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The Wild Bunch [Blu-ray]

Actors: Sonia Amelio, Rayford Barnes, Ernest Borgnine, Elsa Cardenas, Albert Dekker
ASIN : B000Q6GX90
Sales Rank : 6114
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Binding : Blu-ray
EAN : 0085391142669
UPC : 085391142669
Release Date : December 25, 2007
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 145

Description

Director Sam Peckinpah's film The Wild Bunch is a powerful tale of hang-dog desperados bound by a code of honor. It is said that The Wild Bunch rates as one of the all-time greatest Westerns, perhaps one of the greatest of all films

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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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Unforgiven

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett
ASIN : 0790729644
Sales Rank : 2831
Director : Clint Eastwood
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780790729640
ISBN : 0790729644
UPC : 085391253129
Release Date : December 26, 1997
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 131

Description

Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman play retired, down-on-their-luck outlaws who pick up their guns one last time to collect a bounty offered by the vengeful prostitutes of the remote Wyoming town of Big Whiskey. Richard Harris is an ill-fated interloper, a colorful killer-for-hire called English Bob. And Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Gene Hackman is the sly and brutal local sheriff whose brand of law enforcement ranges from unconventional to ruthless.

DVD Features:
Production Notes
Theatrical Trailer

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Winner of four Academy Awards, including best picture, director, supporting actor, and best editing, Clint Eastwood's 1992 masterpiece stands as one of the greatest and most thematically compelling Westerns ever made. "The movie summarized everything I feel about the Western," said Eastwood at the time of the film's release. "The moral is the concern with gunplay." To illustrate that theme, Eastwood stars as a retired, once-ruthless killer-turned-gentle-widower and hog farmer. He accepts one last bounty-hunter mission--to find the men who brutalized a prostitute--to help support his two motherless children. Joined by his former partner (Morgan Freeman) and a cocky greenhorn (Jaimz Woolvett), he takes on a corrupt sheriff (Oscar winner Gene Hackman) in a showdown that makes the viewer feel the full impact of violence and its corruption of the soul. Dedicated to Eastwood's mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel and featuring a colorful role for Richard Harris, it's arguably Eastwood's crowning directorial achievement. --Jeff Shannon

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The Paul Newman Collection (Harper / The Drowning Pool / The Left-Handed Gun / The Mackintosh Man / Pocket Money / Somebody Up There Likes Me / The Young Philadelphians)

Actors: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Lauren Bacall, Joanne Woodward, Dominique Sanda
ASIN : B000HWZ4DE
Sales Rank : 6349
Director : Arthur Penn, Jack Smight, John Huston, Robert Wise, Stuart Rosenberg
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0012569816763
UPC : 012569816763
Release Date : December 14, 2006
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 779

Product description

Includes: Harper (1966), Drowning Pool (1975), The Left Handed Gun (1958), Pocket Money (1972), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and The Young Philadelphians (1959).

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Paul Newman's career slipped onto an unstoppable track with Somebody Up There Likes Me, his 1956 biopic about boxer Rocky Graziano. Of course that was his second picture, the first being the oft-joked-about bungle The Silver Chalice. Newman's Method-y intensity and dazzling good looks brought him stardom, and his intelligence and uncommon seriousness as an actor kept his movies interesting, especially as he tackled some of the best roles of the "antihero" era--an era he helped create.

Somebody Up There Likes Me is included in The Paul Newman Collection, a bulging seven-DVD package that shakes out thusly: three late-1950s titles from the beginning of his career, one mid-sixties hit, and three lesser films of the early 1970s. It's by no means a "best of" compilation, being limited to Warners and MGM titles, but it gives a flavor of Newman in his prime time. He got the Graziano role after James Dean died, and his performance is a very busy, post-Brando jumble of tics and mumbles. The movie holds up nicely as a boxing picture, and the location NYC shooting won an Oscar for cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg (you can see why director Robert Wise got hired to do West Side Story after this). Sal Mineo and Steve McQueen are in the cast as Newman's fellow j.d.s.

