The John Wayne Film Collection
Allegheny Uprising (1939)/Reunion in France (1942)/Without Reservations (1946)/Tycoon (1947)/Big Jim McClain (1952)/Trouble Along the Way (1953)
Studio: Warner Brothers
Year: 1939-1953
Rated: Unrated
Film Length: Various
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Subtitles: English, French
Release Date: May 23, 2007
The Films
Allegheny Uprising (1939 - RKO - 81 minutes)
Directed By: William Seiter
Starring: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, George Sanders, Brian Donlevy, Wilfrid Lawson
"Allegheny Uprising" is set in pre-Revolutionary Pennsylvania shortly after the end of the French-Indian War. John Wayne plays respected Indian-fighter James Smith. Smith runs afoul of Captain Swanson (Sanders), who commands the British forces assigned to protect the citizens of his remote colonial settlement. The officious Swanson refuses to inspect or divert goods being transported to the frontier under military escort, even though Smith and his fellow colonists uncover evidence that duplicitous traders such as Ralph Callendar (Donlevy) are smuggling contraband goods intended for lucrative and illegal trade with the Native American Indians. When Smith and the colonists forcibly intervene to destroy the contraband, Callendar and the traders frame them by destroying the military goods as well and posting forged anti-British propaganda throughout the settlement. As all of this conflict unfolds, spirited Janie MacDougall (Trevor), the daughter of boastful Indian fighter, 'Mac' (Lawson), vies with limited success both to take part in the action and secure a place in Smith's permanent affections.
While the film is notable for re-teaming Wayne and Trevor less than a year after the breakthrough success of "Stagecoach", with Trevor still receiving top billing, it is a far less interesting film than its predecessor. "Allegheny Uprising" works fine as long as the action is moving along, but suffers a near-fatal blow during every scene dedicated to the colorful supporting characters. Wayne, Sanders, and Donlevy acquit themselves well in fairly stock roles, but director Seiter seems to have encouraged Trevor (who effects an on-again/off-again accent that is neither Scottish nor Irish), Lawson, and all of the actors playing the residents of the Conococheague Valley to go way over the top. The generic characterizations and over-acting have a tendency to make the film drag in its first half, but once the central conflicts are set-up, the pace improves considerably.
Reunion in France (1942 - MGM - 104 minutes)
Directed By: Jules Dassin
Starring: Joan Crawford, John Wayne, Philip Dorn, Reginald Owen, John Carradine
Jules Dassin's "Reunion in France" stars Joan Crawford as wealthy French heiress "Michelle de la Beck". The spoiled Michelle's industrialist fiancé, Robert Cortot (Dorn), sends her from Paris to the French countryside on the eve of the Nazi invasion. She returns to Paris after the German occupation to find her home confiscated and, more distressingly, Robert willingly cooperative with the Nazi occupation forces. The shocking circumstances stir up a newfound sense of humility and patriotism in Michelle, which in turn stirs up the suspicions of Nazi officials, including Ulrich Windler (Carradine), the local head of the Gestapo. A chance encounter with American Pat Talbot, an escaped POW who is a bomber pilot for the RAF, leads Michelle to devise a scheme to help arrange his escape from France. Under the ever-vigilant eyes of the Gestapo, however, she finds that she may need the help of her estranged fiancé in order to succeed.
This film is far more a Joan Crawford vehicle than it is a John Wayne film, but Wayne fans may still get a kick out of seeing this one and only screen pairing of these two screen icons. Jules Dassin's direction keeps the propaganda-laced romantic potboiler moving along at a decent clip, and the swanky by wartime standards MGM production values make it easy on the eyes. The plot gets more than a little convoluted by the third act, which prevents the film from coming anywhere near the benchmark for wartime romance and propaganda set by "Casablanca", but it is still an entertaining time-passer.
John Carradine is hissably terrific as the perpetually suspicious Gestapo head, but Philip Dorn is so much less interesting as a screen presence than John Wayne that it hobbles the romantic rivalry aspect of the plot. Dassin must have recognized this, though, as that element is only touched on lightly.
