Broken Lance
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.90 You Save: $8.08 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.91 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Broken Lance
Movie Review: One of the better adult westerns of it's time
Summary: 5 Stars
Post war western with great cast and story made the way Fox made 'em in the 50,s.Movie Review: "Tracy...Widmark...Wagner...Jurado...Dmytryk ~ Broken Lance (1954)"
Summary: 4 Stars
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment present "BROKEN LANCE" (1954) (96 mins Color), under director Edward Dmytryk, producer Sol C. Siegel, screenplay by Richard Murphy and Philip Yordan., musical direction by Alfred Newman, music score by Leigh Harline . . . . .cast includes Spencer Tracy (Matt Devereaux), Robert Wagner (Joe Devereaux), Jean Peters (Barbara), Richard Widmark (Ben), Katy Jurado (Senora Devereaux), Hugh O'Brian (Mike Devereaux), Eduard Franz (Two Moons), Earl Holliman (Danny Devereaux), E.G. Marshall (The Governor), Carl Benton Reid (Clem Lawton), Philip Ober (Van Cleve), Robert Burton (Mac Andrews), Robert Adler (O'Reilly), Harry Carter (Prison Guard), Nacho Galindo (Cook), Julian Rivero (Manuel), Edmund Cobb (Court Clerk), Russell Simpson (Judge), King Donovan (Clerk). . . . . . . our story features Spencer Tracy as a cattle baron with four sons , three (Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brien and Earl Holliman) by a wife who died two years after Tracy settled in the west and started building his cattle empire...Tracy remarries, this time to an Indian princess (Katy Jurado) and has another son (Robert Wagner)...Tracy favors Wagner and treats theother three sons with disgust, thus making it very difficult for all concerned...a copper smelter is polluting the water and killing the cattle on his ranch, he raids the smelter and when things go wrong Wagner takes responsibility and is given three years at hard labor...Tracy dies of a stroke and Wagner plans to seek revenge when he gets out of prison... screenwriter Philip Yordan won an Academy Award for his work on "Broken Lance", while Katy Jurado received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance as Senora...this wonderful cast keeps the film together as director Edward Dmytryk, best known films from the pre-McCarthy period of his career were "Crossfire" (1947), for which he received a Best Director Oscar nomination and "Murder, My Sweet" (1944), as the latter an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's "Farewell My Lovely" (1975)....these films were made with expensive stars of the calibre of Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando, but apart from the memorable Western "Warlock" (1959), which he also produced, his work had lost much of the emotional urgency and psychological thrust represented by his early film noir "Crossfire" (1947)...after his film career tapered off in the 70s, he entered academia and taught at the University of Texas at Austin, and at the University of Southern California. He wrote several books on the art of film-making, Dmytryk died in 1999, aged 90.
Specal footnote, actor Spencer Tracy (April 5, 1900 - June 10, 1967) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American film actor who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967, was often described as one of the finest actors in motion picture history...in 1935 Tracy signed with MGM, won the Academy Award for Best Actor two years in a row, for "Captains Courageous" (1937) and "Boys Town" (1938)....Tracy was also nominated for "San Francisco" (1936), "Father of the Bride" (1950), "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955), "The Old Man and the Sea" (1958), "Inherit the Wind" (1960), "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961), and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967)...Tracy and Laurence Olivier share the record for the most best actor Oscar nominations (9)...Tracy was one of Hollywood's earliest "realistic" actors; his performances have stood the test of time, other actors have noted that Tracy's work in 1930s films sometimes looks like a modern actor interacting with the more stylized and dated performances of everyone around him...In 1941, Tracy began a relationship with Katharine Hepburn, whose agile mind and New England brogue complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo very well, though estranged from his wife Louise, he was a devout Roman Catholic and never divorced, Tracy and Hepburn made nine films together.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
BIOS:
1. Spencer Tracy (aka: Spencer Bonaventure Tracy)
Date of birth: 5 April 1900 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
Date of death: 10 June 1967 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
2. Richard Widmark
Date of birth: 26 December 1914 - Sunrise, Minnesota
Date of death: Still Living
3. Robert Wagner (aka: Robert John Wagner)
Date of birth: 10 February 1930 - Detroit, Michigan
Date of death: Still Living
4. Katy Jurado (aka: Maria Cristina Estella Marcella Jurado de Garcia)
Date of birth: 16 January 1924 - Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
Date of death: 5 July 2002 - Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
5. Edward Dmytryk (Director)
Date of birth: 4 September 1908 - Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada
Date of death: 1 July 1999 - Encino, California
Want to thank 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment for releasing "Broken Lance" (1954), the digital transfere with a clean, clear and crisp print...looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage era of the '40s & '50s...order your copy now from Amazon or 20th Century Fox Entertainment where there are plenty of copies available, stay tuned once again for top notch wonderful character actors of the cinema brought back so many wonderful memories of the times when film makers cared about you who purchased a ticket and came back for more...just the way we like 'em.
Total Time: 96 mins on DVD ~ 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment #2227276 ~ (5/24/2005)
Movie Review: Broken Lance
Summary: 4 Stars
When it's good, BROKEN LANCE (1954) is a sprawling story about the rise and fall of cattle baron Matt Devereaux (Spencer Tracy), color by DeLuxe, in Stereophonic Sound, and, most important of all, it's filmed in CinemaScope. Borrowing feuding and greedy children from King Lear and a Native American wife, and half a title, from the influential James Stewart vehicle, Broken Arrow, it's an entertaining near-classic.