The Left-Handed Gun (1958), based on a teleplay by Gore Vidal, is a truly weird, compulsively watchable artifact from the psychological-Western genre. Newman plays Billy the Kid, glowering and grimacing like a rebel without a cause. It's one of those films that has much more to do with the time it was made than the time it is set; also notable as the big-screen debut for stage and TV director Arthur Penn. The Young Philadelphians (1959) is more conventional, an entertaining soap opera about a young lawyer (Newman) with an old-money Philly name but no money, who gets burned by love and decides to connive his way to the top. Young Robert Vaughn snagged an Oscar nomination for a showy turn as an alcoholic society lad.

Harper (1966) is chockfull of kooky mid-Sixties design and Rat Pack patter (courtesy screenwriter William Goldman). But it must be said that Newman is miscast as the melancholic private eye of Ross Macdonald's literary world, here re-imagined as a wisecracking hepcat who mugs his way through a missing-persons investigation. The supporting cast is a weird over-the-hill gang including Lauren Bacall, Janet Leigh, and Shelley Winters. That film's hero, Lew Harper (renamed from Macdonald's "Archer"), returned in 1976's The Drowning Pool, a more bearable if somewhat humdrum whodunit set in New Orleans. Newman's wife, Joanne Woodward, has a supporting part, but the picture is most notable for an early Melanie Griffith nymphet role.

Pocket Money (1972) is one of those only-in-the-seventies movies that pairs Newman with Lee Marvin in a drowsy, nearly plotless comedy. Both actors give elaborate performances: Newman plays a numbskull two-bit cattle broker who takes absolutely everything literally, and Marvin is his buddy in Mexico who signs on for an ill-considered cattle-buying job. One of the credited screenwriters is Terrence Malick, and the movie has a highly eccentric feel for language. Finally, The Mackintosh Man (1973) is one of the periodic duds that director John Huston would crank out in his otherwise starry career, with Newman as a spy on an incomprehensible case in England. The first half is a red herring, and Dominique Sanda (more recently of The Conformist) is out of depth with the English language. It's a bleak film with a kind of grinding fascination, and the Maurice Jarre score is catchy but fatally overused. --Robert Horton

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My Name Is Nobody

Actors: Terence Hill, Henry Fonda, Jean Martin, R.G. Armstrong, Karl Braun
ASIN : B0007M21Z8
Sales Rank : 5025
Director : Sergio Leone, Tonino Valerii
Brand : Image Entertainment
Studio : Image Entertainment
Region Code : 1
Format : Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0014381252125
UPC : 014381252125
Release Date : December 26, 2005
Publisher : Image Entertainment
Manufacturer : Image Entertainment
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Image Entertainment
Running Time : 117

Description

Young, ambitious gunman Nobody (Terence Hill) sets his eye on his idol, gunslinger Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda), who's intent on sailing off into retirement.

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My Name is Nobody is a spoof of spaghetti Westerns, but it's also a legitimate, highly regarded entry in the genre. Its pedigree is purebred, as it was executive produced by the maestro of spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone, as a personal farewell to the genre that he helped to create. It's a transitional film, cheekily acknowledging the impact of The Wild Bunch and Sam Peckinpah (whose name is seen on a gravestone in one scene) and the popularity of Terence Hill, whose comedic "Trinity" films represented the last gasp of the once-glorious spaghetti Western. All of these elements are beautifully combined in the amusing tale of Nobody (Hill), an ambitious young gunman in 1899 who idolizes a legendary gunslinger Jack Beauregard, played by Henry Fonda in his final Western (and his second for Leone, after the classic Once Upon a Time in the West). Before Beauregard can retire in peace, Nobody sets up a final showdown of epic proportions, and the great Ennio Morricone enhances the abundance of memorable scenes with one of his most playfully inventive scores (including a comical use of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"). Tonino Valerii fully deserved his director's credit, but Leone also made significant contributions (including the opening scene), and the result is a delightful and surprisingly resonant film that Steven Spielberg later called his favorite Leone production. It's easy to see why: Like many of Spielberg's films, My Name is Nobody qualifies as both art and entertainment. --Jeff Shannon

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The John Wayne Century Collection (Big Jake, Donovan's Reef, El Dorado, Hatari!, Hondo, In Harm's Way, Island in the Sky, McLintock!, Rio Lobo, The High and the Mighty, etc.)