Without Reservations (1946 - RKO - 107 minutes)
Directed By: Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Claudette Colbert, John Wayne, Don DeFore, Anne Triola, Dona Drake
Claudette Colbert, as the last actor in motion picture history to get billed over John Wayne, stars as Christopher Madden, the author of a book called "Here is Tomorrow" that has taken postwar America by storm, (suggesting the existence of popular novels may even pre-date Oprah Winfrey). She is in the process of adapting her novel into a screenplay and en route to Hollywood when she learns that Cary Grant will not be able to play the sophisticated pilot hero opposite Lana Turner. Just as she is penning a note to the studio head disagreeing with his idea to re-cast with a fresh-faced unknown, Marine pilot Rusty Thomas (Wayne) and his fellow officer Dink Watson (DeFore) sit across from her on the train. Rusty appears to be the living embodiment of the character in her novel, but Christopher is alarmed to find out that he feels the novel is a load of unrealistic philosophical drivel. During their cross-country trip, Christopher lies about her true identity, tries to steer Rusty towards Hollywood, and ultimately falls for him. She also picks up a few helpful tips on relationships, the likes of which were not imagined in her novel, from Rusty, a flighty waitress (Triola), and the patriarch of a family of Mexican immigrants (Puglia).
If you can get past the fact that Claudette Colbert had already starred in "It Happened One Night", perhaps the ultimate "on the road" romantic comedy, and "The Palm Beach Story", rivaled only by "20th Century" for the title of ultimate "train travel" comedy, there is a lot to enjoy about this film. John Wayne shows that he has a sometimes overlooked gift for light comedy, and is cast to type as the "he-man" Marine aviator who scoffs at the book-learned romantic political psychology of Colbert's character. The film balances the deflation of both of its protagonists' egos well, creating two nice little romantic character arcs that sustain the unnecessary deception and hubris of the standard romantic comedy plot before ending at exactly the right spot. DeFore, as usual, is comfortable in the romantic "wing man" role, and the cast is uniformly excellent with the exception of Dona Drake, who plays an incredibly unconvincing Mexican immigrant with an exaggerated accent sticking out all the worse since the rest of her family is played by actual Latino actors. A few unbilled cameos by big name celebrities round out the fun.
This was the last film Wayne made in which he would not receive top billing, although despite Colberts's name being listed higher on the vintage poster art used for the DVD cover, only John Wayne and Dona Drake's image actually appear on it.
Tycoon (1947 - RKO - 128 minutes)
Directed By: Richard Wallace
Starring: John Wayne, Laraine Day, Cedric Hardwicke, Judith Anderson, James Gleason, Anthony Quinn
In "Without Reservations", Claudette Colbert's character tells a movie studio head that she thinks John Wayne will "look great in Technicolor", and a year and a half later, audiences got to test that theory. "Tycoon" was Wayne's third Technicolor feature, and, at the time, his first in five years.
This big budget epic tells the story of Johnny Munroe (Wayne), a railroad engineer striving to run track through South America. While natural objects such as the Andes Mountains, impede his progress, Johnny's biggest obstacle to success proves to be Frederick Alexander (Hardwicke), the chairman of the company who has commissioned the railroad. Alexander initially denies Johnny's requests for a concrete liner for a tunnel he is excavating, and things get worse when he discovers Johnny's budding romance with his daughter, Maura. Even after Johnny and Maura are married, Alexander uses his control of the local railroads to further hamstring Johnny's progress by withholding and re-directing raw materials necessary for construction. Johnny, in turn, stubbornly refuses to give up on the project or even request relief in terms of cost or deadlines, even after tragedy leads to the railroad company abandoning plans for the tunnel and beginning construction of a bridge. The pressure takes a toll on his marriage, his co-workers, and his subordinates, coming to a head when a storm sends a raging flood in the direction of the under-construction bridge.
While the film seems to have all of the elements of a Howard Hawks-style action piece about men who take pride in a dangerous profession and the woman who love (and fight) them, the devil is apparently in the details because this film is a turgid bore. The action set pieces involving the railroad tunnel and the bridge are very well staged, but the amount of poorly conceived soapy drama you have to wade through to get to them is simply not worth the effort. Cedric Hardwicke, as the film's chief antagonist, underplays his role severely, which can work for film acting if you have a sympathetic director and editor who know how to cut around the performance to pick up nuances of expression. That is not the case here as he rarely gets any close-ups at key dramatic moments, and his conversations, particularly during the domestic scenes with Day and Anderson, are left with pregnant pauses so long that the filmmakers could have sold the space for commercials. The fact that the arc of Wayne's character takes him from being an egotistical gregarious bloke to being an egotistical obsessive jerk probably did not sit well with audiences at the time either.
