Winchester '73
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Movie Reviews of Winchester '73
Movie Review: Added Bonus
Summary: 5 Stars
As usual, some of these big studio DVD releases don't adequately advertise what they have. Hey, they could only sell more. I guess they have something against that.Winchester '73 is one of my favorite westerns, and I rushed out the first day to buy the DVD. Universal has done a great job -- good restoration, very reasonably priced. But there is one gem that isn't apparent until after you buy it. Not mentioned on the front cover, on the back cover an extra is advertised in small print -- "interview with James Stewart". I was thinking it would just be a few minute interview. Instead, it turns out to be a full-fledged audio commentary -- really insightful. I have no idea when it was recorded -- perhaps for a Laserdisc release? -- but this is something that should be advertised prominently.
Although it doesn't appear that the other great Anthony Mann-Jimmy Stewart westerns released concurrently -- "Bend of the River" and "The Far Country" -- have such bonuses, I look forward to buying them as well. At least they are much less priced than the Mann-Stewart "Man from Laramie," a very good film that is very highly priced by -- Columbia, is it?
Now we just need "The Naked Spur," a true masterpiece, to come out in a restored version.
Enjoy "Winchester '73"!
Movie Review: a great "little western" with big stars
Summary: 5 Stars
james stewart along with john wayne is one of my heros and this movie is one of his best! this isn't the nice jimmy stewart of the 30's and 40's because this is james stewart war hero (who never let that be used to sell himself or his movies) a man who has seen the worst in man and the best. he is lin mcadams who is looking for the man who killed his father and just happens to be his brother(how about that for a 50's plot and a western at that)when he rides into a contest for the title rifle. he wins it from a man called dutch henry brown who just happends to be the same brother he's looking for. well in short order dutch steals rifle and this fine story is under way as we follow the gun as stewart rides after it and his brother. tony curtis and rock hudson turn up in small roles and the movie whips along a fast and deadly pace. you can put this alongside "stagecoach" as one of the best westerns ever made. and as a bonus you get an "interview" with james stewart that turns out to be a running commentary of the film he did for the lazerdisc in the 80's and for this alone it gets 5 stars. to hear this gental man tell the story of it's makeing is just the kind of extras that film fans could hope for. at all cost put this film in your collection forever!!!!!Movie Review: A chance to see some famous actors in early small roles
Summary: 5 Stars
This black and white 1950 film stars James Stewart as a man who is tracking another man because of some nefarious act he committed in the past and because he stole the rifle he won at a shooting contest. The film doesn't reveal until the end why Stewart is seeking revenge against the man, except to say that he shot someone in the back. It does show how Stewart won the 1873 Winchester, a "gun that won the west.... An Indian would sell his soul to own one." The rifle company manufactured many Winchester rifles, but only one in a thousand was perfect. Such guns were priceless. After Stewart won it in Dodge City, the man he was seeking stole it from him by force. It was later taken from him and passed from one person to another.
The film has small parts for Tony Curtis as a soldier and Rock Hudson as an Indian chief. Actors play Dodge City's Marshal Wyatt Earp and his deputies his brother Virgil and Bat Masterson, but these are also small parts.
The acting is good, there is action, gun fights, battles with Indians, and suspense. We wonder if Stewart will get his rifle back, what will happen to Shelly Winters who goes from man to man, what did the man who Stewart is seeking do, and how will Stewart carry out his revenge.
Movie Review: The first of the great Anthony Mann-James Stewart Westerns
Summary: 5 Stars
Winchester `73 was the film that moved director Anthony Mann from the b-movies to the big league, rescuing James Stewart's floundering post-war career in the process by casting him as a conflicted hero (although since he inherited the project from Fritz Lang, maybe Lang deserves the credit for that). Both men would go to much darker places - Mann already had with the remarkably bleak Devil's Doorway, which remained shelved by MGM until the success of Broken Arrow convinced them to release it - but a movie about a man hunting down his own brother as the rifle of the title is handed from person to person along the trail before it ends up in one of the director's beloved mountainside shootouts is still stronger meat than you'd expect from the studio system. Great dialog, an impressive supporting cast - Dan Duryea, Will Geer, Millard Mitchell, Stephen McNally, Shelley Winters, Charles Drake, Tim McIntire, Jay C. Flippen, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson among them - and Mann's outstanding visual sense raise the bar with this one.
Sadly, the print used for the DVD could stand some restoration, although there is an interesting audio interview with Stewart on the disc that is carried over from the old laser disc release.
Movie Review: Cain and Abel
Summary: 5 Stars
Along with a handful of other titles, this film is right at the summit of the great American Westerns ever made. It came entirely out of the blue as well. It was James Stewart's first serious Western (omitting "Destry Rides Again") and displayed a side of his character his Air Force buddies may have known about but precious few other people did. When Stewart threatens to break Dan Duryea's neck in a bar fight movie audiences must have been seriously taken aback. Doubly shocking is the fact that Stewart is out to gun down his outlaw brother for the murder of their father. Nor was Anthony Mann, the director, known for his Westerns, but this masterpiece simply could not be improved. The show is littered with great performances, especially John McIntire as the gun dealer, and Stewart sidekick Millard Mitchell, who made a huge impact in Hollywood during a very short career. Mitchell also appeared in "Twelve O'Clock High", "The Gunfighter", and "Singin' in the Rain" before dying of lung cancer in 1953.