Henry Hathaway

Fox Western Classics (Rawhide / The Gunfighter / Garden of Evil)

IncludesDisc 1: Garden of Evil (1954) Feature FilmDisc 2: The Gunfighter (1951) Feature FilmDisc 3: Rawhide (1951) Feature FilmFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WAR/CLASSICS UPC: 024543512585 Manufacturer No: 2251258

One of these three new-to-DVD Westerns is a universally esteemed classic, well worth the price of the set. But in happy fact, the whole package delivers the goods: sturdy genre entertainment from the Western's peak decade, the 1950s; solid Fox studio craftsmanship in every department; and breathtakingly crisp restorations that make you feel you've been time-warped back to a loge seat in your Bijou of choice on opening day. Henry King's The Gunfighter (1950) is the crown jewel--the film that deserves the credit (often awarded to High Noon) for ushering in the "adult Western," the '50s subgenre that emphasized psychological intensity over action and spectacle. Gregory Peck (topping his acclaimed performance in King's WWII drama Twelve O'Clock High) is excellent as Jimmy Ringo, a notorious shootist grown middle-aged and mortally weary of having to defend his legend. His trail takes him to a frontier town where an old comrade (the great Millard Mitchell) now serves as marshal, and where Ringo's estranged wife and the son he has never seen also reside, under an assumed name. Over one night and one day, Ringo dares to dream of a normal life. But there are avengers not far behind, and other threats yet to be counted. Although hailed by critics, The Gunfighter lost money for Fox; studio head Darryl F. Zanuck blamed the soup-strainer mustache--a stroke of period realism--director King ordered Peck to grow for the role. Well, a little red ink is a small price to pay for a masterpiece. Incidentally, the impeccable black-and-white cinematography is by three-time Oscar-winner Arthur Miller, capping a career that reached back to The Perils of Pauline.

The 1951 Rawhide (no relation to the later TV series) is a trim, satisfying Henry Hathaway picture that blends the leathery trappings of the Western with the claustrophobic atmosphere and intensity of a noir suspense film. At a remote swing station for the transcontinental stagecoach, several no-goods aim to help themselves to a gold shipment. But the next coach isn't carrying gold, so the intruders hold the stationmasters (Tyrone Power and Edgar Buchanan) and some stranded passengers captive while they wait. Power and Susan Hayward handle the heroics without larger-than-life posturing; Dean Jagger, Hugh Marlowe, and George Tobias relish the rare opportunity to play villainous or ambiguous types; and Jack Elam is, well, Jack Elam, reliably oozing viciousness from every pore. Screenwriter Dudley Nichols knew the territory, having scripted John Ford's Stagecoach thirteen years earlier. Hathaway also directed Garden of Evil (1954), Fox's first Western in the new CinemaScope process. (Very wiiiiide CinemaScope--the DVD preserves the 2.55:1 format, which was later modified to 2.35:1.) The story involves several fortune-seeking Americanos accidentally thrown together in Mexico and enlisted to help rescue a fellow countryman injured at his remote gold mine. Much of the film unreels as a journey Western exploring tensions among the strangers, especially those inspired by dreaming of gold and the man's redheaded wife (Susan Hayward). The dialogue reaches for profundity and comes up short, but Richard Widmark as a self-designated "poet" and Gary Cooper as a retired lawman give satisfaction as they one-up each other. The movie's distinction lies in Hathaway's no-sweat adaptation to the widescreen format, the awe-inspiring Mexican settings--a deserted village, a valley of black sand, a mountain town buried under volcanic ash--and the only music score ever composed for a feature Western by Bernard Herrmann.

