The Erratic Mr. Aldrich
When it came to his series of profiles of Western filmmakers Robert Aldrich wasn’t top of Jeff Arnold’s list. The output wasn’t huge – six features – and Jeff was not a fan. At all. While adoring one of his films, when it came to the other five, his reviews range from lukewarm to contemptuous.
But Mr. Aldrich’s overall oater output is worth throwing some light on. Taken together, his Westerns are interesting partly because they’re… a puzzle. Aldrich was a little younger than (but basically of the same generation as) Don Siegel, Sam Fuller, and Nicholas Ray. These guys all brought a postwar, adult attitude, vigorous, sometimes stylish direction and a maverick touch – often tough, sometimes tender – to unpretentious genre pictures. They didn’t make the sort of films likely to be up for Oscars but they were enjoyed by viewers and appreciated by sympathetic critics (especially in France…). And they all hopped around genres, mostly male-dominated but occasionally women-centred. Between them you’ll find war movies, cop movies, noir thrillers, the odd melodrama and even horror (Aldrich’s infamous Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) No surprise that they all did a few Westerns too.
But Aldrich is the hardest to get a handle on. His films are all over the place, veering wildly in style – and quality. How could the same man give us the subversive cult cold war noir Kiss Me Deadly, the brashly brilliant crowd-pleasing macho action of The Dirty Dozen, lesbian-themed drama The Killing of Sister George (which threatens to be sensationalist but turns out quite thoughtful), and pointless, puerile messes like The Choirboys? Aldrich’s Westerns, as we shall see, are just as wild, and just as odd, a bunch.
Riches to Rags
But first a bit of biography – and it’s an unusual one. Born in 1918 into a prominent, wealthy, staunchly Republican East Coast WASP family, his ancestry included generals, politicians and bankers; the Rockefellers were cousins. Raised to continue the family line in much the same way, young Bob in the Depression-era 1930s began to rebel. He quarrelled with his dad’s politics, later dropped out of college and then, still later in 1943, took a low-paying job at RKO Studios. Preferring to work his way up from the bottom, he’d declined to play the family card that could have seen him enter the industry in a higher position. Bob was duly disinherited from the family fortune and, it seems, he and the Aldriches of Rhode Island were largely estranged thereafter.
Production clerking (i.e. gophering) then second assistant directing, then first assistant directing took him all the way to 1951 when he moved to New York to direct TV soaps: invaluable experience, he’d later say, for big-screen directing, which finally came his way in 1953-54 with a couple of low budget pics which impressed execs, leading to Aldrich’s two big breakthroughs. Both released in 1954 and – hurrah! – both Westerns!
The 1950s
First came Apache. Burt Lancaster plays Masai (a real historical person), who escapes captivity with pursuers on his trail. Jeff Arnold judges that this film has its good points but is ultimately so-so. I have to say I really like it. Jeff rightly complains that the casting of Lancaster is very questionable – Scotch-Irish, blue-eyed Burt is inherently unconvincing as a Native American.
Unconvincing
But if you can get past this, his actual performance is good, presenting Masai – after decades of one-dimensional Indians -– as neither savage nor angel. Masai’s determination is admirable but almost shades into stubborn arrogance, yet in scenes with Jean Peters (as his wife, equally miscast as an Indian) he’s tender and touching. Jeff, and the rest of us, can at least enjoy an excellent supporting cast, headed up by John McIntyre as Masai’s nemesis Al Sieber (again a real person, who crops up in several westerns and gets an informative two-part article from Jeff). McIntyre is excellent – as always. As for Aldrich, on his first ‘big’ picture he’s already very good at directing, not just the actors but also the cinematographer, Ernest Laszlo (who’d go on to shoot Aldrich’s next three westerns). Perhaps the highlight of the whole movie is when Masai enters a white town for the first time and is dazzled by its strange sights and sounds. Lancaster wordlessly conveys Masai’s wide-eyed wonder while Aldrich and Laszlo evocatively capture the town’s night-time bustle as seen through his eyes. Aldrich had wanted to end the film tragically, with Masai being killed, but had a tacked-on more hopeful final scene imposed on him. Aldrich’s preference was bold but you can see why producers weren’t happy and, in this viewer’s opinion, the released ending isn’t too jarring. Across the movie as a whole, Aldrich skillfully balances different moods. Not a first rank Western, perhaps, but a valuable and important one.