Actors: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Lauren Bacall, Geraldine Page, James Stewart
ASIN : B000O179G8
Sales Rank : 11849
Director : John Wayne, Andrew V. McLaglen, Don Siegel, George Sherman, Henry Hathaway
Brand : Paramount
Studio : Paramount
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0097361230344
UPC : 097361230344
Release Date : December 22, 2007
Publisher : Paramount
Manufacturer : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Paramount
Running Time : 1717

Product Description

DONOVAN'S REEF
Acclaimed director John Ford and screen legend John Wayne team up for what would be their final collaboration in this boisterous, rowdy South Seas escapade. The Duke, Lee Marvin and Jack Warden play World War II navy buddies who have made the French Polynesian island of Haleakaloha their post-war paradise. Local headquarters is Donovan’s Reef, Wayne’s rough-and-tumble watering hole where bragging, brawling, and full-blown misbehavior are the order of the day. But destined to create more turmoil than any barroom fisticuffs is the sudden arrival of Elizabeth Allen, a straight-laced Boston blue blood. She’s hoping to locate her long-estranged father (Warden), affirm that he is "not of good moral character," and then assume control of the family’s shipping dynasty back home in the States. Suave, debonair Cesar Romero and a sarong-clad Dorothy Lamour add to the laughs – and mayhem – in this tropical comedy treat.

IN HARM'S WAY
In Harm's Way, based on James Bassett's novel Harm's Way, has enough plot in it for four movies or a good miniseries (when it was shown on network television in prime time, it was broken into two very full nights). On the morning of December 7, 1941, a heavy cruiser, commanded by Captain Rockwell Torrey (John Wayne), and the destroyer Cassidy, under acting commander Lieutenant (jg) William McConnell (Thomas Tryon), are two of a handful of ships that escape the destruction of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Under Torrey's command, the tiny fleet of a dozen ships carries out its orders to seek out and engage the enemy fleet. But lack of fuel and a daring maneuver (but tragic miscalculation) by Torrey causes his ship to be seriously damaged. He's relieved of command and assigned to a desk job routing convoys in the shakeup following the attack, and his exec and oldest friend, Commander Paul Eddington (Kirk Douglas), is reassigned after a brawl, the result of his anger after identifying the body of his wife (Barbara Bouchet) who was killed during the attack while cavorting with an Marine Corps officer. Torrey's shore assignment leads him to reestablish contact on a very hostile level with his estranged son, Ensign Jere Torrey (Brandon de Wilde), his estranged son from a long-ended marriage, who is also serving at Pearl Harbor; he also establishes a romantic relationship with Lt. Maggie Haines (Patricia Neal), a navy nurse; he also befriends Commander Egan Powell (Burgess Meredith), a special-intelligence officer. Through his son's boasting during their bitter first meeting, Torrey learns of a top-secret offensive called Sky Hook — he figures out enough of it to impress Powell, and when Sky Hook gets bogged down by the indecisiveness of its commander, Vice Admiral Broderick (Dana Andrews), Powell convinces the commander of the Pacific Fleet (Adm. Chester Nimitz, unnamed here but played by Henry Fonda) that Torrey is the man to salvage the operation. Promoted to rear admiral, with Eddington — who'd been rotting away on a shore assignment, drunk most of the time — assigned as his chief of staff, Torrey gets Sky Hook rolling and finally finds his purpose in this war, gaining the belated admiration of his son in the process. Eddington is similarly motivated but is still haunted by the violent, ultimately self-destructive demons that blighted his marriage and his life — he is particularly attracted to a young nurse, Annalee Dohrn (Jill Haworth), not knowing that she is already involved romantically with Jere Torrey. Meanwhile, McConnell survives the sinking of his ship and is ordered to join Torrey's staff. Matters all come to a head when the Japanese begin a counter-offensive to Torrey's planned troop landing. And just at the time Torrey needs his men at their best, Eddington's violence and rage boil to the surface in a way that will destroy him and blight both men's lives. In a final attempt at redemption, Eddington provides Torrey with the information he needs to set up a battle that he has at least a chance of winning, pitting his small task group of destroyers and cruisers against the Japanese task force led by the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built.