Herrmann is just about the only thing the four commentators on Garden of Evil talk about (there's also a separate "making of" featurette). Nobody does commentary on The Gunfighter or Rawhide, but the disc for the former includes a featurette on master cameraman Arthur Miller, while a Rawhide addendum highlights the oft-used movie location of Lone Pine, Calif., and another pays tribute to gutsy leading lady Susan Hayward. Talking heads include some half-dozen film historians (e.g., David Biographical Dictionary of Film Thomson) plus Henry Hathaway's son and Gary Cooper's daughter. --Richard T. Jameson

How the West Was Won (Three-Disc Special Edition)

With courage sinew and conflict: that?s how the West was won. With three directors five interlocked stories some of movie history?s most legendary action scenes and a constellation of acting talent: that?s how How the West Was Won was filmed. Henry Fonda Gregory Peck Debbie Reynolds James Stewart and John Wayne are among the big names in this big saga following a family?s move West through generations ? marked by the spectacles of a heart-pounding raging river ride a thunderous buffalo stampede and a bracing runaway train shootout. Via technological advances this panoramic winner of three Academy Awards can now be seen with a resplendent restored clarity eliminating its original ?three- panel join lines? and in roof-raising Dolby 5.1 audio. Westward ho!System Requirements:Running Time: 162 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS Rating: G UPC: 012569799714 Manufacturer No: 1000019114

The first feature film to be photographed and projected in the panoramic three-camera Cinerama process, this epic Western is almost as expansive as the West itself, chronicling a pioneering family's triumphs and tragedies in numerous episodes spanning three generations and a half century of westward movement. Divided into five segments directed by veteran Hollywood filmmakers Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, and the legendary John Ford (and including uncredited sequences directed by Richard Thorpe), the film was one of the most ambitious ever made by the venerable MGM studio. Its stellar cast reads like a virtual who's who of Hollywood's biggest stars. Debbie Reynolds plays a sturdy survivor of many pioneering dangers, and the eventual widow of a gambler (Gregory Peck), who is later reunited with her nephew (George Peppard), a Civil War veteran and cavalryman who heads for San Francisco as the transcontinental railroad is being built. Many more characters and stories are woven throughout this epic film, which is dramatically uneven but totally engrossing with its stunning vistas and countless outdoor locations in Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota, Monument Valley in Arizona, California, Colorado, and elsewhere. --Jeff Shannon

True Grit (Special Collector's Edition)

A wonderful/rueful running gag in El Dorado involves the Edgar Allan Poe line "Ride, boldly ride" being mangled by toupee-wearer Wayne into "Ride, baldy, ride." Two years later, in True Grit, Wayne put the joke in italics by donning an eyepatch and several inches of girth to play cantankerous territorial marshal Rooster Cogburn. Critics belatedly noticed that he could be a marvelously entertaining actor, and Hollywood finally gave him the Oscar they'd failed to nominate him for in Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, et al. But make no mistake: True Grit is a splendid movie, with lovingly textured storytelling and sturdy characters, Henry Hathaway's finest high-country action set-pieces, intoxicatingly ornate frontier language, and a couple of formidable bad guys (Jeff Corey's Tom Cheney and Robert Duvall's "Lucky" Ned Pepper). It's a compliment to say that, from a technical standpoint, the movie could have been made any time in Hathaway's 40-year career, yet its feeling for the reality of violence ceded no ground to The Wild Bunch, released around the same time. Still, the film's most sublime passage falls between bursts of gunplay: Rooster sitting on a hilltop at night recounting his life story, as John Wayne metamorphoses ineluctably into W.C. Fields. --Richard T. Jameson

In 1970 John Wayne won an Academy Award. for his larger-than-life performance as the drunken uncouth and totally fearless one-eyed U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn. The cantankerous Rooster is hired by a headstrong young girl (Kim Darby) to find the man who murdered her father and fled with the family savings. When Cogburn's employer insists on accompanying the old gunfighter sparks fly. And the situation goes from troubled to disastrous when an inexperienced but enthusiastic Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell) joins the party. Laughter and tears punctuate the wild action in this extraordinary Western which features performances by Robert Duvall and Strother Martin.System Requirements:Running Time: 127 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. Rating: G UPC: 097361207742 Manufacturer No: 120774

