The John Wayne Western Collection (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance / True Grit / Hondo / McLintock! / Big Jake / The Shootist / Rio Lobo / The Sons of Katie Elder / El Dorado)
by John Farrow
from Paramount
Hondo (Full Screen)
by John Farrow
from Paramount
Although scarcely seen in its original 3-D, and entirely out of sight for a decade and a half after its producer-star died, Hondo has maintained a high rep among John Wayne fans--and it wasn't even directed by Howard Hawks or John Ford. (Actually, Ford did shoot some second-unit stuff while visiting Wayne on location.) Half-breed Hondo, companioned only by an antisocial dog, tends to be more sympathetic toward the Apaches than toward the white society he occasionally scouts for. He falls into uneasy friendship with a New Mexico farmwoman (Geraldine Page) whose husband deserts her for long stretches, and whose son (Lee Aaker) is blood brother to the local Apache chieftain. A good, spare frontier tale--Louis L'Amour via James Edward (Angel and the Badman) Grant--in which danger and solace come in unexpected ways. John Farrow, who did direct, brings it in at a lean 84 minutes. Page was Oscar®-nominated for this first film role. --Richard T. Jameson
Based on the Louis L'Amour story "The Gift of Cochise," this sparkling western has Wayne as a half-Indian Cavalry scout who, with his feral dog companion, finds a young woman and her son living on a isolated ranch in unfriendly Apache country. A poetic and exciting script, outstanding performances, and breathtaking scenery make this an indisputable classic. Page's debut.
Wake Island
by John Farrow
from Universal Studios
Wake Island, a sandbar rising 21 feet out of the South Pacific, was among the first U.S. outposts to be hit by the Japanese, virtually simultaneously with Pearl Harbor. Wake Island the movie was among Hollywood's earliest responses to America's being attacked and drawn into WWII. The Marine Corps defenders of Wake became instant war heroes, akin to the martyrs of the Alamo. Nothing could be done to rescue or even to reinforce and resupply them, and they fought on through air attacks and naval bombardment for two weeks until, finally overrun, they were wiped out.
That searing historical context had a lot to do with the movie's impact in 1942, and the sight of the dark forms of enemy planes coming over the horizon for the first time still carries a shock. Wake Island's a decent film, and it doesn't dishonor its subject with sham heroics and grandstanding. But the New York Film Critics voted John Farrow best director of 1942, and that's a reach. The first half hour sets up the allegory of America as melting pot (there's even a corporal named Goebbels), establishes horseplay as the coin of democratic discourse (especially for gyrenes Robert Preston and the Oscar-nominated William Bendix), and fosters familiar friction between new commander Brian Donlevy and civilian construction supervisor Albert Dekker. Then shortly after a beaming Japanese peace envoy has stopped by for dinner, things get rough. The scenes of warfare are more than adequate, but they'd soon be outdone, sometimes in films much less worthy than Wake Island. --Richard T. Jameson
The Big Clock (Universal Noir Collection)
by John Farrow
from Universal Studios
What if you were asked to investigate a murder in which you were the prime suspect? From this seemingly impossible notion comes a grandly entertaining nail-biter. Charles Laughton plays the punctuality obsessed, slave-driving head of a publishing empire who won't let his crime magazine's star editor (Ray Milland) take a day off to spend with his family. The overworked Milland, having just upset a delayed honeymoon trip for the umpteenth time, goes on a sorrow-drowning, bar-hopping bender with a mysterious woman who, it turns out, is Laughton's mistress. Later that night after Milland has gone home, Laughton murders her, and the next day he assigns Milland to investigate, since a number of clues point to her having spent time with another man that night. Milland, then, must not only find the real murderer but sidetrack the investigation away from himself. That both characters are solving the crime in tandem yet unwittingly working toward pinning the murder on each other is at the heart of The Big Clock's labyrinthine brilliance. Helping bring out the dark humor in this adaptation of Kenneth Fearing's noir novel (included in the Library of America's Crime Novels collection) is Elsa Lanchester as a high-strung painter who can sketch the prime suspect (Milland), a time-bomb plot device that only adds to the already unbearable suspense. This is a taut, lean thriller, superbly handled by director John Farrow, who never fails to remind his audience through repeated use of clocks, timepieces, and watches that all too often in our lives that ticking sound is the enemy. This was remade in 1987 with Kevin Costner as No Way Out. --Robert Abele
The Sea Chase
by John Farrow
from Warner Home Video
Adventure drama and romance of an outlaw ship and the people aboard her. Based on Andrew Geer's novel.Running Time: 117 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 085391158646 Manufacturer No: 115864
Plunder of the Sun (Special Collector's Edition)
by John Farrow
from Paramount
An American insurance agent gets into trouble when he is hired to smuggle an Aztec artifact from Cuba to Mexico.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: PLUNDER OF THE SUN
