Cowboys & Indians

Tombstone

This Western has become a modest cult favorite since its release in 1993, when the film was met with mixed reviews but the performances of Kurt Russell (as Wyatt Earp) and especially Val Kilmer, for his memorably eccentric performance as the dying gunslinger Doc Holliday, garnered high praise. The movie opens with Wyatt Earp trying to put his violent past behind him, living happily in Tombstone with his brothers and the woman (Dana Delany) who puts his soul at ease. But a murderous gang called the Cowboys has burst on the scene, and Earp can't keep his gun belt off any longer. The plot sounds routine, and in many ways it is, but Western buffs won't mind a bit thanks to a fine cast and some well-handled action on the part of Rambo director George P. Cosmatos, who has yet to make a better film than this. --Jeff Shannon

A sizzling, star-studded cast brings to life the legendary battle to deliver justice to TOMBSTONE! Kurt Russell (MIRACLE, VANILLA SKY) turns in a gripping performance as U.S. Marshall Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer (THE MISSING, BATMAN FOREVER) ignites the screen as the outrageous Doc Holliday. Together, they team up to bring law to the lawless in a notorious showdown with the ruthless outlaws at the O.K. Corral! The all-star ensemble also includes Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Dana Delany, Jason Priestley, Michael Biehn, and long-time Hollywood favorite Charlton Heston. Get ready for an explosive, action-packed adventure the Wild West would never forget!

Jeremiah Johnson

After they first worked together on the 1966 film This Property Is Condemned, director Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford continued their long-lasting collaboration with this 1972 drama set during the mid-1800s, about one man's rugged effort to shed the burden of civilization and learn to survive in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. Will Geer is perfectly cast as the seasoned trapper who teaches Jeremiah Johnson (Redford) how to survive against harsh winters, close encounters with grizzly bears, and hostile Crow Indians. In the course of his adventure, Johnson marries the daughter of a Flathead Indian chief, forms a makeshift family, and ultimately assumes a mythic place in Rocky Mountain folklore. Shot entirely on location in Utah, the film boasts an abundance of breathtaking widescreen scenery, and the story (despite a PG rating) doesn't flinch from the brutality of the wilderness. In addition to the original theatrical trailer, remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, and informative production notes, the DVD also includes The Saga of Jeremiah Johnson, a promotional documentary on the making of the film. --Jeff Shannon

Robert Redford has one of his best-ever roles as a 19th century mountain man in a wilderness of harsh elements and hostile Indians. Directed by The Firm's Sydney Pollack. Year: 1972 Director: Sydney Pollack Starring: Robert Redford, Will Geer, Stefan Gierasch

DVD Features:
Featurette
Production Notes

Dead Man

This disappointment from Jim Jarmusch stars Johnny Depp in a mystery-Western about a 19th-century accountant named William Blake, who spends nearly all his money getting to a hellish mud town in the old West and ends up penniless and doomstruck in the wilderness. A benevolent if goofy Native American (Gary Farmer) takes an interest in guiding Blake on a quest for identity in his earthly journey, but the film is really just a string of endless shtick about inbred woodsmen, dumb lawmen, and a trio of irritable killers. With Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop, Gabriel Byrne, Alfred Molina, and a noodling soundtrack by Neil Young. --Tom Keogh

Johnny Depp (CHOCOLAT) delivers a remarkable performance in this highly acclaimed tale of adventure and intrigue in the wild, wild west! A young man in search of a fresh start, William Blake (Depp) embarks on an exciting journey to a new town ... never realizing the danger that lies ahead. But when a heated love triangle ends in double murder, Blake finds himself a wanted man, running scared -- until a mysterious loner teaches him to face the dangers that follow a "dead man." With an outstanding supporting cast including Gabriel Byrne (THE USUAL SUSPECTS) and Robert Mitchum (CAPE FEAR), and a sizzling soundtrack, DEAD MAN is another motion picture triumph from filmmaker Jim Jarmusch.