HATARI!
Hatari! is Swahili for "danger"—and also the word for action, adventure and broad comedy in this two-fisted Howard Hawks effort. John Wayne stars as the head of a daring Tanganyka-based group which captures wild animals on behalf of the world's zoos. Hardy Kruger, Gérard Blain and Red Buttons are members of Wayne's men-only contingent, all of whom are reduced to jello when the curvaceous Elsa Martinelli enters the scene. In tried and true Howard Hawks fashion, Martinelli quickly becomes "one of the guys," though Wayne apparently can't say two words to her without sparking an argument. The second half of this amazingly long (159 minute) film concerns the care and maintenance of a baby elephant; the barely credible finale is devoted to a comic pachyderm stampede down an urban African street, ending literally at the foot of Martinelli's bed. The other scene worth mentioning involves comedy-relief Red Buttons' efforts to create a fireworks-powered animal trap. Not to be taken seriously for a minute, Hatari is attractively packaged and neatly tied up with a danceable-pranceable theme song by Henry Mancini.

RIO LOBO
After the Civil War, a Union Colonel goes to Rio Lobo to take revenge on two traitors.

BIG JAKE
An aging Texas cattle man who has outlived his time swings into action when outlaws kidnap his grandson and wound his son. He returns to his estranged family to help them in the search for Little Jake.

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance—but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished "nobody" Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why, Stoddard relates a film-long flashback. He recalls how, as a greenhorn lawyer, he had run afoul of notorious gunman Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who worked for a powerful cartel which had the territory in its clutches. Time and again, "pilgrim" Stoddard had his hide saved by the much-feared but essentially decent Doniphon. It wasn't that Doniphon was particularly fond of Stoddard; it was simply that Hallie was in love with Stoddard, and Doniphon was in love with Hallie and would do anything to assure her happiness, even if it meant giving her up to a greenhorn. When Liberty Valance challenged Stoddard to a showdown, everyone in town was certain that the greenhorn didn't stand a chance. Still, when the smoke cleared, Stoddard was still standing, and Liberty Valance lay dead. On the strength of his reputation as the man who shot Valance, Stoddard was railroaded into a political career, in the hope that he'd rid the territory of corruption. Stoddard balked at the notion of winning an election simply because he killed a man-until Doniphon, in strictest confidence, told Stoddard the truth: It was Doniphon, not Stoddard, who shot down Valance. Stoddard was about to reveal this to the world, but Doniphon told him not to. It was far more important in Doniphon's eyes that a decent, honest man like Stoddard become a major political figure; Stoddard represented the "new" civilized west, while Doniphon knew that he and the West he represented were already anachronisms. Thus Stoddard went on to a spectacular political career, bringing extensive reforms to the state, while Doniphon faded into the woodwork. His story finished, the aged Stoddard asks the reporter if he plans to print the truth. The reporter responds by tearing up his notes. "This is the West, sir, " the reporter explains quietly. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Dismissed as just another cowboy opus at the time of its release, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since taken its proper place as one of the great Western classics. It questions the role of myth in forging the legends of the West, while setting this theme in the elegiac atmosphere of the West itself, set off by the aging Stewart and Wayne.

THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER
Henry Hathaway directs the 1965 psychological Western The Sons of Katie Elder. Four sons reunite in their Texas hometown to attend their mother's funeral. John (John Wayne) is the gunfighter, Tom (Dean Martin) is the gambler, Matt (Earl Holliman) is the quiet one, and Bud (Michael Anderson Jr.) is the youngest. They soon learn that their father gambled away the family ranch, leading to his own murder. The brothers decide to find their father's killer and get back the ranch, even though they are discouraged to do so by local Sheriff Billy Wilson (Paul Fix). When the sheriff turns up dead, the Elder boys are blamed for the murder. Deputy Sheriff Ben Latta (Jeremy Slate) joins forces with the only witnesses of the murder: Morgan Hastings (James Gregory) and his son Dave (Dennis Hopper). A gunfight breaks out between the Hastings gang and the Elder gang. After his brother Matt is killed, John decides to settle the ranch dispute in a court of law with a judge (Sheldon Allman). However, Tom decides to take matters into his own hands by kidnapping Dave. After the final climactic gunfight, John and the wounded Bud retreat to a rooming house owned by Mary Gordon (Martha Hyer).

