MGM/Fox May War/Western/Comedy titles (1 Viewer)

[Simon Howson]

Andrew V. McLaglen is a pretty well known director, he just isn't particularly good!

He isn't as good as (The Gunfight at Dodge City director) Joseph M. Newman, who is under rated, hence I went for that film instead of The Way West.

I think the Top 1000 voter ratings are more accurate than the over all ratings. The Top 1000 voter mean for The Way West is just 5.8, instead of 6.2 for all voters..

Of course these ratings still aren't a determination of quality, they are just a guide!

 

[Deepak Shenoy]

I have found a good correlation between the IMDB ratings and my own estimation of the merits of a movie - of course this isn't always true especially for recent releases like Transformers that end up with ratings like 9.0/10.0 during their first few weeks.

Of course there are people on this forum like Crawdaddy who seem to be familiar with just about every old movie out there but in my case if an old movie is not on DVD yet, chances are I probably haven't seen it. In fact DVDs (and of course forums like this one) are what helped me discover the wonderful world of cinema beyond the latest blockbusters.

-D

 

[Robert Crawford]

Deepak,
IMO, I never really liked "The Way West" because even though it had a great cast, it never really worked for me. Some of the characters I just didn't care for and I've heard stories that some of the cast members such as Douglas and Widmark didn't get along which might have contributed to the lack of chemistry in their performances. The direction and writing are nothing to write home, but I will still pick it up and ditch my DVD-R copy from TCM.

As for as "Gunfight at Dodge City", it's a fair western at best, but I liked Joel McCrea's performance in it. It's a tight film with a runtime less than 90 minutes with some enjoyable action scenes. Also, the film is in no way historically correct when it comes to Bat Masterson. This too, I'll pickup to replace a DVD-R cop from TCM.

The only film I won't buy from this group of westerns is the Italian western "Navajo Joe" which I've seen many years ago, but I never liked it and have no interest in buying the dvd.





Crawdaddy

 

[Haggai]

I haven't seen Navajo Joe either, but part of the score excerpt that Andy linked to might sound familiar: it was used in one of the last scenes of Kill Bill Vol. 2.

 

[BethHarrison]

Is it just me, or have these titles disappeared from DVDpacific? My order for The Westerner is still there, but when I went to order the others, they had been removed.

 

[John Hodson]

No, not just you Beth. All the upcoming Fox/MGM titles have gone awol, though the last time I looked they were showing as being available from DVDPacific on the dvdpricesearch.com search engine.

They were in my wishlist, now they've all gone. I asked Pacific about this last week, and I get the impression they think I'm nuts (they may well be right...), but I think there is definitely something wrong with their database.

The clincher was when dvdpricesearch added the upcoming Carmen Miranda box to their listings at the weekend; yes, it was showing as being available from Pacific, click on the title to buy it...well, nothing really. Quite frustrating; the last I heard from them was a 'these titles will be added in due course', but they *were* there, and I wonder if it will cause problems to those who successfully preordered?

BTW, here's something else that's screwy; Pacific's new search box seems to autocomplete titles in their database; it's slow, but give it time and it seems to come up with the goods. Tap in 'Fox Classic Western' and eventually it will be there in a little drop down box 'Fox Classic Western Collection [3 Discs]', click on it and...again nothing. Really screwy.

 

[John Hodson]

Whatever was wrong has been fixed; all the titles are there, all of 'em are in my wishlist.

 

[BethHarrison]

Cheers John, just went in and ordered the rest.

Pacific has been doing that to me an awful lot lately!

Really looking forward to these titles!!

 

[Simon Howson]

 

[walter o]

Seems like Fox is in charge of the sleeve artwork, as WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE WAR DADDY is the orignal art work (while the other two are close to or in the spirit of things) which Fox does. Some of the other covers on these releases are still the typical MGM "fluorescent" photo shop style though.

 

[Jay E]

All of these titles are part of the buy 2, get 1 free sale at DeepDiscount. I will be ordering quite a few of these in a few minutes.

Three $14.95 titles can be had for around $20.

 

[Brent Avery]

Good news, I found copies of most of the MGM and Fox releases for the upcoming May 13 release date. Here are a few captures. First one up is Man Of The West.




















Next up is Garden Of Evil. Fox has made all three films included in the "Western Classics" collection ( also part of the Cinema Classics Collection as advertised on the cases ) available in the slimline cases and each has an insert with scene selections on one side and a reprint of the cover on the other.

 

[Simon Howson]

Thanks very much Brent! We can say conclusively that DVDSavant got it wrong regarding the aspect ratio of Garden of Evil, it looks about 2.5:1, which is closer to 2.55:1 than 2.35:1. He needs to replace his TV.

I've put a comparison of the R2 and R1 versions of Garden of Evil in this post.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/3368730-post76.html

 

[Brent Avery]

I did some quick captures - mainly because never having the pleasure of watching it I was somewhat anxious to do so. Having done so I can say the image is better than presented here - outstanding cinematography throughout the film - with a pretty decent presence regarding the audio. There is a Dolby 4.0 Surround offered but I only had one amp on operating 2 channel. It was fairly directional even at that ( the dialog ), the Bernard Hermann score being quite impressive. I will have check it out in Surround mode, should sound even better I am sure.

 

[DanMel]

Anyone know the picture quality for The Westerner? I was just curious if it looked any better than the long out of print HBO release, which wasn't all that great. I'm thinking it will be an exact copy as MGM isn't all that big on restoration of their older movies.

 

[Simon Howson]

I think it will be the same too. Most of the MGM re-issues of the Goldwyn films end up looking exactly the same.

 

[Jay E]

Review of Navajo Joe is up at DVDdrive-in. Looks like I may go ahead and order this:

Navajo Joe

 

[CineKarine]

Maybe this can help: DVD Beaver

 

[DanMel]

Thanks for the link.

I also found that dvd beaver now has comparsions between Man of the West new R1 and old R2 here:

Man of the West Gary Cooper Anthony Mann

There is no question that the new release has a more accurate rendering of the colors and the brightness and contrast look much better to me.

As for The Westerner, I never owned the 1998 HBO version but did get a port over from an asian release that was suppose to be using the same disc and this version looks better than that or any versions that tcm has run in the last year.

 

[Douglas R]

I could not disagree more. Most modern DVD artwork is unimaginative and focused solely on emphasising who stars in the film. Original poster art of the 40s and 50s is vastly more imaginative and accomplished; was drawn by experienced, talented artists, has stood the test of time and, incidentally, now fetch huge prices at auctions - something which modern photoshop artwork will never achieve. If anything looks "cheap" it is most modern DVD "artwork".