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3 Godfathers by John Ford
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DVD Cover InformationActor: Harry Carey Jr., John Wayne, Mae Marsh, Pedro Armend?riz, Ward Bond Director: John Ford Brand: Warner Brothers DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed) Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled Picture Format: 1.33:1 Running Time: 106 minutes DVD Release Date: 2007-05-22 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of 3 GodfathersMovie Review: An Unusual Western--In More Ways than One Summary: 5 StarsRather than repeat what other reviewers have said, I focus on certain themes. Having seen many westerns and John Wayne movies, I was struck by the unique nature of this one.
To begin with, John Wayne, for once, is the bad guy--a bank robber. Second, outlaws are usually incorrigible and with seared consciences. These outlaws are different. Third, seldom are infants shown in westerns, much less one being taken care of by a bunch of tough outlaws!
Religion is not usually shown in westerns and, when it is, it is usually portrayed as something effeminate--fine for women and children but something that the men had left behind in their childhoods. Here we see outlaws using a Bible for guidance (actually, for divination), praying, and singing hymns before their deaths. Christmas is celebrated.
Imagine struggling in a desert to avoid getting overcome by exhaustion and dehydration. Your primary water supply is gone, and you try to subsist by squeezing out water from the flesh of the barrelhead cactus. And so it goes...
Summary of 3 GodfathersIt's hardly shameful that The Three Godfathers ranks as the slightest John Ford Western in a five-year arc that includes My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Wagon Master, and Rio Grande. The source, a Peter B. Kyne story both hard-bitten and sentimental, had already been filmed at least five times--once by Ford himself as Marked Men (1919). The star of that silent version, Harry Carey, had recently died. This remake is dedicated to him ("Bright Star of the early western sky") and proudly introduces his son, Harry Carey Jr. (who had already appeared in Howard Hawks's Red River--as did his father--but we won't quibble). Just before Christmas, three workaday outlaws (John Wayne, Pedro Armend?riz, Harry Carey Jr.) rob a bank in Welcome, Arizona, and flee into the desert. The canny town marshal (Ward Bond) moves swiftly to cut them off from the wells along their escape route, so they make for another, deep in the wasteland. There's no water waiting for them, but there is a woman (Mildred Natwick) on the verge of death--and also of giving birth. The three badmen accept her dying commission as godfathers to the newborn. Motley variants of the Three Wise Men, they strike out for the town of New Jerusalem with her Bible as roadmap. It becomes increasingly apparent that saving the child's life will cost them their own. Ford's is the softest retelling of the tale; in place of Kyne's bitter/triumphant final twist, he adds a very broad comic postlude. Elsewhere, the nearly sacramental treatment of the mother's death is followed by an extended gosh-almighty sequence of the banditos reading up on childcare. But it's all played with great gusto and tenderness--especially by Wayne, who's rarely been more appealing. Visually the film is one knockout shot after another. This was Ford's first Western in Technicolor, as well as his first collaboration with cinematographer Winton Hoch. What they do with sand ripples and shadows and long plumes of train smoke is rapturously beautiful. It's also often too arty by half, but who can blame them? --Richard T. Jameson Fugitive bank robbers Robert (John Wayne) William (Harry Carey Jr.) and Pedro (Pedro Armendariz) stand at a desert grave. Caring for the newborn infant of the woman they just buried will ruin any chance of escape. But they won't go back on their promise to her. They won't abandon little Robert William Pedro. Director John Ford's Western retelling of the Biblical Three Wise Men tale remains a scenic and thematic masterpiece. Ford adds color to his feature-film palette capturing stunning vistas via cinematographer Winton Hoch who would win two of his three Academy Awards * for Ford films. Again populist-minded Ford asserts that even men of dissolute character can follow that inner star of Bethlehem to their own redemption.Running Time: 106 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN/MISC. UPC: 012569798595 Manufacturer No: 79859
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