Russell, Gail

Seven Men From Now (Special Collector's Edition)

Not many Westerns can claim to be original. Seven Men from Now can. Its making, for the B-picture arm of John Wayne's Batjac company, was a modest enterprise. The screenwriter, Burt Kennedy, was just starting out; the director, Budd Boetticher, was a matador-turned-filmmaker with only one film of distinction (The Bullfighter and the Lady) in a journeyman career; the star, Randolph Scott, was regarded as "over the hill." Yet the three men's talents blended uncannily, producing not just a terrific Western but a cinema masterpiece--an ironical, beautifully spare bit of storytelling that became the ideal showcase for Scott's sandy reticence.

You don't want anybody synopsizing the story for you; there's little of it, really, yet how it's told makes it complex and compelling. We know, from a memorable first scene, that Scott is hunting down seven men who did something terrible. He will be thrown together with several other characters, including Lee Marvin as an affable but deadly rascal with whom he shares some history. Everybody has private reasons to be traveling through Apache country. Savor every syllable of the laconic dialogue, what people say and what they don't quite say--what they think they understand about one another's motives, except that that understanding keeps getting rearranged.

Seven Men from Now went missing after Wayne's death in 1979 threw the Batjac library into limbo. (Its success had inspired Scott, Boetticher, and Kennedy to collaborate on three other remarkable Westerns--The Tall T (1957), Ride Lonesome (1959), and Comanche Station (1960)--which, because they weren't made for Batjac, we've had little trouble seeing over the years.) The movie became legendary, a Holy Grail for film buffs. Now, with a beautiful restoration on DVD, it gets to be a movie again. A great one. --Richard T. Jameson

John Wayne Collection, Vol. 1 (The Quiet Man / The Sands of Iwo Jima / Flying Tigers / The Wake of the Red Witch)

Wake of the Red Witch

John Wayne stars as a 19th-century sea captain out for revenge against a wealthy shipping magnate in this interesting and unlikely 1948 offering from Republic Pictures. Wayne plays the wronged Captain Ralls with a convincing bitterness that foreshadows his later work in the John Ford classic The Searchers, and his grim portrayal of Ralls hits a high point when Ralls purposely wrecks his enemy's prize treasure ship. The painfully beautiful Gail Russell costarred with Wayne only the year before in The Angel and the Badman and delivers a memorable performance as the tragic Angelique. Gig Young also stands out as a crewman who eventually learns the truth about Ralls. Wake of the Red Witch shares similarities in both character and climax to an earlier Wayne picture, C.B. DeMille's Reap the Wild Wind, but this film has a more direct approach in exploring the complex motivations of its characters. --Mark Savary

The Great Dan Patch

Angel & The Badman

How can you go wrong with a movie featuring the great Harry Carey as a philosophical lawman named Wistful McClintock? Well sir (or ma'am), you can't, and this first production from John Wayne's personal unit at Republic is simply one of the loveliest Westerns anybody ever made. The producer-star plays gunslinger Quirt Evans who, wounded by his archrival Laredo Stevens (Bruce Cabot), is taken in and sheltered by a Quaker family--in particular, by the daughter of the household, a dark-eyed angel (Gail Russell) who could entice Satan himself to the path of virtue. Not that these good people get pushy about converting "Brother Evans." For his part, Marshal McClintock, who's amiably looked forward to hanging Quirt someday, keeps dropping by to see which happens first--Quirt's reformation, or Laredo's return to finish the job he started.