TRUE GRIT
In 1970, John Wayne won an Academy Award. for his larger-than-life performance as the drunken, uncouth and totally fearless one-eyed U.S. Marshall, Rooster Cogburn. The cantankerous Rooster is hired by a headstrong young girl (Kim Darby) to find the man who murdered her father and fled with the family savings. When Cogburn's employer insists on accompanying the old gunfighter, sparks fly. And the situation goes from troubled to disastrous when an inexperienced but enthusiastic Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell) joins the party. Laughter and tears punctuate the wild action in this extraordinary Western which features performances by Robert Duvall and Strother Martin.

THE SHOOTIST
About ten minutes into The Shootist, Doctor Hostetler (James Stewart) tells aging western gunfighter John Bernard Books (John Wayne) "You have a cancer." Knowing that his death will be painful and lingering, Books is determined to be shot in the line of "duty". In his remaining two months, Books settles scores with old enemies, including gambler Pulford (Hugh O'Brian) and Marshall Thibido (Harry Morgan) and reaches out to new friends (including feisty widow Lauren Bacall and her hero-worshipping son Ron Howard). In the end, is shot to death, but in so doing he is able to dissuade another from following his blood-stained example. Throughout the film, Book's imminent demise is compared with the decline of the west, as represented by the automobiles and streetcars that have begun to blight the main street of Wayne's home town. It is unknown if John Wayne was aware that he was dying of cancer when he agreed to film The Shootist; whatever the case, the film is a powerful valedictory to a remarkable man and a fabulous career.

EL DORADO
Legendary producer-director Howard Hawks teams with two equally legendary stars, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, in this classic Western drama. Mitchum plays to perfection an alcoholic but gutsy sheriff who relentlessly battles the dark side of the wild West, ruthless cattle barons and crooked "businessmen." The Duke gives an equally adept performance as the sheriff's old friend who knows his way around a gunfight. Filled with brawling action and humor, El Dorado delivers the goods. James Caan and Ed Asner co-star.

THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY
When a commercial airliner developes engine problems on a trans- Pacific flight and the pilot loses his nerve, it is up to the washed-up co-pilot Dan Roman to bring the plane in safely.

ISLAND IN THE SKY
A transport plane crash-lands in the frozen wastes of Labrador, and the plane's pilot, Dooley, must keep his men alive in deadly conditions while waiting for rescue.

HONDO
Based on the Louis L'Amour story "The Gift of Cochise," this sparkling western has Wayne as a half-Indian Cavalry scout who, with his feral dog companion, finds a young woman and her son living on a isolated ranch in unfriendly Apache country. A poetic and exciting script, outstanding performances, and breathtaking scenery make this an indisputable classic. Page's debut.

MCLINTOCK!
Wayne shows off his funny side in this 1963 western, a comedy inspired by The Taming of the Shrew. Starring as wealthy cattle baron G.W. McLintock, Wayne shows a real sense of comic timing in several scenes filled with slapstick humor. After his wife (Maureen O'Hara) and daughter leave him for the East, McLintock attempts to win them back. The dynamics between O'Hara and Wayne are the strong suit of this film, the actors having worked together previously on

THE QUIET MAN
As this is by no means a revisionist western, McLintock's chauvinistic attempts to "tame" his wife fit within the problematic ideology of the larger western genre. The ultimate example of this comes at the end of the film when McLintock settles his marital dispute by publicly "spanking" his wife in what is now a notorious cinematic moment.