John Wayne: The Fox Westerns Collection (The Big Trail / North to Alaska / The Comancheros / The Undefeated)

Includes:Disc 1: THE BIG TRAIL WSDisc 2: THE BIG TRAIL P&SDisc 3: THE COMANCHEROSDisc 4: NORTH TO ALASKADisc 5: THE UNDEFEATEDFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS UPC: 024543529620 Manufacturer No: 2252962

Nevada Smith

The Max Sand backstory in Harold Robbins's trashy The Carpetbaggers (an enjoyable wallow onscreen in 1964) made for a solid Western vehicle for Steve McQueen at his peak. Nevada Smith is a revenge movie, but closer in spirit to The Bravados than a Death Wish-style exercise in nihilism. Young Max, offspring of a white father and Indian mother, sets out to avenge their slaughter by three villains. His odyssey includes spiritual re-parenting at several stages, most notably by canny gun dealer Jonas Cord (a swell character part for Brian Keith). The supporting cast will have you saying, "He's in it, too!" at regular intervals (from costars Karl Malden and Arthur Kennedy down to such incidental interlopers as L.Q. Jones and Strother Martin). Since director Henry Hathaway and cameraman Lucien Ballard couldn't frame a bad shot if their lives depended on it, it's a relief that this movie is finally available in a widescreen format. --Richard T. Jameson

How the West Was Won (Ultimate Collector's Edition)

The first feature film to be photographed and projected in the panoramic three-camera Cinerama process, this epic Western is almost as expansive as the West itself, chronicling a pioneering family's triumphs and tragedies in numerous episodes spanning three generations and a half century of westward movement. Divided into five segments directed by veteran Hollywood filmmakers Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, and the legendary John Ford (and including uncredited sequences directed by Richard Thorpe), the film was one of the most ambitious ever made by the venerable MGM studio. Its stellar cast reads like a virtual who's who of Hollywood's biggest stars. Debbie Reynolds plays a sturdy survivor of many pioneering dangers, and the eventual widow of a gambler (Gregory Peck), who is later reunited with her nephew (George Peppard), a Civil War veteran and cavalryman who heads for San Francisco as the transcontinental railroad is being built. Many more characters and stories are woven throughout this epic film, which is dramatically uneven but totally engrossing with its stunning vistas and countless outdoor locations in Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota, Monument Valley in Arizona, California, Colorado, and elsewhere. --Jeff Shannon

With courage sinew and conflict: that?s how the West was won. With three directors five interlocked stories some of movie history?s most legendary action scenes and a constellation of acting talent: that?s how How the West Was Won was filmed. Henry Fonda Gregory Peck Debbie Reynolds James Stewart and John Wayne are among the big names in this big saga following a family?s move West through generations ? marked by the spectacles of a heart-pounding raging river ride a thunderous buffalo stampede and a bracing runaway train shootout. Via technological advances this panoramic winner of three Academy Awards can now be seen with a resplendent restored clarity eliminating its original ?three- panel join lines? and in roof-raising Dolby 5.1 audio. Westward ho!Explore a new home entertainment frontier with a classic movie adventure in a stunning new version never before possible!Includes 2-Disc Special Edition DVD: The Winner of 3 Academy Awards Digitally Remastered from Restored Picture Elements in New Dolby 5.1 Audio With 3-Panel Cinerama ?Join Lines? of Previous Theatrical/Video Versions Removed Via Pioneering TechnologyPlus 4+ Hours of Special Features Including New Star/Historian Commentary The Making of How the West Was Won Featurette and the Acclaimed Bonus Movie Cinerama Adventure Nostalgically Chronicling the History of How the West Was Won?s Unique Filmmaking ProcessBonus Collectibles Inside: ? 36-Page Cinerama Souvenir Book Reproduction ? 10 Color Production Photo Cards ? 10 Black-and-White Rare Behind-the-Scenes Photo Cards ? 24-Page Reproduction of the Original General Release Pressbook ? Mail-in Offer for a FREE** Poster(**Limited time offer. Not included with Club skus)Running Time: 162 min.System Requirements:Running Time: 162 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/CLASSICS Rating: G UPC: 883929026487 Manufacturer No: 1000039866