The film was expensive and looks it with impressive Technicolor location photography and extensive special effects.
Big Jim McLain(1952 - Wayne-Fellows Productions - 90 minutes)
Directed By: Edward Ludwig
Starring: John Wayne, Nancy Olson, James Arness, Alan Napier, Veda Ann Borg, Gayne Whitman, Hans Conried
While "Tycoon" proved to be an expensive flop that contributed, along with even bigger flops like John Ford's "The Fugitive" and Dudley Nichols' "Mourning Becomes Electra", to the near demise of RKO studios, Wayne's subsequent films from 1948 to 1952 proved to be, as a whole, much more successful, firmly establishing him as the cinematic icon he is today. These included: "Fort Apache", "Red River", "3 Godfathers", "Wake of the Red Witch", "The Fighting Kentuckian", "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", "Sands of Iwo Jima", "Rio Grande", "Operation Pacific", "Flying Leathernecks", and "The Quiet Man". After this stretch of films, Wayne had enough clout to establish his own production company with associate Robert Fellows. The first film issued under the "Wayne-Fellows" shingle, which would later evolve into Wayne's "Batjac" production company, was "Big Jim McLain".
Wayne plays the title character, an investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee. Along with his partner, Mal Baxter (Arness) he is sent out to bust up the Communist conspiracy in Hawaii (their mission is dubbed "Operation Pineapple" - I kid you not!). With the aid of a compiled list of known conspirators, local law enforcement, and tips from patriotic former Party members, McLain and Baxter's investigation quickly zeroes in on a man named Willie Namaka. By the time they find him, though, he is incoherent due to both a nervous breakdown and a drug treatment from his closeted Communist doctor (Whitman). The trail of evidence eventually leads them to Comrade Sturak (Napier), the head of the Communist Conspiracy, but not before Wayne has a chance to meet, romance, and propose to Nancy Vallon (Olson), the secretary of the Communist doctor.
While the Communist threat to America and the Party's attempts to infiltrate organizations such as Labor Unions seems like a decent topic for a gripping Korean War-era potboiler, this film is a disaster. Fortunately, it is the type of disaster that remains watchable due to its camp value and unintentional hilarity. The dialog is occasionally howlingly bad -- so bad that I do not want to spoil one of the chief pleasures of the movie by quoting it here. I will go so far as to say that one of my particular favorites is a Wayne voiceover about lepers. Speaking of the voiceover, there are actually two different unidentified omniscient narrators in addition to Wayne's medium-to-soft-boiled detective prose interjecting throughout the film. The excessive voiceover is a symptom of the general editorial confusion that afflicts the movie. One of my favorite editorial miscues comes slightly over 29 minutes into the film where a hard cut from Olson to Wayne occurs with no apparent change in the background scenery. It makes it look like Olson has magically disappeared on one side of the frame just as Wayne appears on the other side. The film also has a tendency to stop dead in its tracks for extended episodes including a solemn visit to the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, a visit to a leper colony (ostensibly to interview Namaka's ex-wife, but actually to set up a metaphor broader than James Arness' shoulders), and a gratuitous extended sequence with Hans Conried as an effeminate delusional would-be informant.
The supporting cast is filled out by a number of unknown or non-actors, including Don Liu, the actual chief of the Honolulu police, who is given far too many lines considering his limited acting ability. Fans of the 60s "Batman" television series may get a kick out of seeing Alan Napier playing the ruthless leader of the Hawaiian Communist conspiracy. Alfred, how could you!
"Reunion in France" is an example of how a propaganda film can be made with an entertaining story, big stars and a high level of technical competence. "Big Jim McLain" shows how a propaganda film can be made with a big star, but not much else. The one bit of production value that does actually shine trough is the location photography at various scenic Hawaiian sites. Aside from the presence of Wayne in the title role, that is the only aspect of the film that helps it to rise slightly above the level of zero-budget paranoid propaganda films such as "Reefer Madness" and "Perversion for Profit". Unfortunately, that is not enough to make the poorly scripted, acted, and edited mess an aesthetic success, regardless of how one feels about its politics.