The Man with No Name Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)

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Geronimo - An American Legend

An American legend comes to breathtaking life in this explosive epic Western starring Jason Patric Robert Duvall Gene Hackman and Wes Studi as Geronimo. Studi (The Last Of The Mohicans) gives a stunning performance as the fearless warrior who was the last Indian leader to surrender to the white man. Betrayed by the Army s legendary "Indian fighter" General George Crook (Hackman) Geronimo leads a small band of warriors in escape. Pursued by a principled officer (Patric) a grizzled Army scout (Duvall) and a gung-ho West Point graduate (Matt Damon Good Will Hunting) Geronimo evades capture through brilliant military strategy and cutthroat courage. His true story is both an action adventure and a spiritual journey through the heart of a warrior. "Two thumbs up for GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND a visually stunning elegy to the last of the great Apache leaders." Siskel & EbertSystem Requirements:Starring: Jason Patric Robert Duvall Gene Hackman and Wes Studi as Geronimo. Directed By: Walter Hill. Running Time: 115 Min. Color. This film is presented in both "Widescreen" and "Standard" formats. Copyright 2000 Columbia TriStar Home Video.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: PG-13 UPC: 043396587090

Walter Hill's revisionist take on the American cavalry's campaign to capture renegade Chiricahua Apache warrior Geronimo (Wes Studi) is, like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, a dark tale that both celebrates and critiques myths of the American West. Despite its title, Geronimo is really about the American cavalry officers who undertake the responsibility of recapturing the warrior, in particular the young narrator Lt. Charles Gatewood (Jason Patric), a Civil War hero who respects the great Geronimo and brokers a treaty with the Chiricahua, only to see it collapse when the army kills the tribal medicine man. Gene Hackman plays Gen. George Crook, the proud but sympathetic officer charged with bringing in the renegades who take to hills after the killing. Robert Duvall, the tough, racist army scout and Indian fighter Charlie Sieber, practically steals the picture with his cagey, underplayed performance. More complex and complicated than most Westerns, this is a Walter Hill film through and through: lean, ironic, beautiful to look at (it was shot on location against the astounding landscape of southeastern Utah), and driven by a wonderful Ry Cooder score. Don't confuse this with the 1993 TNT cable film by the same name; it confounded many viewers at the time of its release and may have been at least partially responsible for its box-office disappointment. --Sean Axmaker

Rio Grande

The last and least memorable of John Ford's famous cavalry trilogy (following Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon), Rio Grande nonetheless has an interesting continuity about the gentlemanly rules of military conduct. Here the focus is on the family. While creating a heated controversy over his handling of the Apache war, John Wayne must also contend with disgruntled wife Maureen O'Hara and estranged son Claude Jarman Jr., a new recruit trying to earn his father's love and respect. Ford seems to suggest that there are two conflicting codes of honor in every cavalry officer's life, the personal as well as the professional, and that it takes an act of heroism to maintain both. It's fascinating to observe Wayne's progression throughout the trilogy, as his personal stakes intensify. Also, this is the first of five onscreen appearances between the Duke and O'Hara, each filled with a competitive spirit and stormy sexuality. --Bill Desowitz

The Man From Laramie

An intensely satisfying drama of rugged primitive justice THE MAN FROM LARAMIE marked the final and finest collaboration of one of the most important teams in Western films: director Anthony Mann and star Jimmy Stewart. Together this perfectly-matched pair provided audiences with eight classic pictures including Winchester '73 and Stategic Air Command. Under Mann's superb direction Stewart departs from his well-loved "ordinary hero" role and gives a riveting performance as a resolute vigilante obsessed with finding the man responsible for his brother's death. Among the suspects are an arrogant cattle baron (Donald Crisp) his sadistic son (Alex Nicol) and his ranch foreman (Arthur Kennedy in the best performance of his career). One explosive confrontation in which Stewart is dragged by a wild horse and shot in the hand at close range is one of movie history's most memorable sequences. Among the first Westerns filmed in CinemaScope THE MAN FROM LARAMIE uses the widescreen technology to emphasize the scope and power of this harrowing action-drama making it a perfect example of the Western as America's epic art form.System Requirements:Running Time: 103 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 043396041707 Manufacturer No: 04170

Only John Ford excelled Anthony Mann as a purveyor of eye-filling Western imagery, and Mann's best films are second to no one's when it comes to the fusion of dynamic action, rugged landscapes, and fierce psychological intensity. The Man from Laramie is the last of five remarkable Westerns the director made with James Stewart (starting with Winchester '73 and peaking with The Naked Spur). This collaboration marked virtually a whole new career for Stewart, whose characters are all haunted by the past and driven by obsession--here, to find whoever set his cavalry-officer brother in the path of warlike Indians.

