Budd Boetticher Collection (Tall T / Decision at Sundown / Buchanan Rides Alone / Ride Lonesome / Comanche Station) DVD
In association with Amazon.com
|
List Price: $59.95Amazon.com's Price: $44.49 You Save: $15.46 (26%)as of 11/25/2009 13:43 EST details
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Now!
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Sony
EAN: 0043396228856
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Sony Pictures
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageEnglishSubtitledFrenchSubtitled
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
MPN: D22885D
Number Of Items: 5
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Region Code: 99
Release Date: November 04, 2008
Running Time: 380 minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 11/04/2008
Amazon.com:
To anyone interested in the Western genre, classic American cinema, and/or the history and art of film, the DVD release of director Budd Boetticher's five Columbia pictures starring Randolph Scott is a world-class event. For sustained and distinctive achievement in B-movie filmmaking, these movies--often referred to as "the Ranown cycle"--are rivaled only by the horror films Val Lewton produced for RKO in the 1940s. In each case the "B" is strictly a matter of budget and release pattern, not quality. Unlike the Lewtons, however, the Boetticher-Scott films have rarely been properly showcased in America, either individually or as a collective experience--in Martin Scorsese's observation, "one long extended movie" whose echoes, recurrences, and variations accrue extraordinary power and richness. The series properly originated with Seven Men from Now (1956), a movie not included here (but available separately) because it was made for another company. That picture more or less accidentally brought together Scott, Boetticher, and neophyte screenwriter Burt Kennedy--an uncanny blending of talents and qualities to create a great, thoroughly original Western that became the paradigm for the Ranown cycle. All the films run about an hour and a quarter and were shot in 10 days or so. In each, Scott plays a lone-riding man of few words with a personal, indeed private, mission to complete. Details of his backstory are few, and parceled out judiciously so that the understanding of both the audience and the other characters keeps evolving over the literal or figurative journey the film describes. In most cases, there's a key rival or adversary who poses the greatest threat to Scott's mission, yet is also the person closest to Scott in spirit or capability--often a disquietingly sympathetic figure whose necessary showdown with Scott occasions considerable regret. In keeping with Boetticher's own experience in Mexican bullrings, the climactic action takes on the spatial and spiritual overtones of a corrida.
It's scarcely coincidental that the three Ranown titles on a par with Seven Men from Now were likewise written by Burt Kennedy. The Tall T (1957), based on an Elmore Leonard story, centers on a life-or-death situation with Scott and another man's just-married bride (Maureen O'Sullivan) held hostage in the backcountry by three cold-blooded killers. Its fierce air of menace is enhanced by a bracing strain of dark humor, and Richard Boone is brilliant as the outlaw leader, an intelligent man who loathes his brute partners in crime and craves Scott's respect--even as he won't hesitate to kill him. Ride Lonesome (1959), widely regarded as the series peak, maddeningly has been the hardest to get to see, especially in the CinemaScope format Boetticher deploys so fluently. This time Scott is a man bringing a jokey outlaw (James Best) out of the badlands, with the apparent intention of collecting the bounty. Because local Indians are on the warpath, he's soon acquired unwanted traveling companions--a stationmaster's wife (Karen Steele) and two amiable galoots (Pernell Roberts, James Coburn) looking to take Scott's prisoner away from him. And somewhere behind, riding hell-for-leather with his gang, is Best's outlaw brother (Lee Van Cleef). This was Coburn's first film, and upon recognizing the young man's unique talent and appeal, the director wrote new material on location to enlarge his part. Comanche Station (1960) closed out the cycle with its purest, sparest manifestation. Scott rescues a white woman (Nancy Gates) from longtime captivity among Indians and sets out to return her to her husband. Chief rival in this case is Claude Akins, appropriating a few moves of Lee Marvin's from Seven Men from Now. The opening and closing images of Comanche Station define and crown this magnificent body of work. Yes, we've skipped a couple of titles--merely damn good movies rather than masterpieces. Critics habitually pegged Scott as a limited actor (an opinion in which he good-naturedly concurred), but he rises to the offbeat challenge of Decision at Sundown (1957), whose would-be hero gets just about everything wrong, from the nature of his grievance to the impact his quest has on everybody else. Unlike Boetticher's celebrated journey Westerns, this is a town movie, and so is Buchanan Rides Alone (1958). Buchanan, too, is a bit of a departure in being free of guilt or obsession; the happy-go-lucky cuss is merely passing through the border community of Agrytown on his way back from lucrative adventures in Mexico when he falls afoul of the corrupt clan running the place. Boetticher's dry sense of humor informs all these movies, but this one is played close to outright comedy--very black comedy. It's also the only Ranown entry whose cheapness is conspicuous, with tacky sets, crude Pathe Color (with which cameraman Lucien Ballard struggles gamely), and an uncredited score scrapped together from the Columbia music library. But as its criss-crossed motives and multiple betrayals play out, you may find yourself wondering whether this sardonic movie might have inspired Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961).
