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DVD Drums Along the Mohawk
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 as though with the passing of a cloud shadow.
In this, his first color film, Ford created indelible images of the dawning of America: a lone wagon making its way through acres of long grass rippling in the wind; the Indians, at the onset of their first raid, seeming to materialize out of the mist, out of the very trunks of trees; a ragged line of farmers with flintlocks passing along a split-rail fence, then resolving into a column, an army, marching toward a distant horizon. (Utah's Wasatch mountain country stands in persuasively for upstate New York in pioneer days.) Edna May Oliver scored a best-supporting-actress Oscar nomination as a memorably crusty frontier widow, while Ward Bond--oddly omitted from the opening credits--claimed a place of honor in the John Ford Stock Company playing Fonda's best friend. --Richard T. Jameson
Drums Along the Mohawk is very entertaining movie with excellent cinematography, but alas it is somewhat dated, and the portrayal of Indians in particular leaves much to be desired. It would seem that the inspiration for Blue Back (played by Chief Big Tree) was Buckwheat from The Little Rascals. I couldn't help but cringe each time he was in a scene. It's a shame that such portrayals were once deemed acceptable. Aside from this, however, the movie does have its merits and is worth seeing if you're into historical films.
HEARTBREAKING PERIOD FILM!!
Dated, yes. But a remarkably moving film. Starting, honest performances. Fonda's lengthy speech, semi-conscious after an horrendous battle, is a shattering anti-war sentiment. The transfer is lovely. Yes, there are a few clitches here and there, but 95% of it is ravishing technicolor. One can only hope that UNCONQUERED will arrive soon on DVD.
A Simple Uncomplicated Story That Will Delight
Lamar Trotti and Sonya Levien's screenplay of Walter D, Edmonds novel of early American settlers in up-state New York have, with the assistance of the brilliant direction of John Ford, done true justice to Walter Edmonds novel. The rich early three colour technicolor prints serve to enrich and enhance the natural beauty of the location footage; contrary to some of the other reviewers opinions I find nothing wrong at all with this DVD transfer of a sixty six year old movie. 20th Century Fox have done an excellent job, but, I would have liked a few extras, such as the making of 'Drums Along the Mohawk'and some background info on the cast.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert carried out their roles with aplomb and the expert professionlism that one expects from acters who have reached the dizzy heights of stardom. However, for me, Edna May Oliver made this movie the memorable experience that it is; she stole every scene that she was in and who could ever forget the scene where she would rather be burnt to death in her bed than leave it?
No political correctness here either, if this movie was being made today it would not have depicted the Indians as mean and cruel drunken savages acting on the behalf of a white man's army but rather as a simple people who's acts are as the result of some form of trickery.
This one was great entertainment in 1939 and it is still great entertainment in 2005; in fact it hasn't dated at all. This one will not disappoint.
John Wayne personally produced many of his '50s films, which is why some of them have languished in corporate limbo following his death. The High and the Mighty was one of his most popular vehicles (no pun intended). This long, necessarily sedentary drama aboard an endangered airliner is a CinemaScope bridge between 1932's Grand Hotel and 1970s disaster movies. Despite Wayne's iconic presence as a pilot--now copilot--who survived the plane crash that wiped out his family, it's an ensemble movie with an impressive cast: Robert Stack sharing the cockpit, Oscar® nominees Claire Trevor and Jan Sterling, Laraine Day, Robert Newton, Paul Kelly, John Qualen, Regis Toomey, the ubiquitous Paul Fix, and director William A. Wellman's good-luck character actor Douglas Fowley.... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Wayne - Claire Trevor - Laraine Day Director(s): William A. Wellman DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This big, boisterous adventure is more inspired by than based on Rudyard Kipling's famous poem. Legendary screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur have fashioned a rousing Hollywood movie full of high adventure, knockabout comedy, and old-fashioned male bonding. And old-fashioned it is: the trio of British officers and best friends who form the core of the film are a 19th-century three musketeers in India, threatened by the interventions of a woman who means to marry the dashing Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Blustery commander MacChesney (Victor McLaglen) schemes to keep Ballantine in the army while his second in command, the treasure-hunting Cutter (Cary Grant in a hopelessly mugging comic performance), continues searching for his elusive mother lode, but all their plans are... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Joan Fontaine Director(s): George Stevens DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Out of circulation for a quarter-century following the death of producer-star John Wayne, Island in the Sky is a tale of survival focused on the pilot (Wayne) and crew of a DC-3 forced to crashland somewhere in the uncharted Canadian wilderness, and the fellow airmen (Lloyd Nolan, James Arness, Andy Devine, Paul Fix) determined to find them before hunger and the 70-below winter do them in. The movie, set in the post-WWII era when military and commercial aviation were still intertwined, was written by bestselling novelist Ernest K. Gann and directed by William A. Wellman, an aviation-movie veteran whose Wings won the first-ever Academy Award (1927–28).
Wellman resolutely downplays the histrionics and conventional heroics; Wayne indulges in none of the macho... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Wayne - Lloyd Nolan Director(s): William A. Wellman DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Some movies you just have to love. Oh, they may be well, even beautifully, made; wonderfully cast and stirringly acted; uplifting in theme and noble in motive. That's fine. In fact, that's great. For that, you admire them. But you love them because they are perfect distillations of a mood, of a moment in the history of filmmaking, of a breed of imagination that, like the best of fairy tales, transcends the tides of taste and empire, and certainly of political correctness.
Consider The Four Feathers, produced in England in 1939, at Alexander Korda's London Films studios, where a family of Hungarian expatriates aspired to exalt their newly adopted country, its history and traditions, and also to out-Hollywood Hollywood. With this film, they realized both ambitions, in spades.
This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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