The Man from Laramie aspires to an epic grandeur beyond its predecessors. It's the only one in CinemaScope, and Stewart's personal quest is subsumed in a larger drama--nothing less than a sagebrush version of King Lear, with a range baron on the verge of blindness (Donald Crisp), his weak and therefore vicious son (Alex Nicol), and another, apparently more solid "son," his Edmund-like foreman (Arthur Kennedy). There are a few too many subsidiary characters, and the reach for thematic complexity occasionally diminishes the impact. But no one will ever forget the scene on the salt flats between Nicol and Stewart--climaxing in the single most shocking act of violence in '50s cinema--or the final, mountaintop confrontation.

For decades, the film has been seen only in washed-out, pan-and-scan videos, with the characters playing visual hopscotch from one panel of the original composition to another. It's great to have this glorious DVD--razor-sharp, fully saturated (or as saturated as '50s Eastmancolor could be), and breathtaking in its CinemaScope sweep. --Richard T. Jameson

Posse

Mario Van Peebles directed as well as starred in this ham-fisted, 1993 Western with a predominantly African American cast. The story finds a posse of black shooters (with one white member, played by Stephen Baldwin) taking on a racist sheriff and military man, but Van Peebles's effort at mixing convention with hip credentials gets pretty grating. (Tone Loc makes the worst cowboy in film history.) The film is also incredibly sexist, going well beyond the usual frontier-floozy clichés and lapsing into the sort of blatant exploitation one found at that time in rap-music videos. There are lots of cameo appearances from familiar folks willing to support Van Peebles on a project that probably sounded like a mix of experiment and event--Pam Grier, Isaac Hayes, Woody Strode, and the director's father, Melvin Van Peebles. But even they can't help. --Tom Keogh

An outlaw and rebel who brought together a band of men who whould become brothers for life. Also featuring Blair Underwood Melvin Van Peebles Tone Loc Pam Grier and Isaac Hayes.System Requirements:Starring: Mario Van Peebles Stephen Baldwin Billy Zane Blair Underwood Richard Jordan and Salli Richardson. Directed By: Mario Van Peebles. Running Time: 111 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2000 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: R UPC: 027616861184

The Searchers

A favorite film of some of the world's greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, John Ford's The Searchers has earned its place in the legacy of great American films for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most notably, it's the definitive role for John Wayne as an icon of the classic Western--the hero (or antihero) who must stand alone according to the unwritten code of the West. The story takes place in Texas in 1868; Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a Confederate veteran who visits his brother and sister-in-law at their ranch and is horrified when they are killed by marauding Comanches. Ethan's search for a surviving niece (played by young Natalie Wood) becomes an all-consuming obsession. With the help of a family friend (Jeffrey Hunter) who is himself part Cherokee, Ethan hits the trail on a five-year quest for revenge. At the peak of his masterful talent, director Ford crafts this classic tale as an embittered examination of racism and blind hatred, provoking Wayne to give one of the best performances of his career. As with many of Ford's classic Westerns, The Searchers must contend with revisionism in its stereotypical treatment of "savage" Native Americans, and the film's visual beauty (the final shot is one of the great images in all of Western culture) is compromised by some uneven performances and stilted dialogue. Still, this is undeniably one of the greatest Westerns ever made. --Jeff Shannon

The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1952)

The Lone Ranger was created for radio in 1933 by George W. Trendle. Starring Clayton Moore as the title character and Jay Silverheels as his faithful companion, Tonto, The Lone Ranger went on to become one of the most popular westerns in history. Clayton Moore passed away in 1999, but he has left us the legacy of a lawman that always shot to wound, not kill, and never sought personal reward for his good deeds. Through Moore's portrayal, The Lone Ranger has become a symbol of individualism and justice that transcends its time and genre. (Black & White, PLUS one color episode from the popular television series.)