Fox Western Classics

A trio of terrific westerns

Nowadays, the Western is almost a dead genre, a far cry from the days in which it dominated the movies. Of course, even in its heyday, it had various stages. Earlier Westerns tended to focus on adventure, with cowboys and Indians and bank robbers. Around the 1950s, a new subgenre began to appear, the so-called Adult Western. These Westerns tended to focus more on character and less on action. The Fox Western Classics features three such movies.

The Gunfighter is considered to be one of the first Adult Westerns, with Gregory Peck has the title character. He is a man considered the best gunfighter of his era, a title that he is forced to defend. He takes refuge in the town of Cayenne, where an old friend is marshal and his estranged wife is living under another name with their son. Even here, however, danger lurk.

Rawhide is perhaps the least "adult" of the three movies. Tyrone Power is working at an isolated stagecoach station and is taken hostage by a band of robbers planning on robbing an incoming, gold-laden stage. Complicating matters is Susan Hayward and her infant niece who are trapped at the station also. Hugh Marlowe leads the band of robbers, but it's Jack Elam who provides the real danger.

Hayward and Marlowe are also in Garden of Evil, also directed by Rawhide director Henry Hathaway. This is the epic of the three, with Gary Cooper and Richard Widmark leading the cast and a young Rita Moreno in one of her first (brief) roles. It is shot in Cinescope and scored by the great Bernard Hermann. Cooper and Widmark are a couple passengers on a California-bound steamer that is stranded in Mexico with engine problems. Stuck in port for weeks, they let themselves be hired by Hayward, who needs them to rescue her husband (Marlowe) who's stuck in a mine. Getting there is an arduous enough trip, but getting back may be more perilous, with Apaches dogging their every move.

In quality terms, these are all four-to-five star movies, and there are enough extras - including commentaries and featurettes - to make this a top notch set. If you enjoy Westerns, this is a trio of near classics that is worth viewing. November 23, 2008

The Western Classic

Love it. Have also shared with professor who teaches The Western here at the college where I work. November 11, 2008

Among the Best in Black And White.

If you've never seen "The Gunfighter," you've never seen the best western ever. I believe it to be a really good movie to show to young men, just so they know. These movies are more than simple westerns. November 5, 2008

3 worthwhile movies; package could be better

This set includes two terrific movies, Henry King's THE GUNFIGHTER with Gregory Peck and Henry Hathaway's RAWHIDE with Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward. The third film, Hathaway's GARDEN OF EVIL with Hayward and Gary Cooper, is much the least of the lot, but at least it has beautiful CinemaScope cinematography that the disc captures very well. It's also regrettable that GARDEN is the only one of the three with a commentary track, doubly so in that the three commentators discuss nothing but Bernard Herrmann's musical score -- a subject in which fans of westerns, Cooper, Hayward or Hathaway will have no interest whatsoever.

On the plus side, as noted, the other two films are terrific, with one of Peck's best-ever performances in THE GUNFIGHTER. Also, the package includes several extras to compensate for the snooze-fest Herrmann commentary: featurettes on Lone Pine, CA, a popular location where over 400 movies were made, on GUNFIGHTER cinematographer Arthur Miller, and on Henry Hathaway, a director whose career and work are decades overdue for the respect they deserve. October 20, 2008

2-1/2 Great Westerns

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: From the Secret Files of Harry Pennypacker
Cheyenne Warrior: The Original Screenplay with Author Commentary
Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake

Fox has released a terrific 3-disc box set, THE WESTERN CLASSICS, in which we're finally getting a DVD version of one of the most revered westerns ever produced, THE GUNFIGHTER (1950) starring Gregory Peck.

Directed by Henry King in glorious black-and-white, THE GUNFIGHTER is almost a Shakespearean tragedy, and is considered to be the first adult western, predating better known films like HIGH NOON and SHANE.

Peck plays Jimmy Ringo, a notorious gunfighter who would like to bury his reputation, but is forced to keep on the run because young punks keep forcing him to draw.

Currently, he's being pursued by the three brothers of a braggart he killed in self defense, but he stops off in the small town where his estranged wife (Helen Wescott) lives, hoping for a reconciliation. The sheriff of the town happens to be Millard Mitchell, an old friend and former gunslinger.

Mitchell wants Peck to leave town, but he won't go until Westcott agrees to meet him. In the meantime, the three brothers are getting closer and, if that's not bad enough, there's a young hothead in town (Skip Homeier) who thinks he's a faster draw than the legendary Jimmy Ringo.

THE GUNFIGHTER may not contain a lot of shoot-'em-up action, but it's filled with a HIGH NOON-like suspense and colorful, multi-dimensional characters. Karl Malden and Jean Parker co-star.

DVD extras include a featurette on cinematographer Arthur Miller, an artist with black-and-white, and a retrospective "Making of" mini-documentary.

Almost as good as THE GUNFIGHTER is RAWHIDE (1951), another beautifully-photographed black-and-white western, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward and Hugh Marlowe.

Marlowe and his band of ruthless outlaws (Jack Elam, Dean Jagger, George Tobias), all escaped convicts, take control of a desert stagecoach station, run by Edgar Buchanan and his tenderfoot assistant (Power). They kill Buchanan, then hold Power and stage passenger Hayward (and her baby niece) hostage, waiting for a gold shipment to arrive by coach the next day.

Power knows that, once the outlaws have the gold, they will kill their captives, so he and Hayward desperately devise a plan to thwart their intentions.

RAWHIDE is another suspense-filled western, containing a fair share of surprise plot twists.

DVD extras include featurettes on Ms. Hayward and on Lone Pine, where RAWHIDE, THE GUNFIGHTER and many other classic westerns were shot.

Hathaway, Hayward and Marlowe are also involved in GARDEN OF EVIL (1954), the one disappointing film in this box set.

Shot in CinemaScope and color, the movie features some gorgeous and interesting Mexican scenery and boasts a cast that also includes Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark, Cameron Mitchell and (briefly) Rita Moreno.

The problem with GARDEN OF EVIL is the very talky script, which has its characters doing things that make little or no sense.

Cooper, Widmark and Mitchell play three Americans on their way to the California Gold Rush by ship, who get stranded in a small Mexican coastal town and are hired by Hayward to help free her husband (Marlowe) from a mine cave-in. The problem is that the mine is located deep in the mountains in Apache territory.

DVD extras include a retrospective "Making of" featurette and a mini-documentary on director Hathaway.

© Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD September 30, 2008

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