Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD Brand: Fox EAN: 0024543512585 Format: Box set Label: 20th Century Fox Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Number Of Items: 3 Publisher: 20th Century Fox Region Code: 1 Release Date: 2008-05-13 Running Time: 272 Studio: 20th Century Fox
Disc 1: Garden of Evil (1954) Feature Film Disc 2: The Gunfighter (1951) Feature Film Disc 3: Rawhide (1951) Feature Film
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: The Western Classic Comment: Love it. Have also shared with professor who teaches The Western here at the college where I work. Customer Rating: Summary: Among the Best in Black And White. Comment: If you've never seen "The Gunfighter," you've never seen the best western ever. I believe it to be a really good movie to show to young men, just so they know. These movies are more than simple westerns. Customer Rating: Summary: 3 worthwhile movies; package could be better Comment: This set includes two terrific movies, Henry King's THE GUNFIGHTER with Gregory Peck and Henry Hathaway's RAWHIDE with Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward. The third film, Hathaway's GARDEN OF EVIL with Hayward and Gary Cooper, is much the least of the lot, but at least it has beautiful CinemaScope cinematography that the disc captures very well. It's also regrettable that GARDEN is the only one of the three with a commentary track, doubly so in that the three commentators discuss nothing but Bernard Herrmann's musical score -- a subject in which fans of westerns, Cooper, Hayward or Hathaway will have no interest whatsoever.
On the plus side, as noted, the other two films are terrific, with one of Peck's best-ever performances in THE GUNFIGHTER. Also, the package includes several extras to compensate for the snooze-fest Herrmann commentary: featurettes on Lone Pine, CA, a popular location where over 400 movies were made, on GUNFIGHTER cinematographer Arthur Miller, and on Henry Hathaway, a director whose career and work are decades overdue for the respect they deserve. Customer Rating: Summary: 2-1/2 Great Westerns Comment: Cheyenne Warrior: The Original Screenplay with Author Commentary
Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake
Fox has released a terrific 3-disc box set, THE WESTERN CLASSICS, in which we're finally getting a DVD version of one of the most revered westerns ever produced, THE GUNFIGHTER (1950) starring Gregory Peck.
Directed by Henry King in glorious black-and-white, THE GUNFIGHTER is almost a Shakespearean tragedy, and is considered to be the first adult western, predating better known films like HIGH NOON and SHANE.
Peck plays Jimmy Ringo, a notorious gunfighter who would like to bury his reputation, but is forced to keep on the run because young punks keep forcing him to draw.
Currently, he's being pursued by the three brothers of a braggart he killed in self defense, but he stops off in the small town where his estranged wife (Helen Wescott) lives, hoping for a reconciliation. The sheriff of the town happens to be Millard Mitchell, an old friend and former gunslinger.
Mitchell wants Peck to leave town, but he won't go until Westcott agrees to meet him. In the meantime, the three brothers are getting closer and, if that's not bad enough, there's a young hothead in town (Skip Homeier) who thinks he's a faster draw than the legendary Jimmy Ringo.
THE GUNFIGHTER may not contain a lot of shoot-'em-up action, but it's filled with a HIGH NOON-like suspense and colorful, multi-dimensional characters. Karl Malden and Jean Parker co-star.
DVD extras include a featurette on cinematographer Arthur Miller, an artist with black-and-white, and a retrospective "Making of" mini-documentary.
Almost as good as THE GUNFIGHTER is RAWHIDE (1951), another beautifully-photographed black-and-white western, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward and Hugh Marlowe.
Marlowe and his band of ruthless outlaws (Jack Elam, Dean Jagger, George Tobias), all escaped convicts, take control of a desert stagecoach station, run by Edgar Buchanan and his tenderfoot assistant (Power). They kill Buchanan, then hold Power and stage passenger Hayward (and her baby niece) hostage, waiting for a gold shipment to arrive by coach the next day.
Power knows that, once the outlaws have the gold, they will kill their captives, so he and Hayward desperately devise a plan to thwart their intentions.
RAWHIDE is another suspense-filled western, containing a fair share of surprise plot twists.
DVD extras include featurettes on Ms. Hayward and on Lone Pine, where RAWHIDE, THE GUNFIGHTER and many other classic westerns were shot.
Hathaway, Hayward and Marlowe are also involved in GARDEN OF EVIL (1954), the one disappointing film in this box set.
Shot in CinemaScope and color, the movie features some gorgeous and interesting Mexican scenery and boasts a cast that also includes Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark, Cameron Mitchell and (briefly) Rita Moreno.
The problem with GARDEN OF EVIL is the very talky script, which has its characters doing things that make little or no sense.
Cooper, Widmark and Mitchell play three Americans on their way to the California Gold Rush by ship, who get stranded in a small Mexican coastal town and are hired by Hayward to help free her husband (Marlowe) from a mine cave-in. The problem is that the mine is located deep in the mountains in Apache territory.
DVD extras include a retrospective "Making of" featurette and a mini-documentary on director Hathaway.