Western Number Two is a biggie, and divides opinion yet more sharply. The film is Vera Cruz and its plot concerns a group of American mercenaries, chief among them Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, shipping gold during the French-Mexican war (French troops are wearing helmets – unusual headgear in a Western!). As almost everyone writing about the film has pointed out, it prefigures later westerns, particularly Italian ones. What with its amoral soldier-of-fortune gringos intruding into wars south of the border, double-crossings and high body-count, and its sun-baked photography and stylised violence, it’s no wonder that Sergio Leone (who some years later would work as an assistant to Aldrich on a non-Western filmed in Rome) sat up and took notice. Jeff, who as all JAW readers know had something of a Spaghetti allergy, considered Vera Cruz ‘cartoonish’. But many people love it. As for your correspondent, I’ve seen it two or three times over the years and find that how much enjoyment I get from it depends on the mood of the day.
(My trail pard and fellow host of this site remarks that his ‘enduring memory from this film is being uncomfortable with the way Burt Lancaster smiled/mugged for the camera’ – and he’s not wrong.) Anyway, all Westernistas should catch it at least once.
Before jumping to the next decade, we must mention in passing a terrific Western that Aldrich had some background involvement in. The success of his breakthrough films had led him to start his own production outfit, The Associates and Aldrich. Besides producing his own pictures, they also oversaw a small 1957 Western directed by little-known filmmaker Alan Miner. The film, just 79 minutes long, is called The Ride Back. Aldrich is not credited by name, so how closely he was involved in actual production isn’t clear, but he presumably at least greenlit the project and thank goodness: Jeff Arnold rightly proclaims it an ‘underrated gem’. As well as its unusual, rather moving script, brought to life by fine performances from Anthony Quinn and William Conrad, it’s marked by outstandingly crisp, contrast-y black-and-white camerawork by Joseph Biroc, one of Aldrich’s favourite cinematographers. Seek this one out, e-pards: it’s terrific.
The 1960s
Aldrich the director got back in the saddle in 1961 with The Last Sunset, starring Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson with Dorothy Malone and Joseph Cotten. Douglas plays an outlaw with his trademarked mix of menace and charm, pursued into Mexico by straight man sheriff Hudson, who has personal reasons for getting his man. They both find themselves signed on to rancher Cotten’s cattle-drive, and entangled with his family: wife Malone and daughter. What ensues is high drama, with elements both of tawdry soap opera and epic Greek myth, including a disturbingly near-incestual relationship and climaxing in a most unusual shootout.
Jeff concedes that though ‘occasionally clichéd,’ the film ‘is also often interesting and different’. It sags in the middle and has some script problems and variable acting, especially from Cotten – but Aldrich (with Laszlo) does some great stuff with the Mexican landscapes and carefully framed shots of the characters in small groups of two or three, and with stylish (again Spaghetti-ish) editing of the final confrontation. It’s not a film you’re likely to want to watch over and over again, but when it’s good it’s very good.
Sadly the opposite is true of Aldrich’s next Western, 1963’s 4 for Texas. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin co-star as gamblers and former outlaws turned business rivals who eventually ally against a common foe, while romancing Anita Ekberg and Ursula Andress. Supposedly a comedy, it’s almost aggressively unfunny. A dedicated ‘auteurist’ (should that be oateurist?) might argue that the film shares the cynicism of Vera Cruz, as virtually every character seems motivated by greed: for money, for sex , and in one character’s case, grossly gargantuan portions of food. But this time, it is all delivered as an offhand – and unamusing – joke; you feel that not only is the film cynical, but the filmmakers for subjecting you to it. Sinatra was a master singer, of course, but in movies he could be great when committed and grating when he wasn’t.