Title: PLUNDER OF THE SUN
Street Release Date: 06/06/2006
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE
Plunder of the Sun plays like a low-budget merging of two Bogart classics, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Maltese Falcon. Wiseguy Al Colby (Glenn Ford) finds himself short of funds in Havana, but a mysterious antiquities trader (Francis L. Sullivan, doing his best Sydney Greenstreet) enlists Colby to transport a package from Cuba to Mexico. The package is a piece in a puzzle that could lead to millions in ancient gold, possibly buried in the elaborate ruins of Zapotecan temples--if Colby can survive the other adventurers jockeying to get the stuff. Director John Farrow keeps the story moving and the shadows at a satisfyingly noirish level even if the material never rises to anything like classic status, while Glenn Ford provides a fitting cruel streak for his nobody-makes-a-sucker-out-of-me hero. This was one of two movies Farrow made in Mexico that year for John Wayne's Batjac production company, the other being Hondo. The balled-up plot, international gaggle of eccentric performers (most colorfully Wayne regular Sean McClory), and somewhat chintzy location shooting call to mind another globe-trotting movie of that era, Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin, and this movie even shares actress Particia Medina with that picture. --Robert Horton
Treasure Island
by John Farrow
from Warner Home Video
For many people, this 1934 version is the definitive Treasure Island: the great chemistry between Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper, the rousing pirate anthems, and the stubborn parrot on the shoulder. The pairing of the actors was a cinch, coming three years after their tremendously popular teaming in The Champ. Cooper plays Jim Hawkins, the English boy who discovers a treasure map amongst the possessions of one Billy Bones (Lionel Barrymore in a robust extended cameo), a pirate visitor to the Admiral Benbow Inn. Beery, indelibly, is the one-legged, parrot-toting seadog known as Long John Silver, who joins up on the treasure-hunting expedition by pretending to be a humble cook--though the audience knows he is a fearsome pirate captain. Victor Fleming was just the right director for this manly voyage, holding the MGM luster at bay and allowing the crew of characters actors (among them Otto Kruger, Lewis Stone, and "Chic" Sale) to find their sea legs. At times, the relationship between Jim and Silver is closer to The Champ than to Robert Louis Stevenson's marvelous novel, but it's still true in spirit to the bond between boy and surrogate father. The story has been remade many times, notably in 1950 with Robert Newton as Silver, but this one inspires the longest memories. --Robert Horton
Avast, mates, and heed a pirate's tale. Billy Bones, bless his cursed soul, has hefted his cutlass and grog for the last time, leaving behind scarcely a doubloon. Aye, but he has left a map to a fabled, buried treasure.... The unforgettable stars of 1931's The Champ reunite for a rousing adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale. Jackie Cooper is Jim Hawkins, a lad living the kind of adventure every child dreams about. Treasure map in hand, Jim and his backers set sail for realms and riches unknown aboard the Hispaniola. But beware, me hearties: Notorious, one-legged Long John Silver (Wallace Beery) has signed on to the voyage by posing as a cook. Will the treasure fall into his scheming grasp? Will the Hispaniola soon be a-flying the dreaded skull and bones? Drop anchor and watch. A pirate's life for ye!
DVD Features:
Other:Vintage Dramatic Short The Spectacle Maker Oscar?-Nominated Short Strikes and Spares Classic Cartoon Tale of the Vienna Woods
Theatrical Trailer
Where Danger Lives / Tension (Film Noir Double Feature)
by John Berry
from Warner Home Video
A corpse behind. A dead end ahead. Woozy Robert Mitchum and Faith Domergue are on the run in Where Danger Lives. In Tension genre icon Audrey Totter is bad to the bone. But milquetoast hubby Richard Basehart may be worse!Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085391150282 Manufacturer No: 115028
Copper Canyon
by John Farrow
from Paramount
Copper Canyon is a quirky little Western with nothing distinctive to accomplish and more stylish talent on hand than it needs to get the job done. Director John Farrow, writer Jonathan Latimer, and star Ray Milland had recently collaborated on a pair of suave Paramount thrillers (The Big Clock and Alias Nick Beal). Here Milland plays a trick-shooting frontier vaudevillian who, under another name, may have been a Confederate war hero--and a bit of a rascal. He isn't admitting anything. But he does pitch in to help some ex-Rebels, now copper miners, who are getting shafted by a sanctimonious Yankee smelter operator, a lady gambler (Hedy Lamarr in her next-to-last Hollywood film), and a murderous deputy sheriff (Macdonald Carey). The action comes in fits and starts, but Milland's out-of-place urbanity, Charles Lang's Technicolor camerawork, and those great red-rock formations around Sedona, Arizona, make 84 minutes pass agreeably. --Richard T. Jameson
The Sea Chase
by John Farrow
from Warner Home Video
Adventure, drama and romance of an outlaw ship and the = people aboard her. Based on Andrew Geer's novel.
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