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DVD Rio Grande (Collector's Edition)
The last and least memorable of John Ford's famous cavalry trilogy (following Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon), Rio Grande nonetheless has an interesting continuity about the gentlemanly rules of military conduct. Here the focus is on the family. While creating a heated controversy over his handling of the Apache war, John Wayne must also contend with disgruntled wife Maureen O'Hara and estranged son Claude Jarman Jr., a new recruit trying to earn his father's love and respect. Ford seems to suggest that there are two conflicting codes of honor in every cavalry officer's life, the personal as well as the professional, and that it takes an act of heroism to maintain both. It's fascinating to observe Wayne's progression throughout the trilogy, as his personal stakes intensify. Also, this is the first of five onscreen appearances between the Duke and O'Hara, each filled with a competitive spirit and stormy sexuality. --Bill Desowitz
On the rear side of the box it clearly says that this DVD includes Spanish and French language in Mono format. It isn't true, doesn't have other language than "3" English tracks! The film is in B&W also. Don't tell me that there isn't technology to translate this in color and make it available in other languages! The film is good anyway.
The Last of the Cavalry Trilogy
Film lore has it that John Ford had to make this movie for Republic Pictures if he was going to get them to produce "The Quiet Man." This is the third of a series of Ford movies known as the "Cavalry Trilogy." The first two were "Fort Apache" (1948) and the Oscar-winning "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949). Most fans and critics agree that "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" is the best of the lot. I'd agree with that, with "Fort Apache" as a close second. The least well received of the three films is "Rio Grande" (1950). It's not at all a bad movie, but it's certainly not in the same league with "Stagecoach," "My Darling Clementine," or "The Searchers." Victor McLaglen is visibly aging here, while Harry Carey, Jr., does little more than chew hay and say "yo" every two minutes. Still, it's a competently done film that stands high above the level of most 1950's cavalry movies. It's also noteworthy for being John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara's first screen appearance together. To paraphrase Victor McLaglen in "Fort Apache," any Ford movie is better than no Ford movie at all!
Wayne and O'Hara at their Western best
I love this movie - Maureen O'Hara never looked prettier and John Wayne is his outstanding macho self. Wayne had to complete The Quiet Man in Ireland in order to do this film and John 'Pappy' Ford made exceptionally effective use of the Monument Valley locations. The added bonus is the music of Stan Jones and the Sons of the Pioneers, the number one western music group of all time. Stan (who wrote the classic "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky") wrote almost all the music, also has a speaking role, as does Ken Curtis, the Pioneers' lead singer and who later became "Festus" on Gunsmoke. The story is a classic - a mother's love for her only son along with the anger of a spoiled southern aristocrat caught in the ravages of the Civil War, the former husband whose pledge of Duty, Honor, and Country of the career military man broke up their marriage, and the realization and acceptance by both of that pledge is as integral to the man as were her ties to the South. This should be in the top five of John Wayne movies for collectors - great music, acting, scenery, photography, and message.
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... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Wayne - Joanne Dru Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 04 June 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This latter-day sort-of Western from John Ford--falling midway between The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--is a crisp retelling of a true-life episode from the Civil War. In 1863 a Union colonel named Grierson (Marlowe in the film, and John Wayne by any name) led his cavalry several hundred miles behind Confederate lines to cut the railroad between Newton Station and soon-to-be-embattled Vicksburg. Grierson's Raid was as successful as it was daring, and remarkably bloodless. Never fear that the screenplay makes up for that un-Hollywood lapse--as well as supplying amatory distraction for the colonel in the form of a feisty Southern belle (Constance Towers) who has to be dragged along to protect secrecy.
Any short list of the all-time greatest Westerns is bound to include this 1948 Howard Hawks classic about an epic cattle drive. Red River features one of John Wayne's greatest performances. Like his Ethan Edwards in John Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, the Duke plays an isolated and unsympathetic man who is possessed by bitterness. Wayne is Texas rancher Tom Dunson, who adopts a young boy orphaned in an Indian massacre. That boy, Matthew Garth (played as an adult by Montgomery Clift in his screen debut), becomes Dunson's assistant and heir apparent--until Dunson's temper gets out of control during a long cattle drive and Matt intervenes to stop him. From that moment on, Dunson swears he will kill Matt. Red River has everything a great Western ought to have:... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Wayne - Montgomery Clift - Joanne Dru Director(s): Howard Hawks - Arthur Rosson DVD Release Date: Released the 15 May 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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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... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Wayne - Jeffrey Hunter Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 18 May 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Blarney and bliss, mixed in equal proportions. John Wayne plays an American boxer who returns to the Emerald Isle, his native land. What he finds there is a fiery prospective spouse (Maureen O'Hara) and a country greener than any Ireland seen before or since--it's no surprise The Quiet Man won an Oscar for cinematography. It also won an Oscar for John Ford's direction, his fourth such award. The film was a deeply personal project for Ford (whose birth name was Sean Aloysius O'Fearna), and he lavished all of his affection for the Irish landscape and Irish people on this film. He also stages perhaps the greatest donnybrook in the history of movies, an epic fistfight between Wayne and the truculent Victor McLaglen--that's Ford's brother, Francis, as the elderly man on his deathbed who... More Info about this DVD Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 22 October 2002 This item is currently not available.
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