : 027616077387
Release Date : December 05, 2007
Publisher : MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer : MGM (Video & DVD)
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Label : MGM (Video & DVD)
Running Time : 100

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Clint Eastwood's legendary "Man With No Name" makes his powerful debut in this thrilling, action-packed "new breed of western" (Motion Picture Herald) from the acclaimed director of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More. Exploding with blistering shootouts, dynamic performances and atmospheric cinematography, it's an undisputed classic of the genre. A mysterious gunman (Eastwood) has just arrived in San Miguel, a grim, dusty border town where two rival bands of smugglers are terrorizing the impoverished citizens. A master of the "quick-draw,"the stranger soon receives offers of employment from each gang. But his loyalty cannot be bought; he accepts both jobs...and sets in motion a plan to destroy both groups of criminals, pitting one against the other in a series of brilliantly orchestrated setups, showdowns and deadly confrontations.

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A Fistful of Dollars launched the spaghetti Western and catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom. Based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai picture Yojimbo, it scored a resounding success (in Italy in 1964 and the U.S. in 1967), as did its sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The advertising campaign promoted Eastwood's character--laconic, amoral, dangerous--as the Man with No Name (though in the film he's clearly referred to as Joe), and audiences loved the movie's refreshing new take on the Western genre. Gone are the pieties about making the streets safe for women and children. Instead it's every man for himself. Striking, too, was a new emphasis on violence, with stylized, almost balletic gunfights and baroque touches such as Eastwood's armored breastplate. The Dollars films had a marked influence on the Hollywood Western--for example, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch--but their most enduring legacy is Clint Eastwood himself. --Edward Buscombe

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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 : 16642
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

Browse Western Directors Online

Gunsmoke - 50th Anniversary Collection, Volumes 1 & 2

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Bend Of The River

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The Wild Bunch - The Original Director's Cut

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Saddle the Wind

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My Darling Clementine

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The Steve McQueen Collection (The Great Escape / Junior Bonner / The Magnificent Seven / The Thomas Crown Affair)

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The Far Country

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Flaming Star

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A Fistful of Dollars (2-Disc Collector's Edition)

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The Searchers (Two-Disc Anniversary Edition)

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