Preparing to grate
Here he grates with a vengeance, and besides – unlike Dean, who’s as amiable as ever, just not given any good lines to work with – he wasn’t really suited to Westerns. Grating is also the word for the score by Nelson Riddle, a genius in his many arrangements for Sinatra albums but here reduced to ‘mickey mousing’, unsubtly mimicking the action and emphasising the witless situations. Garishly bright decor and lighting add to the effect. Within minutes of the movie starting you go from slightly intrigued, to bored, to actually angry at most everyone involved for so brazenly wasting their – and our – time and money. Finally the film goes completely off the rails by throwing in a slapstick interlude by the Three Stooges!
Dean and a derringer… but neither redeem the picture
Jeff was more than fair in writing the whole thing off as ‘complete junk, an early 60s commercial Western of the worst kind… should be avoided at all costs’. (In this writer’s opinion, however, Jeff was less than totally fair, and uncharacteristically unchivalrous, in his assessment of Ekberg’s presence in the film.) Aldrich complained afterwards about Sinatra (as he had about Douglas), and claimed he was unhappy throughout the production and with the final product. But seeing as he both co-wrote and produced as well as directed the thing, who can deserve more blame than him? So back to the puzzle: how could someone of such talent just throw it all away to churn out utter rubbish?
The 1970s
Things could only go uphill from there and thankfully several good non-Westerns studded the next few years. Then, in 1972, we finally got another Aldrich oater – and this time, a doozy. Ulzana’s Raid re-united Aldrich and Lancaster, with Biroc behind the camera, and a talented young Scot named Alan Sharp providing the screenplay. All four, and everyone else involved, gave it their absolute best. Lancaster plays an ageing Army scout, ordered, with a handful of young soldiers, to bring in an escaped Apache war chief who is not above brutal ambushes. What unfolds manages to be uncompromisingly tough
yet also tragic and moving. Sharp’s script humanises, yet never remotely romanticises, those on both sides of this bleak conflict, Aldrich stages the violence with brilliant brutality and he, Biroc, and Lancaster give the film a powerfully Autumnal mood. The opposite of the failed light entertainment of 4 for Texas, it’s a serious, grown-up movie and the one Aldrich film to which Jeff gives high praise. Do yourself a favour: get hold of the highest quality copy you can find (be mindful of the fact that there seem to be several alternate cuts on the market) and watch the thing. It’s not just Aldrich’s best Western but one of the best of its era.
But the Bob Aldrich mystery rears its head again as we arrive at his next, and last, entry into our noble genre. In 1979 he reversed course and perhaps unwisely tried his hand at Western comedy again. Admittedly he’s said to have taken on, at the last minute, a project which had been doing the rounds for some years. The movie is called The Frisco Kid and if nothing else it has a unique premise. Gene Wilder is a Polish rabbi dispatched to the USA to travel to California to head a currently leaderless congregation and enter an arranged marriage. But enroute he’s robbed and left for dead then runs into and becomes trail pard with an amiable bank robber played by Harrison Ford. Jeff hates this movie: ‘…just dreadful. Do not watch it, I implore you. It will leave you scarred’. But some people apparently adore it. As for me, I can’t exactly recommend this film – it’s too long, too episodic, its tone jumps about all over the place, Ford is miscast, and Aldrich proves again he’s not a natural at comedy. And yet, as a Western, it has its points. Aldrich directs the action well and gets a pleasing lyrical quality out of the landscape settings. And the good-natured but quietly stubborn Wilder, and his odd-couple relationship with Ford, have some appeal, while his journey not just from Pennsylvania to California but from innocent abroad to proper Westerner is in keeping with classic western themes, just for the first time given a Jewish spin.
To write this blogpost, and never having previously viewed 4 for Texas or The Frisco Kid, I bought a couple of cheap DVDs, in plastic sleeves, off Ebay. After watching 4 for Texas it went straight in the recycling bin – in all conscience, I can’t inflict it on any fellow human by re-selling it or even donating to a charity shop. But I put The Frisco Kid on the shelf and can definitely see myself trying it again some rainy day: it has a certain inexplicably sweet charm (not Aldrich characteristics!) that has stuck with me. Sorry Jeff.
47 Responses
My first comment on Robert Aldrich is that “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” (1962, 100 stars on a scale of 1 to 5) is THE BOMB ! ! ! ! ! It’s my favorite horror movie, and my #23 movie of all-time, all genres. (And I have a crush on Bette Davis.) Because of that film, I’m willing to watch ANYTHING directed by Aldrich.
