TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection Wave 6
War: Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Dawn Patrol (1938), Gunga Din (1939), Operation Pacific (1951)
Westerns: Chisum (1970), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), The Stalking Moon (1968), Ride the High Country (1962)
Studio: Warner
Year: Various 1938-1973
Release Date: May 4, 2010
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection
As with previous entries in the series, both of the releases in the sixth wave of the TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection series pull together the most recent DVD masterings of four films from the catalog controlled by Warner Home Video.
Each of these entries in the series encodes its four films across two double-sided "flipper" discs. The discs are packaged in a standard Amaray-style case with a hinged tray allowing it to accommodate both discs. The hard case is inserted into a cardboard slipcover with slightly glossier graphics that are identical to the hard case on the front, but different and more promotional in nature on the back.
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: War
In the case of the "War" entry, contents are bit-identical to the previous R1 releases of all four titles and include all of the content previously available on those single disc releases.
Battle of the Bulge (1965 - Warner Bros - 169 minutes)
Directed By: Ken Annakin
Starring: Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews, Pier Angeli, Barbara Werle, George Montgomery, Ty Hardin, Charles Bronson, Hans Christian Blech, Werner Peters, James MacArthur, and Telly Savalas
Aspect Ratio: 2.2:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1: English
Original DVD Release: May 3, 2005 also part of World War II Collection, Vol. 1 - Battlefront Europe box set released concurrently)
The Dawn Patrol (1938 - Warner Bros. - NR - 103 Minutes)
Director: Edmund Goulding
Starring: Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven, Donald Crisp, Melville Cooper, Barry Fitzgerald, Carl Esmond
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English
Original DVD Release: March 27, 2007, also part of the Errol Flynn Signature Collection Volume Two released concurrently
Gunga Din (1939 - RKO - NR - 117 Minutes)
Director: George Stevens
Starring: Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joan Fontaine, San Jaffe, Eduardo Ciannelli
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English
Original DVD Release: December 7th, 2004
Operation Pacific (1951 - Warner Bros. - NR - 109 Minutes)
Director: George Waggner
Starring: John Wayne, Patricia Neal, Ward Bond, Philip Carey
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Subtitles: English SDH, French
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English, French, Spanish
Original DVD Release: May 13, 2003
Extras
All four films include original theatrical trailers.
The Battle of the Bulge includes two featurettes: The Filming of "The Battle of the Bulge" and History Recreated
The Dawn Patrol includes a "Warner Night at the Movies" 1938 short subject gallery including a vintage newsreel clip, The Prisoner of Swing musical short, Romance Road musical short, What Price Porky? Looney Tunes cartoon, and a trailer for "Four's a Crowd".
Gunga Din includes a Commentary by Film Historian Rudy Behlmer, "On Location with Gunga Din" featurette, "The Film Fan" Looney Tunes Cartoon, and a 1957 Re-release Trailer.
Operation Pacific includes menu text-based Cast/Director Film Highlights.
Detailed Assessments
For a detailed assessment of the A/V Quality and extras for Batle of the Bulge please click on the following link for Herb Kane's forum review.
For The Dawn Patrol, my forum review of the "Errol Flynn Signature Collection Volume 2" can be found at this link.
For Gunga Din, please click on the following link for Herb Kane's forum review.
There is no archived forum review for Operation Pacific so I will address it briefly here. The film itself is about as "standard" a John Wayne war film as one is likely to encounter. It does not achieve the cinematic heights of films like "They Were Expendable" and "Sands of Iwo Jima", mostly due to its tendency to get bogged down in its melodramtic romance plot between Wayne and Patricia Neal. While the filmmakers likely threw in the dull domestic drama and schmaltzy sequences involving the rescue of nuns and orphans out of a desire to avoid being like every other submarine movie, the parts of the film that work best are the ones that are the most conventional. The action scenes are generally top notch, in particular the battle sequence at the film's center where Ward Bond's submarine Commander makes a heroic effort that proves central to all of the film's subsequent plot threads. Also entertaining are the efforts by Wayne and his crew on land to solve a problem involving torpedo detonations through experimentation. While it's no Dam Busters and the science is presented pretty inauthentically, I am always willing to provide bonus points to films that portray engineering and science work heroically. As for the presentation on DVD, it was a pretty average presentation by 2003 DVD standards and it does not look much better from the vantage point of 2010. The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio track is solid and generally well-encoded, with a well-produced mix employing sound effects so effectively during the action sequences that it helps to sell the crude by modern standards miniature work. The 4:3 black and white video presentation is a bit lacking due to compression artifacts and a somewhat worn element used for transfer (even when forgiving the inherently rough nature of stock combat footage and vintage 1951 opticals). That being said, the range of greyscale looks appropriate and edge enhancement is minimal to non-existent.
Packaging
The films are spread across two DVD-18s.