The Sons of Katie Elder

The four sons of Katie Elder return home to Texas for her funeral. They then set out to avenge her death, but town thugs give them trouble.
Genre: Westerns
Rating: NR
Release Date: 28-MAR-2006
Media Type: DVD

John Wayne recovered from his first bout with cancer to appear in this 1965 film as the brother of Dean Martin, Earl Holliman, and Michael Anderson Jr. All four characters are wandering souls prone to trouble, but after the funeral of their frontier mother, they set out to avenge her death. Directed by Henry Hathaway (Wayne's director on True Grit), the film moves like a conventional, latter-day Western, with good performances from Wayne and Martin, who'd already costarred with the Duke in Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo. Nice support from Dennis Hopper (who had a legendary conflict with Hathaway on this film), Strother Martin, and George Kennedy. --Tom Keogh

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)

North to Alaska

Even people habitually hostile to John Wayne movies tend to cast an indulgent eye on this rumbustious comedy-Western--partly because the Alaska gold rush setting seems more exotic than, say, Texas or Arizona, and because there are no Indians to discriminate against and no macho gunplay to fret about. As for John Wayne as all-purpose icon of male chauvinism, Big Sam McCord (the Duke) spends much of North to Alaska in a state of growing discombobulation because he has fallen in love with, and is thoroughly flummoxed by, "Angel" (Capucine), the woman he's brought back from Seattle to marry his heartsick partner George (Stewart Granger). Henry Hathaway directs in a broader vein than usual, but he hits pay dirt. Even Fabian, the latest pop music idol to be dragooned into supporting the elder roughnecks, is fun, and Ernie Kovacs is droll casting as chief "villain." --Richard T. Jameson

John Wayne and Stewart Granger strike it rich in this sprawling, brawling comedy-adventure set in the rowdy heydey of the Alaskan gold rush. When prospectors Sam McCord (Wayne) and George Pratt (Granger) finally hit the mother lode, George asks Sam to go to Seattle and fetch his sweetheart, Jennie, but she's already married someone else. Heartbroken for his buddy's sake, Sam visits a saloon, meets dancer (Capucine) and invites her back to Nome as Jennie's replacement - the plan goes perfectly until Sam falls in love with her too!

How the West Was Won

The first feature film to be photographed and projected in the panoramic three-camera Cinerama process, this epic Western is almost as expansive as the West itself, chronicling a pioneering family's triumphs and tragedies in numerous episodes spanning three generations and a half century of westward movement. Divided into five segments directed by veteran Hollywood filmmakers Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, and the legendary John Ford (and including uncredited sequences directed by Richard Thorpe), the film was one of the most ambitious ever made by the venerable MGM studio. Its stellar cast reads like a virtual who's who of Hollywood's biggest stars. Debbie Reynolds plays a sturdy survivor of many pioneering dangers, and the eventual widow of a gambler (Gregory Peck), who is later reunited with her nephew (George Peppard), a Civil War veteran and cavalryman who heads for San Francisco as the transcontinental railroad is being built. Many more characters and stories are woven throughout this epic film, which is dramatically uneven but totally engrossing with its stunning vistas and countless outdoor locations in Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota, Monument Valley in Arizona, California, Colorado, and elsewhere. --Jeff Shannon

From 1839 to 1889, this epic story follows four generations of a courageous New England farm family as they travel to the fertile Ohio Valley during America's westward expansion. This wondrous historical saga is set against the Louisiana Purchase, the Civil War, buffalo hunters, the Pony Express and the first transcontinental railroad. How The West Was Won won three Academy Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Sound and Best Editing.