Jeff Arnold’s West–in addition to being incredible fun–reminds me of how little I know about movies. I’ve been seriously into movies for 10 years now (January 2015), and my family and friends tell me I know a lot about movies. Yet there’s so much more I have to see.
For Aldrich Westerns, “Vera Cruz” (1954) is at the top of my list. My favorite Western, Sergio Leone’s “For a Few Dollars More” (1965, LEE VAN CLEEF, my #2 movie of all time, all genres) was influenced by “Vera Cruz,” especially the concept of unlikely allies (Eastwood as The Man with No Name and Van Cleef as The Man in Black). (The Man in Black is my favorite Western character )
I also want to see “Ulzana’s Raid” (1972), since Jeff and Bud and RR have raved about it.
And I’m open to “The Frisco Kid” (1979), which I never would have expected Aldrich to direct. I’m not a comedy guy (unless it’s something dark), but I think Gene Wilder is a very talented actor. I have good memories of him playing Willa Wonka (in my 1970s childhood), ranting and raving and shouting Latin phrases.
Thanks for an educational post about a VERY INTERESTING director ! ! ! !
‘Ulzana’s Raid’ is tremendous.
Who doesn’t have a crush on Bette Davis? I also have a bad one on Barbara Stanwyck too.
I also have a bad one on Kim Novak. And she’s left-handed (like Yours Truly) ! ! ! “Vertigo” (1958, my #13 movie of all time, all genres) is a film that defies genre. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
Yes, remarkable film. Watching it around midnight produces a weird effect.
Ulzana’s Raid is definitely close to (if not) a masterpiece. I have been always very fond of Vera Cruz because even if it can be cartoonish in some aspects, it is a true tragic friendship story embodied by 2 of the most terrific western actors in the history (when most of if the spaghetti characters are soulless muppets whose destiny “I dont give a damn”). And, as a kid, I could not help finding Lancaster charming and likeable with his killer smile I had been trying to imitate (hopelessly) since. At last, blaming Apache because of Lancaster miscast as a native american is, to me, totally irrelevant. Who can name a single western of the 1950s where an Indian having a lead role is not played by a Hollywood (white) star !? After all Robert Taylor and Jeff Chandler had paved the way before Lancaster ! (And Debra Paget…). The only exception I recall is Elizabeth Threatt in The Big Sky who was of cherokee origin).
And yes, The Ride Back is a gem I have discovered thanks to Jeff.
I think Jeff’s argument, which I’d agree with, is that even though almost all Indian lead roles were played by white actors, Lancaster happens to be *more* unconvincing than many others – not in his acting but physiologially/ ethnically he is just looks less the part than say Robert Taylor did in Devil’s Doorway. As said above, he actually acts very well in the film, a film that Jeff underrated a bit.
The Ride Back is indeed a rather special little film!
I do not think that Lancaster is less convincing in Apache than Chandler playing Cochise in The Broken Arrow. Both are excellent but of course each actor is bringing his own persona with him.
Auto correct is ridiculous. I meant WILLIE Wonka ! ! ! He’s a famous character, and I think it’s clear what I meant, LOL.
Aldrich didn’t make only a mixed bag of Westerns–he made a mixed bag of movies across various genres. His style, his way of thinking, was to try a diversity of ideas. He didn’t have a formula. He was a guy who went after it, “throwing the silver spoon away and becoming his own man.” He was going to give us dross, and he was going to give us gold. There wasn’t going to be one without the other.
That’s my take, anyway.
Appreciate the mention of The Ride Back which I saw this past year and went immediately into my Western Hidden Gems list. Vera Cruz has long been on my “to watch” list so this encourages me more so to rectify that film’s omission from my viewings.
Count me in for ‘Vera Cruz’ and ‘The Ride Back’. ‘Vera Cruz’ for being lots of fun and superbly paced, and ‘The Ride Back’ for being one of those ‘little gems’.
Furthermore, beside its splendid cinematography, Vera Cruz is offering the best and most colourful gang of ruffians perhaps ever seen in a Western(beside of Walsh 1953 Gun Fury) !
