Anthony Mann

James Stewart - The Western Collection (Destry Rides Again / Winchester ‘73 / Bend of the River / The Far Country / Night Passage / The Rare Breed)

Hollywood legend James Stewart takes the law into his own hands with 6 action-packed adventures in James Stewart: The Western Collection. Celebrate this Academy Award®-winning screen icon's 100th Anniversary with some of his most daring roles ever in Destry Rides Again Winchester '73 Bend of the River The Far Country Night Passage and The Rare Breed. Co-starring silver screen favorites Marlene Dietrich Rock Hudson Tony Curtis Maureen O'Hara and Shelley Winters this essential collection showcases one of Hollywood's most versatile actors at his best.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS UPC: 025195018456 Manufacturer No: 61102373

Man of the West

Western auteur Anthony Mann and aging Western icon Gary Cooper team up in this stark tale of a trio of train passengers stranded in the middle of the desert after a railway holdup. Taking responsibility for his helpless compatriots (Julie London as a sad-eyed prostitute and Arthur O'Connell as a garrulous but cowardly banker), craggy-faced Link Jones (Cooper) takes them into a veritable viper's nest in a desperate gamble. It turns out the respected town elder is a former member of the outlaw gang that robbed them, and he's welcomed back by patriarchal gang leader Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb) like the prodigal son. The other bandits are not so forgiving but humor the old man while plotting to unmask Cooper as a devious traitor in a battle of wits and wills. Mann returns to his favorite themes of family and betrayal with a dramatic twist and wrenches up the jagged conflict with the most spare imagery of his career: the trio hiking down an endless horizon of empty track, a lone ramshackle shack on the arid plains, the desolate ghost town where Tobin's planned bank heist turns out to be a pathetic fantasy. Mann's taut direction creates a tension that hangs in the air like the sword of Damocles over the stranded travelers and explodes in cruel, raw violence. Reginald Rose (12 Angry Men) wrote the literate if sometimes overly symbolic script, and John Dehner, Jack Lord, and Royal Dano costar as Tobin's angry gang members. --Sean Axmaker

Gary Cooper in his last great role portrays a former outlaw whose past returns to haunt him when he is forced by his old gang to participate in a train robbery. Julie London and Lee J. Cobb co-star.System Requirements:Running Time: 83 minutes Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 883904107095 Manufacturer No: M110709

Winchester '73

Winchester '73 is the first in a remarkable string of five classic westerns that James Stewart made with Anthony Mann in the 1950s (followed by Bend of the River, The Man from Laramie, The Naked Spur, and The Far Country). It is also distinguished for having helped revive the Western at the box office, and for being the first film in which the star forsook a huge up-front salary in favor of a share of the profits--a strategy that made Stewart rich and forever changed the way that Hollywood does business. The movie itself is pretty darned impressive, too. Stewart traces a stolen Winchester rifle through several owners until he finds the man he's looking for. The final spectacular shootout in craggy, mountainous terrain is justly famous. --Jim Emerson

The Far Country

The far country of the title is Alaska, where James Stewart, a cold-hearted cattleman, and his sidekick Walter Brennan, a garrulous old codger, drive a herd of cattle to cash in on the gold rush. Stewart is the ultimate loner, a point the film takes pains to paint as he watches helpless miners murdered by a gang of thugs without lifting a finger. John McIntyre plays his nemesis, a magnetic but corrupt Roy Bean-like judge and merchant who preys off the miners passing through his town and steals Stewart's cattle in the name of justice. Stewart, after signing on to lead saloon owner Ruth Roman's wagon train to the mining camp, steals back his herd and makes himself a respectful enemy: "I'm gonna like you. I'm gonna hang you, but I'm gonna like you," grins McIntyre. The rest of the film is a battle for Stewart's soul, between resolute individualism and community activism, between bad woman Roman and good girl Corinne Calvet (one of the film's weakest elements, admittedly, as the sparks between Stewart and Roman are far more exciting than Calvet's silly kewpie doll in flannel). The Far Country is largely shot on studio sets and pulls out familiar Western tropes not usually seen in his films, but Mann brings an edge to the drama with explosions of cold-blooded violence and a brilliant final shootout that plays out on a split-level plain. --Sean Axmaker

