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DVD The Bravados
During his Twentieth Century Fox contract years, Gregory Peck looked to veteran director Henry King as something of a father figure and gave two of his best performances--in Twelve O'Clock High (1949) and The Gunfighter (1950)--for him. The Bravados (1958) isn't in that league, but it's a surprisingly tough film from the flabby CinemaScope years when the studio, director, and star all seemed to be floundering.
Peck plays Jim Douglass, a dark, haunted man who rides into a Southwest border town on the eve of a hanging. The bad men set for the drop (Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi, Lee Van Cleef, Henry Silva) are the same ones he's been pursuing for the rape and murder of his wife. Douglass isn't happy about leaving it to the law to carry out his vengeance--and so there's a certain bleak satisfaction when the quartet busts out of jail, and he becomes the best hope for hunting them down.
Perversity wasn't King's long suit, so Philip Yordan's screenplay about a hero turning more sinister than the outlaws he's chasing never acquires the demonic power or ironic flair that an Anthony Mann, Fritz Lang, or Robert Aldrich might have lent it. Yet the very foursquareness of King's style and approach--and Peck's earnest efforts to fight through his accustomed stolidity to hit the necessary notes of desperation and finally shame--make for a fascination all their own. Joan Collins hovers handsomely on the periphery as an old friend ready to redeem Douglass, and Joe (Curly Joe-to-be) De Rita makes an uncredited appearance as the hangman. --Richard T. Jameson
Another revenge seeking cowboy movie from the fifties
Gregory Peck puts on a black hat to play a man searching for the outlaws that raped and murdered his wife. This is one of many fifties Westerns featuring characters consumed with revenge. James Stewart and Anthony Mann made an excellent series of Westerns featuring a revenge obsessed hero, as did Randolph Scott and Bud Boetticher. "The Bravados" was Peck's second collaboration with director Henry King (the first was "The Gunfighter" in 1950), but it's not in the same league as either the Stewart-Mann or the Scott-Boetticher series. It's hard for Peck to put aside his dignified righteous persona and play an revenge obsessed character who straddles both sides of the law. Consequently I'm not sure this movie really works. Good for a Saturday afternoon, but I'd leave it at that.
the bravados
excellent purchase i am more than happy with the dvd.
A+1 thanx
A big story with a big impact
There's going to be a hanging in Rio Arriba, and Jim Douglass (Gregory Peck) has ridden a hundred miles to see it. You see, the four men - Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi, Henry Silva and Lee van Cleef - about to be hanged committed a great crime that changed Douglass's life forever, and he's there to see justice carried out. When the condemned men escape, Douglass makes it his personal mission to deliver justice to the bad guys.
I love revenge movies, and the premise of Henry King's THE BRAVADOS holds great promise. One avenging angel - Gregory Peck - versus four scurvy killers. The best revenge movies go to the chase as soon as possible, and reveal character and motivation through the chase. Unfortunately THE BRAVADOS takes forever to kick into gear. The movie spends a good half hour in Rio Arriba, an eternity in movie time, introducing characters and establishing motives. Some of the characters don't really belong in the movie, either. It's in Rio Arriba that we meet Josefa Velarde (Joan Collins), a beautiful young Elizabeth Taylor type who met, loved and declined Douglass's proposals a half-decade or so ago. Collins wasn't a terrific actress, and some of her high emotion scenes in this one are painfully amateurish. Even a talented actress wouldn't redeem the role, though. Every time Josefa appears the movie grinds to a halt. THE BRAVADOS prove the rule that women and action movies don't mix.
On the trailer Gregory Peck tells us that THE BRAVADOS is `a big story with a big impact.' I'd call it a potentially big story that never gets on track. We learn a big surprise or two near the end, ones that should have taken our breath away. Instead they kind of limp over the line, somewhat naked in their improbability. Peck proves capable of doing justice to a revenge-ridden protagonist. It would have been fascinating, and probably would have resulted in a much better movie, if he could have spent more time exploring the dark side of his character.
The double sided dvd contains both full screen and widescreen versions of the movie. I watched the widescreen version, which was in very good condition. Extras include a trailer for the movie and a couple of very brief - under a minute per - period newsreels.
"Warlock" is a great classic western with an amazing cast. I am sad to see Dolores Michaels not get billing on the DVD, as she did on the original moive posters. While she retired early from acting, she not only was beautiful, but a very solid actress. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Widmark - Henry Fonda Director(s): Edward Dmytryk DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 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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I don't know the real history of the gunfight at the OK Corral. I saw the recent movie TOMBSTONE with Kurt Russel and Val Kilmer and found it thoroughly enjoyable but I never considered it to be "historical". It was just hysterical.
HOUR OF THE GUN is another, older version of the story. It too is excellent and more believable as a historical drama but I have no conception that it is historical other than the recognition that Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Ike Clanton were real people; Tombstone, Arizona, Colorado, Mexico and the OK Corral are real places; and a gunfight really did take place at the corral. That doesn't matter to me because this too is a fine film and thoroughly entertaining. It has none of the comic element that TOMBSTONE had but it is a high quality western... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): James Garner - Jason Robards Director(s): John Sturges DVD Release Date: Released the 17 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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After being coerced by a roving gang of Kiowas to trade his season's worth of hard-earned furs for a runaway slave, Joe Bass (Burt Lancaster) vows to take back what's his. Before he can get them, though, the Kiowas are slaughtered by a gang of `scalphunters' led by Jim Howie (Telly Salavas), who nips Joe Bass's furs in the bargain. With Joseph Winfield Lee (Ossie Davis) in tow, Joe Bass trails the fur and scalp-laden Jim Howie and vows yet again to reclaim his property.
THE SCALPHUNTERS (1968) is a comedy-western that somehow manages to makes palatable some terrible things - specifically, slavery and the harvest and sale of human scalps. It doesn't condone them, of course, but it doesn't dwell on their horrors, either. Lancaster is energetic and perfectly cast as the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Burt Lancaster - Shelley Winters Director(s): Sydney Pollack DVD Release Date: Released the 17 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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