Borgnine, Bronson (who was still Buchinsky), Elam, Lambert, Horvath, Savage, Seay, Morgan, McCallion, the latter two wearing very distinctive hats. Maybe I have forgotten someone ? And of course, both very classy each in their style, César Romero and Lancaster.
Absolutely – another big smile thinking about them – superb casting as well as superb pacing. All part of the fun.
Best wishes to all.
Yes, I’ve come to like ‘Vera Cruz’ more and more over the years and the rogues gallery you mention is one of the reasons why. Plus, the thing has so much vim and vigor.
It’s wonderful entertainment, isn’t it. Everything just comes together.
Excellent article. Aldrich fascinates me as a director. High highs with such low lows. Yet my DVD/Blu collection is filled with his films ranging over all genres. He made ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ for goodness sake!
“Vera Cruz” (1954) and “Ulzana’s Raid” (1972) will be on my next Amazon order.
My CURRENT Amazon order (just completed) includes, from Jeff’s Top 17, Lawrence Kasdan’s “Silverado” (1985). I know it’s a highly regarded film, but my interest was lukewarm UNTIL Jeff named it among his Top 17.
I also didn’t know it was directed by Kasdan. I love Kasdan’s “Wyatt Earp” (1994, 5 stars). I know I’m in the minority there. Nicholas Anez includes it on his all-time list, and if I had a Westerns Second 10 List, “Wyatt Earp” would be on there.
I also got the Humphrey Bogart proto-film-noir “High Sierra” (1940), directed by Raoul Walsh, whom Jean-Marie references in his comment on this article. The screenplay is by W.R. Burnett and John Huston, the combination which would go on to make my favorite film noir, Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950, my #7 movie of all time, all genres).
If anybody has any comment on “High Sierra,” or “Silverado,” I’d love to hear it. I’ve been wanting to see “High Sierra” for a long time.
I rounded out my order with the new Criterion release of the Coen Brothers’ “No Country for Old Men” (2007, candidate for my all-time Top 25, all genres) and, for a detour to something different, the Disney film “Manoa” (2016). It looks cute, and I still have hopes of getting married and having kids.
I like both ‘High Sierra’ and ‘Silverado’ very much.
High Sierra is indeed a great film noir.
It has a lot in common with the western genre (a hold-up, a gang runaway and hide out, and it takes place in the Sierra Nevada after all, shot partly in Lone Pine and Mount Whitney region). So much that Walsh remade it as a “pure” western Colorado Territory as splendidly related by Jeff in these pages. But Bogart and McCrea are so much dissimilar (among many other reasons) that both films are finally different.
Curiously I have never seen Silverado…
I enjoy High Sierra very much. If your order is for the Criterion blu-ray, it also includes Colorado Territory, the Western remake, as a bonus. High Sierra was the film which introduced me to the many strengths of Ida Lupino, an actor (and director) whose films I will watch just because of her involvement with them.
Yes, it is the Criterion Blu-Ray ! ! !
That is a wonderful set. One of the best they have done recently.
For those not aware of Ida Lupino importance, have a look at
https://jeffarnoldswest.com/2022/08/the-westerns-of-ida-lupino/
Barry Lane remark about Colorado Territory not inspired from High Sierra at the end of it is interesting.
I did not make further research on it.
I think ‘High Sierra’ is a fine movie. It’s Warner Bros at their peak and I would suggest better than ‘Maltese Falcon’ and ‘Casablanca’ for Bogart’s ‘star making’ performances.
If you’re on a Kevin Costner thing at this moment – may j suggest ‘Open Range’ as a very fine western indeed.
The American Film Institute has named Bogart as the greatest male movie star of all time ahead of our favorite western stars, Jimmy Stewart ranking 3rd behind Cary Grant…
But it took him a long time before being recognized as a star and escape the villain roles he was stuck in, supporting his Warner “Murderers Row” mates, which included James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni and George Raft (very few high quality westerns all together…).
The movie that shot Bogart to stardom and established him as a leading man after so many supporting roles was indeed High Sierra (released in January 1941) in which he was still a villain but what a villain!
The same year in October, The Maltese Falcon was a huge success including for John Huston’s debut as a director (he was High Sierra’s scriptwriter). But it is Casablanca (1942) that definitely cemented his legacy as one of Hollywood’s finest actors and legends. It was his first romantic lead and almost the first film that showed new sides of the actor.