There's a bonus to the set, a feature-length portrait, A Man Can Do That. Written by film critic-historian Dave Kehr and exec-produced by Clint Eastwood, the documentary includes testimonials from Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Towne, and other directorial admirers, plus the eloquent participation of Boetticher himself a year or so before his death in November 2001. Each of the Kennedy-scripted Ranowns gets a full-length audio commentary (Jeanine Basinger's on The Tall T is a model of historical perspective and stylistic appreciation), and there are pre-film introductions by Eastwood (Comanche Station), Martin Scorsese (The Tall T, Ride Lonesome), and Taylor Hackford--but watch these after seeing the movies, to avoid spoilers. As for the DVDs themselves, these movies have never looked better. Even Buchanan Rides Alone. --Richard T. Jameson
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Director Oscar "Budd" Boetticher made his mark on the American film scene with his gritty westerns starring Randolph Scott. Boetticher's films didn't make much of an impact at the time, but the critics now say he defined a genre... the rugged, mysterious loner wandering the dreary landscape and looking for... solace? redemption? atonement?
This collection of Boetticher's films contains five full-length films: The Tall T (1957), Decision at Sundown (1957), Buchanan Rides Alone (1958), ... Read More
Rating: -
I'm very grateful that these films are now on DVD. My only beef is with the case in which they came -- the info on each of the movies is on a sheet of pager that is loosely glued to the outer case. It fell off within days of my getting the set. It is also written in the smallest font known to humankind. It is odd to me that the company would go to all the trouble of developing this DVD set, with all the extras, and then allow its box to be designed like this.
Rating: -
If you are already a fan of Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott, you will love this set. If you are not, you may become one. The cinematography is great, the video quality is excellent and even the packaging is well done. It is the special features and commentaries that make this set perfect. It makes you want to travel back to the time when great entertainment could be made efficiently and on a shoestring budget. I must for any western aficionado.
Rating: -
If you like westerns , these are the best . Randolph Scott is the best version of a laconic hero . All thse films are tightly directed , with very good characterization and excellent scripts . They hold up very well against any of current western films .
Rating: -
Review of "Budd Boetticher Box Set" on DVD.
First, simply put, this is a superb set of Randolph Scott / Budd Boetticher films containing some of their best work.
Second, the print quality of the various widescreen aspect ratios look great and are a welcome relief from past pan & scan VHS releases.
Third, the packaging. And this is very minor compared to actually having these wonderful films on disc. What were they thinking? I hope when the Blu-Ray release comes ... Read More
Television Show
Collectibles
Movie Searches
|
|
|
Search for posters,
art prints, photos, collectables, merchandise, toys, t-shirts
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TV Guide
Program listings, celebrity profiles, industry
gossip, movie reviews, puzzle.
More
Entertainment
& TV Magazines
This site is
Hosted
by Bluehost
Read
my Bluehost Review
Most Popular TV collectibles
|
|
Home
Articles
Images
Forum
Search
Shopping
TV Trivia
Watch TV
Wallpaper
