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DVD The Plainsman
Just maybe the most shamelessly enjoyable of Cecil B. DeMille's pseudo-historical epics, this rumbustious frontier saga offers a three-for-one Western legends combo--Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Calamity Jane, all cutting up in the 1870s, with George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln thrown in for good measure. (Wait a minute, Lincoln was assassinated in 1865--oh, never mind.) Truth to tell, Buffalo Bill doesn't really pull his weight, since (1) he is hopelessly distracted by virtue of having recently married and (2) he's played by James Ellison, an eternal juvenile normally relegated to second-banana duty in Paramount's Hopalong Cassidy series. However, Gary Cooper's Wild Bill and Jean Arthur's Calamity supply enough star power to light up the Dakotas and parts of Missouri.
Every once in a while, DeMille and his small army of writers stumble upon an actual historical fact. Bill Cody did fight to the death with an Indian chief named Yellow Hand. George Custer and James Butler Hickok did both buy the farm in the summer of 1876. (Custer's Last Stand is handled imaginatively, if cheaply, as a vision narrated by a wandering Cheyenne warrior--none other than C.B.'s son-in-law Anthony Quinn in one of his earliest screen appearances.) Jack McCall (veteran weasel Porter Hall) did find himself in Deadwood, South Dakota, at the same time Wild Bill was drawing aces and eights in a poker game ... though McCall was not necessarily affiliated with DeMille's favorite villain, Charles Bickford, in the business of running guns to the Indians. --Richard T. Jameson
This is what you'd expect from a Cecil B. DeMille Western: a cast of thousands and just about every historical personage you can think of portrayed on screen. It's the kind of movie that sort of pulls you in whether you like it or not. Gary Cooper plays Wild Bill Hickock, and when we first see him he's being mustered out of the Union Army at the end of the Civil War. Jean Arthur plays Calamity Jane, and she sure looks a lot better than the real thing did. Cooper bears absolutely no resemblance to Wild Bill Hickock, but that's ok, because he's actually playing Gary Cooper playing Wild Bill Hickock! Charles Bickford, a venerable character actor of countless Westerns, employs his usual crusty persona as a bad guy. (Bickford was a flexible actor in that he could play either a crusty good guy or a bad guy.) DeMille's son-in-law Anthony Quinn plays a Cheyenne warrior, as he often did in the thirties and forties. John Miljan does a creditable job as General Custer, who's protrayed here as a hero. Like most DeMille movies, a lot of things happen, but you don't really get close to the character. Nor do you get wrapped up in the plot to a great extent. This is a big budget Western, a rare thing in the 1930's, and for what it is, it's pretty good. It's certainly far better than the pathetic 1966 remake with Don Murray!
Plain ENTERTAINMENT... of the best sort!
This one is good enough. Those are the films I enjoyed when a child... and OK I can forget the silly inaccuracies... who cares... THAT WAS Cecil B. de Mille ADAPTED/SCRIPT/HISTORY...
Specially great is the duo (Cooper&Arthur) playing Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane... (for those fans also interested in fact: better if you do not look at historical pictures of her... because the real one looked as a heavyweight champion...).
I do think it's practically imposible to do not have seen it on TV some time or other... if NOT do watch!... that was Hollywood at it's best...
ENJOY.
PS: Oh! I nearly forgot... whatever happened to "North West Mounted Police"?... also from C.B.DM factory... one of my favorites of all time and with an splendid contrast between the highly "polished" mounties and an EXCELLENT Cooper playing a TEXAS RANGER... NO VHS... NO DVD... Who has the rights?... C'mon include in next volume of the Gary Cooper Collection!... Those who enjoy this glorious color film can suport my pledge writing a review or simply voting for the present one or WHATEVER... but let's put some pressure for this release!.
Thanks for your patience.
"The Plainsman" represents the directorial prowess of Cecil B. DeMille at its most inaccurate and un-factual. It sets up parallel plots for no less stellar an entourage than Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), Buffalo Bill Cody (James Ellison), Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur), George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln to interact, even though in reality Lincoln was already dead at the time the story takes place. Every once in a while DeMille floats dangerously close toward the truth, but just as easily veers away from it into unabashed spectacle and showmanship. The film is an attempt to buttress Custer's last stand with a heap of fiction that is only loosely based on the lives of people, who were already the product of manufactured stuffs and legends.
TRANSFER: Considering the vintage of the film, this is a moderately appealing transfer, with often clean whites and extremely solid blacks. There's a considerable amount of film grain in some scenes and an absence of it at other moments. All in all, the image quality is therefore somewhat inconsistent, but it is never all bad or all good - just a bit better than middle of the road. Age related artifacts are kept to a minimum and digital anomalies do not distract. The audio is mono but nicely balanced.
EXTRAS: Forget it. It's Universal!
BOTTOM LINE: As pseudo-history painted on celluloid, this western is compelling and fun. Just take its characters and story with a grain of salt - in some cases - a whole box seems more appropriate!
well i bought it at the mall store. it said it has closed captioned on it back then i started to on my dvd on tv and didn't apear at all just blank. you know that i am deaf guy i can't hear at all. you got that. huh just let me know here my e-mail address is cecilo57@webtv.net. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gary Cooper Director(s): Raoul Walsh DVD Release Date: Released the 11 May 2004 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Good western scripts are rare. This one is excellent. The acting is very good. Robert Preston delivers his usual complex baddy performance to excellent effect. The character of "Whispering Smith" is tailormade for Alan Ladd. There is great support from all other members of the cast - which means very good direction. The only disappointment is the ending which is something of a let-down. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Leslie Fenton DVD Release Date: Released the 01 June 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The formula of 'bad guy turned good' works quite well. In spite of the charisma of Randolph Scott and Robert Young, I think that Dean Jagger is the leading light in this whilst, Virginia Gilmore adds the female charm. I liked it but then I am a western lover!!! More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ray Enright DVD Release Date: Released the 01 June 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I agree completely with "Ohio Guy"........these are some of Gary Coopers best movies BUT the studio, instead of spending a little on restoration and packaging them individually, chose to go the CHEAP way and made them a set. The transfers are marginal at best and the picture quality is no where what it should be to be viewed on big screen TV's. Come on Amazon.com.....pay attention to YOUR customers and force the studios to do a better job of restoration. There really are customers out here who don't want knock-offs and who consider what is being done to these great films a true injustice and also a RIP-OFF....!!!!!!!! More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gary Cooper DVD Release Date: Released the 31 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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