Rock Hudson Screen Legend Collection (The Golden Blade / Has Anybody Seen My Gal? / The Last Sunset / The Spiral Road / A Very Special Favor)
by Douglas Sirk, Michael Gordon, Nathan Juran, Robert Aldrich, Robert Mulligan
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles Coburn, Dorothy Malone, Kirk Douglas, Piper Laurie, Rock HudsonDirector: Douglas Sirk, Michael Gordon, Nathan Juran, Robert Aldrich, Robert Mulligan
Brand: Universal
Writer: Dalton Trumbo
Writer: Eleanor H. Porter
Writer: Howard Rigsby
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Subtitled)
Format: Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 531 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Rock Hudson Screen Legend Collection (The Golden Blade / Has Anybody Seen My Gal? / The Last Sunset / The Spiral Road / A Very Special Favor)
Movie Review: Spiral Road surprise
Summary: 5 Stars
PLOT SPOILER
Spiral road turned out to be an excellent, thoughtful film. It was too long in obscurity. Hudson plays an ambitious doctor and top competitive athlete who feels utterly self-confident. He is not sympathetic to people who can't handle life without community or for example religion.The film has lush tropical atmosphere in color, but such a view of humanity is the core issue here.
Ives is the crusty old world expert on leprosy who is too busy treating patients and coping with jungle life to publish his stack of research findings. He maintains a tough exterior but gains deep respect and affection for Hudson, that he tries to conceal.
PLOT SPOILER
Toward the remarkable ending Hudson cracks under quite strange but believable psychological pressures. He is being outwitted and starts making dumb mistakes as any human might under such alien circumsances. If you are the sort who thinks YOU wound never ever make such mistakes, forget this film. Anyway he falls apart mentally out alone in the jungle. He has to be rescued. All that saves him is that other human beings who love him more than he loves them have come to care about him. It is implied that he comes to realize that loving human bonds are not simply weaknesses but are critical to human survival and give meaning to life.
Elsewhere I read that the film is about atheism versus religious belief. The film does involve missionaries who run a leper colony, Hudson's disdain for religion, and it does end with a quote from the Bible, but the overall characterization is misleading. All these elements largely raise issues for the viewer to ponder. For example suppose Hudson's scientific arguments were correct, and the religious position was wrong. So what? -- Apparently what was really important was the love component in religion as it was presented in the film in the context of care for the lepers and the importance of personal bonds among the doctors in tough situations at the edge of survival. I don't know the book, and it is not impossible that the author originally had a different objective, and that Hudson would have found God in the end. But that was not how the film developed the story.
Hudson and others did quite respectable jobs of acting. Some would say he was out of character, but I would say that the film is rather unusual in any event and any famous actor might seem out of character for some viewers. I liked the way he played the role, however. Gratefully, the actors did not overplay and trivialize the points that I just made. I liked the dialogue. There were some nice thought provoking lines.
This is quite simply a thought provoking film -- it is not an action or adventure film. It is not the usual sort of drama. It is not an inspirational religious film about conversion. It is difficult to put it into the usual categories without raising misleading expectations.
More Rock Hudson Screen Legend Collection (The Golden Blade / Has Anybody Seen My Gal? / The Last Sunset / The Spiral Road / A Very Special Favor) reviews:
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Summary of Rock Hudson Screen Legend Collection (The Golden Blade / Has Anybody Seen My Gal? / The Last Sunset / The Spiral Road / A Very Special Favor)
Included in this collection are has anybody seen my gal? a very special favor the golden blade the last sunset and the spiral road. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 05/22/2007 Rating: NrThis three-disc, five-film set spans a decade (1952-62) in Rock Hudson's career. It is not the ideal introduction to the strapping, ruggedly handsome leading man who, in his prime, was among Hollywood's top five biggest box office stars for eight years running. But his fans will want to add these more obscure and admirably diverse films--each making its DVD debut--to their collections. The most entertaining film, Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952) is an amusing trifle set in the 1920s, but it does mark Hudson's first film with Douglas Sirk, who would direct Hudson in some of his best films, including Written on the Wind, All That Heaven Allows, and Magnificent Obsession. Hudson is cast in a small but pivotal role as a poor but honest soda jerk in love with Piper Laurie, whose social-climbing mother does not approve. Charles Coburn is the real star as an eccentric millionaire who teaches the family that "it's not money that makes a person happy." Look for an uncredited James Dean at the soda fountain counter. Hudson was perhaps best known for his romantic comedies opposite Doris Day, and what a difference Day's absence makes in the somewhat icky A Very Special Favor (1965). Womanizer Hudson brings "fulfillment" into the life of career woman Leslie Caron at the request of her father (!), portrayed by Charles Boyer. The Arabian Nights adventure The Golden Blade (1953) is pure escapism with a questionably cast Hudson as Harun, who becomes embroiled in Baghdad palace intrigue as he searches for his father's killer. He is armed with the magical Sword of Damascus, which only seems to work when he wields it.
The most provocative film in this set is the 1961 Western The Last Sunset, co-starring Kirk Douglas as a killer sheriff Hudson has sworn to bring in to be hanged. But first, they agree to help Joseph Cotten drive his cattle across the border from his Mexican ranch. Dorothy Malone costars as Cotten's wife and Kirk's lost love, whose 16-year-old daughter's true parentage will cause Kirk some disquieting problems after he romances her. The Spiral Road (1962), very long at nearly three hours, stars Hudson as an arrogant, upstart doctor who seeks to advance his career by working in the Borneo jungle with Brits Jansen (Burl Ives), whose groundbreaking work with leprosy Hudson wants to chronicle. While none of these films rank among Hudson's most essential work, it is a Rock-solid collection that charts the development of an old-school movie star. --Donald Liebenson
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