Trouble Along the Way (1953 - Warner Bros. - 110 minutes)
Directed By: Michael Curtiz
Starring: John Wayne, Donna Reed, Charles Coburn, Tom Tully, Sherry Jackson, Marie Windsor
"Trouble Along the Way", Wayne's immediate follow-up to "Big Jim McLain" tells the story of Steve Williams (Wayne), a divorced father who accepts a job as a football coach at a small Catholic college in New York. Father Burke (Coburn), the head of the college is desperate to save the financially strapped institution, and hopes to raise the necessary funds by increasing interest in their football team. Williams had previously been run out of coaching jobs in most of the major conferences due to his unconventional and ethically dubious methods, and has been getting by as a sports bookie while trying to raise his precocious daughter, Carole (Jackson). Steve initially turns down the low paying job, but reconsiders when Alice Singleton (Reed), an officer of the family court tells him that his fitness as a parent is being called into question by his ex-wife (Windsor). Steve's questionable recruiting and coaching methods lead to initial success, but when his ethical lapses are revealed, he finds he has put his job, his custody of Carole, and the continued existence of the College in jeopardy.
As a major studio project with such conventional plot elements, this film is actually pretty subversive. Events do not necessarily play out the way you expect, Steve is not necessarily the world's greatest dad, and the ending leaves several dramatic threads up in the air. I imagine audiences at the time were pretty frustrated with the enterprise. That being said, the film is not entirely successful, as it seems to cram too much content into its less than two hour running time. Structurally, the film has trouble deciding which elements are the main through-line and which are the subplots. As such, it plays as if someone tried to mash-up "Going My Way", "Kramer vs. Kramer", and "Knute Rockne, All-American" into a single film. The result is a somewhat unwieldy Frankenstein's monster of a movie.
The solid professionalism of Curtiz's direction and the skill of the talented cast help to smooth over the rough edges a bit, making the film watchable despite its occasionally schizophrenic nature. Eleven year old Sherry Jackson does a particularly great job of holding her own in her many scenes with veterans Wayne and Coburn. The romantic angle between Steve and Alice actually seems a bit creepy at times with Steve sometimes aggressively coming on to her while she seems uncomfortable. Whether this is intentional or not, it undermine a declaration of love that occurs late in the picture.
The Video
All of the films in the "The John Wayne Film Collection" are presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio representative of their original theatrical presentations.
The black and white transfer for "Allegheny Uprising" shows more visible film damage and fluctuations in density than any other title in the collection, but this does not appear to be the fault of the transfer or compression, which do a good job of reproducing the persistent film grain and maintaining a reasonably pleasing contrast level despite the occasionally variable density.
The black and white transfer for "Reunion in France" is very good, with natural film grain throughout, infrequent very light damage, and excellent contrast and shadow detail. This is the best of the black and white transfers in this collection.
The black and white transfer for "Without Reservations" is not quite as good as "Reunion in France", but has significantly less film damage and fluctuations in density than "Allegheny Uprising". The element used for transfer seems to be at least a couple of generations down from ideal, resulting in a slight softness, but contrast is generally pleasing with modest shadow detail and no signs of artificial boosting of whites or blacks.
The transfer for "Tycoon", the only Technicolor film in this collection, is very good. Registration and contrast are solid and the color palette seems well balanced. There are regular instances of film damage such as scratches and speckling, but little else to complain about. Film grain is represented fairly well by the compression. I noticed some very light ringing along high contrast edges in a few shots, but it was not pervasive, and could be partly due to very slight mis-registration of the Technicolor elements.
The black and white transfer for "Big Jim McLain" is the grainiest of the bunch, with noticeably higher contrast than the other films in the set. This appears to be related to the source element used for transfer. Compression sometimes has trouble keeping up with the grain, and edge ringing is not an issue. The contrast does not appear to be overly manipulated in the video domain.
The black and white transfer for "Trouble Along the Way" is another solid effort from a film element that shows a little wear and tear and is likely a couple more generations away from the negative than would be ideal. Some of the exterior location shots appear to have significantly more contrast build-up and grain than most of the rest of the film. That being said, the element is represented well on video with solid compression that almost keeps up with the persistent natural film grain and just a hint of light ringing along high contrast edges in certain shots.
The Audio
All of the titles in "The John Wayne Film Collection" feature an English Dolby Digital 1.0 audio track encoded at 192kbps bitrate, and have available English and French subtitles. No dubbed foreign language tracks are included.
The track for "Allegheny Uprising" has a light hiss and low level crackle that is rarely intrusive, with better than average dynamics and fidelity for a film of its age.