If Bogart is the archetype of the film noir (anti)hero, unfortunately he did not find the roles and stories convenient to him in our genre.
He just made A Holy Terror (Irving Cummings, starring George O’Brien 1931), The Oklahoma Kid (1939) and Virginia City (1940), the latter two sharply dissected by Jeff.
Bogart did not feel comfortable in westerns. He told his friends that he was “too short to be a cowboy”. (Anyway historically they were not though). He was 1.73 m. Sorry for the metric…
Other film noir actors such as Glenn Gord (1,75m), Edmond O’Brien (1,77m), Dick Powell (1,80m), Richard Widmark (1,78m) and of course Alan Ladd (1,68m) have been western actors on a very regular basis and they were not that tall…!
Nevertheless, fortunately enough in 1948, with his best friend John Huston (seven to nine films together either as writer or director), he made at last The Treasure of Sierra Madre, considered as one of the genre top masterpieces and admired by many Jeff’s readers.
I think that top ranking of Bogart, Stewart and Grant as the greatest male movie stars shows a lack of imagination. They’re all part of a rich tapestry but none of them deserve to be ranked ‘greatest’. I would suggest it’s a fool’s errand to even try to work out a ranking.
One of my favorite ever is Robert Mitchum who was disregarded for the longest time then especially when he was gone everybody went oh yes he was pretty great wasn’t he?
Well ranking is a kind of fashion nowadays…
After all, after the films, why don’t we could list our 10 preferred western actors/actresses/villains etc. !?
AFI is producing a lot of rankings but it started long ago and there are updating them from time to time…
There are plenty and I let you discover their 10 best westerns (sometimes surprising) list …! :
https://www.afi.com/afi-lists/
There was no reply option to your post, Jean-Marie (or your previous one, Chris) but this is about ranking. Jean-Marie, you suggest ranking our favourites. I would just make this quibble – ‘preference’ is not the same (in my mind, at least) to ‘ranking’.
Having got that out the way I shall take the bait. Right now I am really enjoying Richard Widmark. I am even enjoying him ‘what if’ in a movie he wasn’t in but would have been great in ‘The Proud Rebel’. He was in some bad films (not just the obvious one) but – like Jack Lemmon – I don’t think he ever gave a poor performance.
PS. I have problems with ‘Silverado’ – I have tried to watch it but I can’t take it seriously. For me, something of the ‘essense’ – i can’t think of a better word – of ‘the western’ was lost in the early 1960s and not many westerns made since seem to have it. Most of them seem to miss a kind of lyrical aspect. They see the violence but they don’t get the heart. ‘Open Range’ – I think – has heart. I don’t like dismissing decades of films but I’m struggling to find others with heart. ‘The Outlaw Josie Wales’ has it but (doing a mental scan of those decades) I can’t bring any others to mind. I probably think of some later.
I think ‘Lonesome Dove’ and the Coens ‘True Grit’ had heart among others. ‘Unforgiven’ too.
I think Schwarzenegger’s ‘Last Stand’ is a ‘classic’ western in disguise with plenty of heart too.
Thanks, Chris and Jean-Marie, for the responses. This is a great site ! ! !
That’s spelled “Moana” (2016). I scrambled the spelling. I’ve been watching movies for 10 years now, and still SO MANY more to see. Hey, it’s a good problem to have.
Bud and RR, I’ll send you the latest draft of my review for this site soon. (Movie unidentified ! ! ! !) I give the movie 5 Guns, following Jeff’s old rating system. He quit rating that way, however. If you don’t want me rating that way, then just let me know. THANKS
Thanks for all the responses. I don’t have time to talk in detail now, but thanks. Paul, I agree about “The Maltese Falcon” (1941, 4 stars). It’s a fun movie–I give it 4 stars for very good–but I’m not passionate about it.
On the subject of Warner Bros at their peak, the 3 early Errol Flynn westerns – Dodge City, Virginia City, Sante Fe – are wonderful entertainment. I think there’s something special about Warner Bros movies around this time.