Entrusting the direction to screenwriter James Edward Grant, Wayne bolstered Grant's debut by tapping Yakima Canutt to handle the hard-riding second-unit stuff. The Duke also stole a few moves from a little project he'd been working on with Howard Hawks, Red River. Such larceny may have been superfluous. Grant wrote far and away the best script Wayne had ever had at Republic, creating a gallery of memorable characters (including comparative bystanders) and developing some very entertaining business for them--especially for such juicy character actors as Paul Hurst (the Quakers' mean-spirited neighbor), Olin Howlin (a braggadocious telegraph operator), and Hank Worden. The result was a minor classic deftly blending humor, romance, authentic sweetness, and just enough leathery menace to keep things on the generic up-and-up. This one's a real treat. --Richard T. Jameson

John Wayne: American Hero 10 Movie Pack

Included:1. American West of John Ford The2. Angel and the Badman3. Dawn Rider The4. Lucky Texan The5. Man from Utah The6. Neath Arizona Skies7. Riders of Destiny8. Sagebrush Trail9. Texas Terror10. Trail Beyond The11. West of the DivideSystem Requirements:TRT: 635 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 683904100054 Manufacturer No: MV10005

The Great Dan Patch

Tough Guys of the West 20 Movie Pack

Angel and the Badman This film the first personally produced by John Wayne depicts the story of a wounded outlaw who is cared for by a depicts the story of a wounded outlaw who is cared for by a Quaker family. He eventually falls in love with the daughter and is slowly transformed even though he still desires the vengeance of his murdered foster father.: Santa Fe TrailJeb Stuart carries on a friendly rivalry with his friend George Custer over the affections of Kit Carson Halliday. This retelling of a famous legend presents events leading up to the bloody confrontation between Brown and the US Army at Harper's Ferry Virginia and the days leading up to the outbreak of the American Civil War.THE PAINTED DESERT When Western partners Jeff and Cash find an orphan baby boy they clash over which one is to be the adoptive father. Years after Cash has raised the baby boy Bill the two are still feuding. Bill tries to make peace between the families and he falls in love with Jeff's daughter but a mining venture escalates the bitterness.NEVADA CITY Roy Rogers and Gabby Hayes play stagecoach drivers trying to settle the conflict between their stagecoach boss and a railroader. Sabotage on both sides and from lone greedy renegades aggravates the conflict but Rogers and Hayes mediate the conflict and expose the bad guys.FIGHTING CARAVANS Gary Cooper returns to the Zane Grey Western series as Clint Belmet a disreputable frontiersman who convinces a young woman to pose as his wife so he can elude the law. While becoming a frontier guide to a wagon train and fighting off villains he begins falling in love with his counterfeit wife. Homesteading farmers and cattlemen begin fighting for land and about how it should be used. It takes much destruction and bloodshed to resolve the conflict.MY OUTLAW BROTHER Denny O'More (Mickey Rooney) is a greenhorn from New York who heads up into the Wild West to see his brother Patrick (Robert Stack). Along the way he

Angel and the Badman

How can you go wrong with a movie featuring the great Harry Carey as a philosophical lawman named Wistful McClintock? Well sir (or ma'am), you can't, and this first production from John Wayne's personal unit at Republic is simply one of the loveliest Westerns anybody ever made. The producer-star plays gunslinger Quirt Evans who, wounded by his archrival Laredo Stevens (Bruce Cabot), is taken in and sheltered by a Quaker family--in particular, by the daughter of the household, a dark-eyed angel (Gail Russell) who could entice Satan himself to the path of virtue. Not that these good people get pushy about converting "Brother Evans." For his part, Marshal McClintock, who's amiably looked forward to hanging Quirt someday, keeps dropping by to see which happens first--Quirt's reformation, or Laredo's return to finish the job he started.

Entrusting the direction to screenwriter James Edward Grant, Wayne bolstered Grant's debut by tapping Yakima Canutt to handle the hard-riding second-unit stuff. The Duke also stole a few moves from a little project he'd been working on with Howard Hawks, Red River. Such larceny may have been superfluous. Grant wrote far and away the best script Wayne had ever had at Republic, creating a gallery of memorable characters (including comparative bystanders) and developing some very entertaining business for them--especially for such juicy character actors as Paul Hurst (the Quakers' mean-spirited neighbor), Olin Howlin (a braggadocious telegraph operator), and Hank Worden. The result was a minor classic deftly blending humor, romance, authentic sweetness, and just enough leathery menace to keep things on the generic up-and-up. This one's a real treat. --Richard T. Jameson

Angel and the Badman