The Furies - Criterion Collection

Seconds into Anthony Mann's hardboiled horse opera, Barbara Stanwyck absent-mindedly plays with a pair of scissors. Not to worry: she'll put them to use soon enough. Until that time, Stanwyck's volatile heiress, Vance, alternately flatters and manipulates her egotistical father, T.C. Jeffords (a feisty Walter Huston in his final performance). It's the 1870s and T.C.'s ranch, the Furies, inspires envy throughout the New Mexico territory. If Vance picks a suitable husband, T.C. promises her a handsome dowry. Unfortunately, she chooses brutal gambler Rip Darrow (Rear Window's Wendell Corey). If it wasn't for Vance's friendship with Mexican-American squatter Juan (Gilbert Roland), she wouldn't inspire much sympathy, but Vance stands up for the Herreras when financiers pressure the Jeffords to throw them off their land. Then, T.C. takes up with scheming socialite Flo (Rebecca's Dame Judith Anderson), and the tense relations between father and daughter explode into all-out war. By the end, those scissors end up in someone's face, leading to a cycle of revenge-oriented violence. Adapted from Niven Busch's novel by Red River's Charles Schnee, The Furies isn't as deliriously over-the-top as Busch's Duel in the Sun, but it plays more like Shakespearean tragedy than Technicolor camp, and Stanwyck owns the screen from start to finish. The excellent extras include erudite commentary from film historian Jim Kitses, a terrific 1967 interview with Mann for British TV, a playful 1931 chat with Huston, remembrances from Mann's daughter Nina, an essay from critic Robin Wood, and a new printing of Busch's original novel. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston are at their fierce finest in master Hollywood craftsman Anthony Mann's crackling western melodrama. In 1870s New Mexico Territory megalomaniacal widowed ranch-owner T. C. Jeffords (Huston in his final role) butts heads with his daughter Vance (Stanwyck) a firebrand with serious daddy issues over her dowry choice of marriage and finally ownership of the land itself. Both sophisticated in its view of frontier settlement and ablaze with searing domestic drama The Furies is a hidden treasure of American filmmaking boasting Oscar®-nominated cinematography and vivid supporting turns from Judith Anderson Wendell Corey and Gilbert Roland.SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:New restored high-definition digital transferAudio commentary featuring film historian Jim Kitses (Horizons West)A rare 1931 on-camera interview with Walter Huston made for the movie theater series Intimate InterviewsNew video interview with Nina Mann daughter of director Anthony MannStills gallery of rare behind-the-scenes photosTheatrical trailerPLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Robin Wood a 1957 Cahiers du cinema interview with Mann and a new printing of Niven Busch's original novelMore!System Requirements:Running Time: 109 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/COWBOYS Rating: NR UPC: 715515030229 Manufacturer No: CC1755DDVD

The Man From Laramie

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

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

The Naked Spur

The Anthony Mann-Jimmy Stewart Westerns in the 1950s infused the genre with a psychological intensity and psychopathic edge. The brutal The Naked Spur, their third collaboration, is generally considered their best work together and one of the finest Westerns ever made. Stewart is a hard, angry bounty hunter tracking outlaw Robert Ryan in this lean five-character drama set in a deceptively beautiful mountain wilderness. Stewart finds himself saddled with two unwanted partners, sourdough prospector Millard Mitchell (his sidekick in the earlier Mann Western Winchester '73) and dishonorably discharged cavalry officer Ralph Meeker. Ryan's tomboyish sidekick Janet Leigh becomes increasingly torn between duty to her desperate guardian and her growing attraction to Stewart. The rugged landscape of jutting peaks, narrow passes, and torrential rivers is as gorgeous as it is dangerous: a well-protected plateau becomes a sniper's perch, an old mine turns from protective cave to dangerous cave-in. Stewart delivers the most ruthless performance of his career as a man haunted by betrayal, unwilling to trust and unable to love. Ryan's jovial banter and charm masks a cold-blooded savagery (he once remarked that it's his favorite performance). The tension stretches to the breaking point in this taut battle of wits, which culminates in a standoff next to the white water of a raging river, where Mann brilliantly uses the jagged landscape as a deadly battleground--nature itself becomes an enemy. --Sean Axmaker

"Plain arithmetic. Money splits better two ways instead of three," smooth-talking outlaw Ben Vandergroat reasons to his captors, three bounty hunters thrown together by chance. They're taking him to justice in Abilene, but Ben has other ideas. If he can set the men against each other ? play on their greed, their fears, their vanities ? he may be able to make his break to freedom.