Regarding the High Sierra Criterion – It sounds great – never seen High Sierra but long been on my to-view list and I like Colorado Territory a lot and would love to have it on Blu – but unfortunately for me this release is not in Criterion’s UK catalogue, and I think the US edition, which sounds like it’s Region A locked, is unlikely to play on my machine… (I have an in-theory region free BluRay player, however a relatively inexpensive one and I generally find US DVDs will play on it fine but US BluRays won’t, unless they’re advertised as region-free… For the same reason I think I’ll have to skip the new Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid release and the new Shootist – the latter perverse since it’s released by Arrow Films who as far as I know are a UK-based company but they’ve apparently released that one only to the US market…)
🙁
If anyone has info to the contrary it will be gratefully received!
Hello RR. Are you in the UK?
Yup.
I let go of all my DVDs during divorce and I have never felt strong enough to replace them. A lot of films I found I know well enough to play in my head – and quite a few turn up regularly on UK freeview. YouTube has been a source of some interesting new discoveries and good prints of old favourites – but has recently become unusable because of a ridiculously high number of advertising breaks. I know I can buy to stream anytime I feel like it but I haven’t bothered so far. Strangely enough I quite enjoy the freedom of not owning a copy of a favourite film – it’s as if it leaves me free to make new discoveries I would never have thought of. There are films I thought I would have to have available to me forever but I have found one can actually see a film too many times no matter how good it is or how much one loves it.
That competition or discussion we had a few months ago – a list of 20 best westerns – was a revelation. After a huge amount of thought – and then forgetting lots of films until after I had made the list – I discovered that having a list of best or greatest in my head was actually limiting. I would now define ‘best westerns’ as the last one I really enjoyed watching. And then another best one comes along.
Hope you eventually get to sample the wonderful version of ‘The Shootist’ which I thought was one of the discs of the year. It was a excellent year for Westerns on discs.
Hello Chris – ‘The Searchers’ is available on BBC catch up st this moment. A couple of days ago I actually watched ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ all the way through for the first time. Afterwards I did my usual thing when I like to read about a film afterwards – I always read Jeff’s reviews after not before. It turns out David Lean went to ‘The Searchers’ to get an idea for his own desert set ups and photography.
Sorry – I read ‘searchers’ for ‘shootist’. You did mention a new print of ‘The Sesrchers’ didn’t you – or have I been misreading the whole conversation? It wouldn’t be the first time.
I think Chris mentioned The Searchers new release somewhere in the thread or a different thread, while I mentioned that the new BluRay of The Shootist (and various other titles) haven’t been released in the UK. I think Chris is a fan of both of these new discs!
I admire your position of preferring not to own films and serendipitously catching them on TV and YouTube. But like Chris when it comes to favourite movies there are some that I do like to return to fairly frequently and in high quality. I agree some favourite films can lose their lustre over repeat viewings (and the opposite can happen to, films can grow on you) but some never lose their magic. The example you were discussing recently, Wagon Master, is a great example of that. I’ll never tire of watching that film and am pleased to have a BluRay copy.
Yes both have great new transfers this last year. ‘The Tin Star’, ‘Devil’s Doorway’, and ‘3 Godfathers’ got great new discs. Plus, the new Criterion of ‘Pat Garrett’ is amazing. Let the Westerns flow.
Yes, some films I can watch over and over again. I just feel comforted for some reason having my Peckinpah, Ford, Leone, and Eastwood among many others around. I’m astonished to being able to create one’s own film festival. I have a whole swath of Aldrich for example on DVD/Blu so I can have double features of ‘Ulzana’s Raid/Vera Cruz’ or ‘Attack/Dirty Dozen’ and find that really neat.
Thought you might be interested in this from the wonderful book by Peter Bogdanovich ‘Who the Devil Made It’ and his interview with Aldrich (p. 791): “Did you direct any of ‘The Ride Back [1957], which lists your company as producer?” “No-a lot of people ask me that-but Oscar Rudolph, who was a friend of mine, does all those second units. That came the last two days. It was not that it wasn’t directed well- it was directed wonderfully well- but he[director Allen H. Milner] just ran out of money and had finish the picture in X amount of days. There was a lot left to do and we just had to bring Oscar in.”
Informative and interesting – thanks Chris!