Matt Devereaux is one of those larger-than-life pioneers whose success makes him an anachronism. Parcels of his land, once simply a buffet board for his 50,000-head herd of cattle, is now being leased out to oil and mining concerns. There was a time when men like Devereaux would string up cattle rustlers on the spot and the local marshal, assuming he was within a hundred miles and sober, was probably glad to be rid of the bother. Back then whatever Devereaux pushed against yielded. But the successful pioneer plants the seed of his own extinction. The copper found on Devereaux's land need men to dig it, and men bring civilization and the rule of law. The unfiltered waste of a copper mine dumped into a stream pollute the water and kill cattle. Devereaux is not the type to calmly negotiate when forty of his cattle are found poisoned. Back then Devereaux's actions brought results; now they simply usher in tragedy.
While never losing sight of Devereaux's impulsive and sometimes brutal personality, Tracy is able to give the character enough warmth to maintain the audience's sympathies. Katy Jurado, who received an Oscar nomination as Señora Devereaux is little more than a minor satellite in the Great Man's orbit, stoic and ever-suffering. Frankly, I thought Señora Devereaux was a pretty one-note character, one which Jurado handles well enough but not one that seems particularly memorable or Oscar-worthy. Robert Wagner plays the pivotal role of Joe Devereaux, Matt's `half-breed' son by Señora Devereaux and clearly his favorite. Wagner, as was his wont, is painfully stiff in a role that in abler hands would have probably would have filled out the tragic qualities of the story. The other three sons from Matt's first marriage are played by Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brien, and Earl Holliman. O'Brien and Holliman aren't much more than set dressing (although Holliman would have been a better choice, a much better choice, to play Joe). Widmark, as the resentful, scheming and devious elder son ably holds his own with Tracy, and their scenes together are high points of a movie that at times dips perilously close to melodrama.
The print is in very good condition and the dvd includes the full-screen and widescreen versions of this movie. Watch the widescreen version. Cinematographer Joe MacDonald painted a beautiful movie and director Edward Dmytryk makes use of the whole screen, favoring long, unbroken scenes uninterrupted by close-up or cuts to reaction shots. Just two actors moving through space and working a scene. When it's Tracy and Spencer squaring off, it's a joy to behold. Strong recommendation, especially for fans of traditional, large scale westerns.
Movie Review: A first-rate adult Western...
Summary: 4 Stars
Tracy is a believable cowboy, nicely balanced for handling a bull whip, riding dangerously the hills...
Tracy plays a despot, absolute ruler cattle baron "making the wrong move with the wrong people," using his force to restrain the pollution of his cattle's stream: "The river is on my land. You are on my land. You close this operation down."
His first three sons (Widmark, O'Brien and Holliman) were unanimously disappointing to him... He considered them cattle thieves, treating them harshly, without mercy... Only the fourth son and the youngest one (Robert Wagner) by his present wife, a Comanche woman played by the clever, quick-witted Katy Jurado has his affection and care... The other sons looks only forward to his demise so they may take control over his cattle empire...
Tracy -- irritated and frustrated as a father -- expends excessive reasons that arouses the sensation of hate provoking avaricious rebellion, and nearly destroys his younger kid Joe...
It was interesting to follow Dmytryk's study of racial prejudice against the Indian wife of a domineering white father... Interesting to compare the rough resilience of Tracy with his character--isolated by mortal danger in "Bad Day at Black Rock," a character enlightened with real feelings specially in guessing the conclusion... Somehow this is missing in Dmytryk's "Broken Lance" where the autocratic father seems so artificial, an unfavorable comment that can be aimed against the movie itself...
Widmark offers a fine performance as the unlikable eldest son, while Robert Wagner and Jean Peters manage the romantic interlude...
The screenplay, based on 1949s "Home of Strangers" wins an Oscar and the fiery-eyed Mexican star Katy Jurado was nominated for best supporting actress...
Filmed in CinemaScope and Technicolor and with great sceneries of the state of Arizona, "Broken Lance" remains a first-rate adult Western...
Movie Review: Bad guys can wear white hats, too
Summary: 4 Stars
My Villian du Jour is Matt Devereaux, as portrayed by Spencer Tracy.
In Edward Dmytryk's widescreen western, BROKEN LANCE, Devereaux, owner of a Texas spread half the size of Rhode Island, guilt manipulates his friends, punches enemies with impunity and treats three of his four adult children like dirt.
When only 40 of his 50,000 head of cattle are poisoned from a fouled stream, Devereaux confronts the manager of a copper processing operation. Negotiations quickly go awry (Matt's offer: "get outta here!"), so he orchestrates the smelting plant's total destruction. Taken to Federal Court by the company, Matt is such a jerk on the stand that the judge holds him in contempt, but not until it's revealed that he lynched three cattle rustlers. He allows his youngest boy (and favorite son!) to take the rap for the crime and go to jail for 3 years. It shoulda been Matt sitting in the hoosegow. Lord knows, Texas might've benefited from his imprisonment.
Devereaux is laid low by illness while he's beating one of his other sons with a whip, and the viewer wants to cheer rather than feel sorry for this ogre. He soon rises from a sickbed and gallops out to stop his boys from selling land to the hated copper outfit. Along the way, Matt drops dead in the saddle, but the S.O.B. is so stubborn, his corpse keeps on riding!
Now there's a memorable bad guy.
(Watch for the voice of Elmer Fudd, Arthur Q. Bryan in an uncredited bit part.)
Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll rating.
(7.0) Broken Lance (1954) - Spencer Tracy/Robert Wagner/Richard Widmark/Jean Peters/Katy Jurado/Hugh O'Brian/Earl Holliman/E.G. Marshall (uncredited: Arthur Q. Bryan)