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Gary Cooper - The Signature Collection (Sergeant York / The Fountainhead / Dallas / Springfield Rifle / The Wreck of the Mary Deare)

Actors: Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Walter Brennan, Charlton Heston, Raymond Massey
ASIN : B000HWZ4EI
Sales Rank : 11010
Director : André De Toth, Howard Hawks, King Vidor, Michael Anderson, Stuart Heisler
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : Box set, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 0012569829930
UPC : 012569829930
Release Date : December 07, 2006
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 538

Product Description

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 11/11/2008

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Springfield Rifle, one of five films included in this set, may miss the bullseye as a true Gary Cooper classic, but there's a line that speaks to his enduring status as a screen icon and "American Legend." In this 1952 Western, his follow-up film to High Noon, Cooper's character has been drummed out of the army and branded a coward. Suffice to say that all is not what it seems, and an observer is asked how Coop will handle the pressure. The response: "He'll stand up." That is quintessential Cooper. He's a stand-up guy, and the "dang swangest hero," as he is hailed in Sergeant York, this collection's calling card. Directed by Howard Hawks and co-written by John Huston, Sergeant York earned Cooper an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Alvin York, a Tennessee mountain hellraiser who finds religion after surviving a lightning strike. His newfound pacifist beliefs are put to the supreme test when he is forced to enlist in WWI. Cooper also displays the (Frank Lloyd) Wright stuff as architect Harold Roark in The Fountainhead (1949), adapted for the screen by Ayn Rand from her towering and controversial bestselling novel about a "fool visionary" who refuses to compromise his principles or conform his work to popular taste. The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), his penultimate film, finds Cooper desperately trying to clear his name before an inquiry determines what really happened aboard the mysteriously abandoned eponymous ship. Costar Charlton Heston gives him a run for Most Piercing Blue Eyes honors. Last, and least, but still entertaining, is Dallas (1950), in which Cooper stars as a Confederate outlaw who impersonates a sheriff to settle an old score. Cooper is not the most chameleon-esque of actors, but in these representative films, he displays intriguing shadings to his heroic persona. Roark in The Fountainhead has a definite dark side, while his "Reb" Hollister in Dallas is something of a rascal.

Of the DVD presentations, Sergeant York gets the two-disc "Special Edition" treatment, with dry, but informative commentary by film historian Jeanne Basinger, a made-for-cable TV special about Cooper hosted by Clint Eastwood, and a welcome Warner Bros. cartoon, Tex Avery's "Porky's Preview" and short subject, "Lions for Sale," that replicate an old fashioned night out at the movies. The Fountainhead DVD includes a featurette about the making of the film. Cooper stands alone among Hollywood's leading men, but beyond his formidable presence, classic film buffs will bask in the nostalgic pleasures of Max Steiner's music in four of the five films, and appearances by great character actors (Walter Brennan and George Tobias in Sergeant York, a young Richard Harris in Mary Deare). --Donald Liebenson

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Last Stand At Saber River

Actors: Tom Selleck, Suzy Amis, Keith Carradine, David Carradine, Tracey Needham
ASIN : B0007OY2OE
Sales Rank : 6876
Director : Dick Lowry
Brand : Warner Brothers
Studio : Turner Home Ent
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780780647312
ISBN : 0780647319
UPC : 053939676723
Release Date : December 17, 2005
Publisher : Turner Home Ent
Manufacturer : Turner Home Ent
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Label : Turner Home Ent
Running Time : 94

Description

Tom Selleck rides into Western adventure in grand, gritty style as Paul Cable in Last Stand at Saber River, from the novel by Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Out of Sight

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Tom Selleck shows a harder side of his persona as a disillusioned Confederate who returns home in the waning days of the Civil War in this adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel. His wife, Suzy Amis, isn't ready to forgive him for leaving his family behind for the "adventure" of war, and his children hardly remember him. Haunted by his actions in the war and caught in a power struggle in the Arizona territory, Selleck's soul-scarred survivor makes a last stand to protect the only thing left that matters to him--his homestead and his family. The film has its share of gunfights, showdowns, conspiracies, and Civil War rivalries, and even a runaway stagecoach, but its power lies in the somber exploration of how misunderstandings and conflicts tear at a marriage during such a volatile time, when ideals are set against duty to family. Director Dick Lowry's lean style makes the most of the gorgeous landscapes, and he creates a strong dramatic tension in the bubbling undercurrent between Selleck, who leaves behind the jovial character of his Louis L'Amour Westerns for a man hardened and embittered by war, and Amis, an excellent actress who brings to life a woman who shoots, speaks her mind, and harbors resentment just as well as any brooding male hero. Keith and David Carradine costar as Union wranglers who hold a grudge against the Confederate veteran. One of the most mature TV Westerns ever made. --Sean Axmaker