"Reunion in France" has a very low level hiss throughout and with light distortion during some of the louder passages, but overall sounds very good.
"Without Reservations" has the worst audio track of the collection due to a persistent sibilance on the dialog track.
"Tycoon" has slightly more hiss and crackle than "Reunion in France", but otherwise is similarly pleasing with slightly less distortion during loud passages.
"Big Jim McLain" has very low hiss, but you will hardly notice it for all the patriotic music on the track.
"Trouble Along the Way" has an outstanding audio track with very low hiss that sounds like it was sourced from a magnetic track, giving it an edge over the 30s and 40s films in the collection.
The Extras
All of the films in "The John Wayne Film Collection" come with a vintage featurette and cartoon. In addition, "Reunion in France", "Big Jim McLain", and "Trouble Along the Way" come with their respective films' theatrical trailers.
"Allegheny Uprising" includes the Technicolor short "The Bill of Rights" which actually spends most of its time telling a story set in Colonial America and framed around the writing of the "Fairfax Resolves" which is later used as a model for the Constitution's first ten amendments. It is not exactly historically accurate (it seems to confuse the "Fairfax Resolves" from 1774 with "Virginia's Declaration of Rights" from 1776), but it does dramatically illustrate many of the freedoms and rights that would subsequently be referred to in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed in the Constitution. Also included is the Tex Avery "Merrie Melodies" cartoon "Land of the Midnight Fun" which consists of a number of silly blackout gags over the course of a cruise from New York to the "Great White North" and back again.
"Reunion in France" includes "We Do it Because", a ten-minute short from the "Passing Parade" series narrated by John Nesbitt that traces the history, some of it speculative, of customs such as shaking hands, kissing, and using silverware. Also included is the Hanna-Barbera cartoon "War Dogs" that focuses on a plucky mutt going through various trials, most of them ending in comic violence, in the canine version of army boot camp.
"Without Reservations" includes the ten-minute "Pete Smith Specialty" short, "I Love My Husband, But!" which humorously documents the parade of annoyances and ineptitude experienced by a devoted wife with the usual dryly humorous narration by Smith. Also included is the Friz Freleng "Merrie Melodies" cartoon, "Holiday for Shoestrings" in which a group of elves go hard to work at night in a cobbler's shop in sync with music from "The Nutcracker Suite".
"Tycoon" includes the sixteen-minute Technicolor short, "Hollywood Wonderland", which amounts to the cinematic equivalent to a television "clip show". Studio guides take the audience on a backstage tour while highlighting various disciplines that go into making a musical production. Each stop on the tour segues into a production number from a vintage Technicolor short from the 30s illustrating the particular discipline they are highlighting. Also included is the Tex Avery cartoon "Red Hot Rangers" where two bears working as forest rangers are troubled by a pesky anthropomorphized flame.
"Big Jim McLain" includes "So You Think You Want to Enjoy Life", a ten-minute "Joe McDoakes" short in which Joe copes with a suicidal impulse and tells the darkly comic story that brought him to that sorry state. Also included is the Robert McKimson "Looney Tunes" cartoon, "The Super Snooper", in which Daffy Duck plays "Duck Drake", a Private Eye (Ear, Nose, and Throat) who contends with a femme fatale at a murder scene.
"Trouble Along the Way" includes the ten-minute "Joe McDoakes" short, "So You Think You Can't Sleep" in which Joe comically wrestles with insomnia with increasingly extreme, though equally unsuccessful, methods. Also included is the Robert McKimson "Merrie Melodies" short "Muscle Tussle" in which Daffy Duck vies for the affection of his girl at the beach against a huge muscular rival.
Packaging
The discs all come in standard Amaray-style keep cases with no inserts. The case art is based on vintage theatrical posters, and they all have a black matte around the art with a banner at the top that indicates they are part of the "John Wayne Film Collection". The cases are inside of a thin cardboard box which has artwork reminiscent of last year's "John Ford Film Collection".
Summary
While this set will appeal primarily to John Wayne completists, casual fans will likely still enjoy much of its contents. The films are given audio/video transfers that are limited primarily by the conditions of their film elements, which are only occasionally problematic. Extras consist of one vintage theatrical short and one cartoon for each title in addition to theatrical trailers for "Reunion in France", "Big Jim Mclain", and "Trouble Along the Way".
Regards,