In the third of his five landmark Anthony Mann-directed westerns, James Stewart stars as the relentless leader of bounty hunters caught in the snare of the hunted (Robert Ryan). Tough, sweating with tension, and towering as tall as its breathtaking Colorado Rockies setting, The Naked Spur is simply "one of the best Westerns ever made" (Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide).

Year: 1953
Director: Anthony Mann
Starring: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, Millard Mitchell

Running Time: 91 min.

Format: DVD MOVIE

Bend Of The River

Besides being a terrific movie in its own right--and the second entry in a remarkable eight-film series teaming director Anthony Mann and star James Stewart--Bend of the River is also fascinating as a variation on one of the greatest Westerns. With or without anyone else's knowledge, screenwriter Borden Chase reworked scenes, character configurations, and much of the structure of Red River, the screenplay of which he had cowritten (from his own novel) for director Howard Hawks six years earlier. Seeing what Hawks and Mann did with some of the same scenes--a spooky night skirmish with Indians, for instance--makes for a compelling lesson in the transformative power of directorial style.

Instead of Texas and the Chisholm Trail, Bend of the River is set in the Oregon river country, with a wagon train substituting for an epic cattle drive. Wagonmaster Stewart, a man with a secret past he's determined to redeem, rescues another, not-so-ex-renegade (Arthur Kennedy) from a lynching. Stewart finds Kennedy a powerful ally in a fight but ultimately has to face him as a mortal enemy--and to revert to his old savage ways in order to save his adopted community. Along the trail, they are variously companioned and/or menaced by the likes of slick gambler Rock Hudson (compare the Cherry Valance part in Red River) and hard cases Harry (then Henry) Morgan, Royal Dano, and Jack Lambert. There's knockout scenery, as usual with Mann, and fight-to-the-death action as bracing as a plunge into an icy river. --Richard T. Jameson

The Tin Star

Anthony Mann made some of the greatest Westerns of the 1950s, all in partnership with James Stewart. Perhaps needing to prove himself as his own man, in 1957 Mann dropped out of Night Passage to do this film. It's a rather schematic character study about a lawman-turned-bounty-hunter (Henry Fonda) who undertakes the professional shaping-up of an effete young sheriff (Anthony Perkins) too tentative to police the streets of his town. Those streets are compositionally present right outside the oversize window of the office where Perkins undergoes a lot of his soul-searching and arguments with Fonda. That's typical of the film--scrupulously designed, yet abstract to the point of dramatic aridity. The VistaVision black-and-white of cameraman Loyal Griggs (Oscar®-winner for Shane) is at once stark and glossy. Fonda's own reclamation as a social being is accomplished by way of a not-very-interesting subplot involving Betsy Palmer and a half-breed child played by Michel Ray. --Richard T. Jameson

The Last Frontier

Trapper Jed Cooper (Victor Mature) signs on as a scout at a remote army post in Oregon. In time, Colonel Marston (Robert Preston) arrives at the fort and, as ranking officer, relieves Captain Riordan (Guy Madison) of his command. Riordan is outraged to find out that Marston lost his fort and men to an Indian attack; in fact, he was assigned to a Western outpost after squandering the lives of 1,500 men in a Civil War battle. Marston's next plan is to order the men of the fort, almost all rookie soldiers, into battle against experienced Indian warriors. What would otherwise be a fairly routine Western drama is enlivened by Anthony Mann's direction, lavish CinemaScope cinematography, and fine, offbeat performances all around. The story line reflects the changes that were beginning to work their way into the Western genre by the 1950s. Savage Wilderness (taken from the novel The Gilded Rooster, by Richard Emery Roberts) may not quite pack the dramatic impact of prime John Ford, but it's still a fine example of the state of the Western in 1956. Also known as The Last Frontier. --Jerry Renshaw

They called him the Butcher of Shiloh. Personally responsible for the wrongful deaths of 1500 men Colonel Frank Marston (Robert Preston Northwest Mounted Police) has been exiled to the farthest reaches of the American frontier. Driven insane by disgrace Marston plans his return to glory by leading a squad of raw recruits in a suicide raid against the Indian Nation. Although Jed Cooper (Victor Mature My Darling Clementine) is the only man who can stop him the savage frontiersman is torn between saving the lives of his friends or letting them ride to their doom. For Jed's in love with the Colonel's wife (Anne Bancroft 1962 Academy Award winner for Best Actress The Miracle Worker) and only Marston's death will set her free.System Requirements:Running Time: 98 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 043396094529 Manufacturer No: 09452