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The Electric Horseman

Actors: Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Valerie Perrine, Willie Nelson, John Saxon
ASIN : B00008CMSX
Sales Rank : 10028
Director : Sydney Pollack
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783278360
ISBN : 0783278365
UPC : 025192274824
Release Date : December 06, 2003
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
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Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 122

Product Description

A newswoman and a rodeo star flee to utah with a $12 million horse freed from a las vegas promotion. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 10/24/2006 Starring: Timothy Scott Willie Nelson Run time: 122 minutes Rating: Pg Director: Sydney Pollack

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When this picture came out in 1979, both Robert Redford and Jane Fonda were at the height of their stardom; in fact, this movie was so big, it took two studios (Columbia and Universal) to make it. Redford plays Sonny Steele, champion rodeo rider turned corporate spokesman (and perpetual drunk). When he discovers that another corporate asset, a racehorse, is just like him--dressed like a buffoon and doped up to the gills--he decides to liberate the animal. Redford's grumpy, wise, and funny performance demonstrates why he was (and is) such a big star (and why director Sydney Pollack made seven movies with him). Fonda is fine as the bright, ambitious, frightened TV reporter whose pursuit of a story pitches her headlong into love. The ending may seem anticlimatic (the big comedy chase comes in the middle of the film), but this is much more a romance story than a chase film. From the beginning, there's little doubt how the story will end (although even then, the movie throws us a little curve), but the movie compensates with sheer star power; Redford and Fonda are all that matter, and in this case they deliver, along with Willie Nelson's fine performance in a pivotal supporting role. --Geof Miller

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Two Mules For Sister Sara

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Shirley MacLaine, Manuel Fábregas, Alberto Morin, Armando Silvestre
ASIN : B00008CMT4
Sales Rank : 10500
Director : Don Siegel
Brand : Universal
Studio : Universal Studios
Region Code : 1
Format : Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780783276991
ISBN : 0783276990
UPC : 025192054921
Release Date : December 06, 2003
Publisher : Universal Studios
Manufacturer : Universal Studios
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Universal Studios
Running Time : 116

Product Description

Profane sister sara recruits a drifter to help mexican rebels attack a french front. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 05/24/2005 Starring: Shirley Maclaine John Kelly Run time: 116 minutes Rating: Pg Director: Don Siegel

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In the cactus-studded Mexican backcountry of the 1860s, a surly drifter who could easily be mistaken for the Man with No Name becomes protector and lethal helpmate to a red-haired nun wanted by the French for aiding the Juarista revolutionaries. Essentially a two-character showcase for the newly stellar Clint Eastwood and what was beginning to seem the poststellar Shirley MacLaine (subbing for Elizabeth Taylor), this sardonic study in testy collaboration, mutual deception and distrust, and slightly creepy sexual attraction is highly rated by a fairly small number of critics--chiefly, one suspects, for the dual-auteur cachet of having been directed by Don Siegel and based on a story by Budd Boetticher. Others deem it an undersauced spaghetti Western and find that the stars grate on the viewer as well as each other. Cinematography by the great Gabriel Figueroa is some consolation, but... if only Boetticher had been allowed to direct. --Richard T. Jameson

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The Searchers

Actors: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood
ASIN : 6304696566
Sales Rank : 5027
Director : John Ford
Studio : Warner Home Video
Region Code : 1
Format : AC-3, Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
Binding : DVD
EAN : 9786304696569
ISBN : 6304696566
UPC : 085391465126
Release Date : December 29, 1997
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Label : Warner Home Video
Running Time : 119

Product Description

Classic western about a man on the trail of the indians who slaughtered his family. Studio: Turner Hm Entertainm Release Date: 03/29/2005 Starring: John Wayne Jeffrey Hunter Run time: 119 minutes Rating: Nr

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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