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Westerns
In the case of the "Western" entry in the series, contents are bit-identical to the previous single disc R1 DVD releases of Chisum, The Stalking Moon, and Ride the High Country, and
Chisum (1970 - Warner/Batjac - G - 112 Minutes)
Director: Andrew V. McLagen
Starring: John Wayne, Forrest Tucker, Christopher George, Ben Johnson, Bruce Cabot, Glenn Corbett, Patric Knowles, Andrew Prine, Richard Jaeckel, Lynda Day, Geoffery Deuel, Pamela McMyler
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English, French
Original DVD Release: June 3, 2003
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973/2005 (recut) - MGM - R - 115 Minutes)
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Jason Robards, Bob Dylan
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English, French
Original DVD Release: January 10, 2006 also released concurrently as part of the Sam Peckinpah Legendary Westerns Collection box set.
The Stalking Moon (1968 - Warner/National General - G - 110 Minutes)
Director: Robert Mulligan
Starring: Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint, Robert Forster, Noland Clay
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English
Original DVD Release: August 26, 2008 - also released concurrently as part of the Warner Home Video Western Classics Collection Box Set
Ride the High Country (1962 - MGM - NR - 94 Minutes)
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Mariette Hartley
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English, French
Original DVD Release: January 10, 2006 also released concurrently as part of the Sam Peckinpah Legendary Westerns Collection box set
Extras
All films except The Stalking Moon include original theatrical trailers.
Chisum includes a Commentary by Director Andrew V. McLagen, and a Vintage "John Wayne and Chisum" Featurette
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid includes a Commentary by Peckinpah Biographers/Documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, and David Weddle, a Sam Peckinpah Trailer Gallery, and a James Dean Collection DVD Promo
The Stalking Moon includes no extras.
Ride the High Country includes Commentary by Peckinpah Biographers/Documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, and David Weddle, "A Justified Life: Sam Peckinpah and the High Country" Featurette, and a Sam Peckinpah Trailer Gallery
Detailed Assessments
For a detailed assessment of the A/V Quality and extras for Chisum please click on the following link for Stuart Galbraith's forum review of the original release.
For The Stalking Moon, a detailed assessment can be found in my forum review of the Warner Home Video Western Classics Collection available at this link.
There is no archived forum review for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid or Ride the High Country, so I will offer some brief thoughts on them here.
Juxtaposing Sam Peckinpah's second theatrical western, 1962's Ride the High Country with his last, 1973's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, provides for an interesting illustration of his development as a filmmaker as well as his deteriorating relationship with movie studios. Ride the High Country touches on many of the themes that would recur in Peckinpah's subsequent work and his westerns in particular. His fascination with the passing of the old west and the encroachment of civilization is in full effect, as illustrated by a line of dialog early in the film: "The day of the Forty-niner is gone. The day of the steady businessman has arrived." While the kinetic editing style and utra-violence that would come to define Peckinpah are not yet in evidence, the film still bears his distinctive auteurist stamp, departing from the studio norms more in its thematic than its technical approach. The casting of aging western stars Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea as a pair of aging former lawmen adds a certain "meta" level to the proceedings suggesting a parallel between the "Old West" and the traditional Western genre both having "run their course". McCrea and Scott both give outstanding performances that simultaneously build upon and gently subvert their distinguished histories in the genre.
By the time Peckinpah made Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid a decade or so later, revisionism and post-modernism had turned the gernre on its ear with 60s European filmmakers such as Sergio Leone injecting a strain of anti-heroism and upping the violence ante and late 60s/early 70s American films from the likes of Peckinpah and Robert Altman putting their own personal stamps on the genre. By the mid 1970s, Peckinpah had ruined and rehabbed his reputation as a filmmaker multiple times. The Nadir of his early career had come during the production of 1965's Major Dundee during which he developed a reputation as a wild man on set and embroiled himself in constant battles with Producer Jerry Bresler and studio Columbia Pictures. The end result was a film with which nobody was completely happy. Having overcome this negative perception over the course of several years, history appeared to be repeating itself with Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Peckinpah bristled over attempts by MGM studio head James Aubrey to creatively meddle in the film's production. The studio in turn fretted over Peckinpah'a apparent personal volatility as well as reports of his binge drinking on location. As a result, the film was taken out of Peckinpah's hands and finished without the benefit of his creative direction. The theatrical cut has actually never appeared on DVD. In 1988, a "theatrical preview cut" was discovered and released on laserdisc. Never intended as a final cut, this at least had the advantage of being assembled with Peckinpah's participation and had several significant structural changes compared to the theatrical cut, most significantly a prologue and epilogue dealing with Garrett's later years. When a DVD was released in 2006, it included both the 1988 preview version and a new 2005 cut assembled by film editor and Peckinpah scholar Paul Seydor. This version tightens up the editing of the preview cut, mixes in some elements of the theatrical cut, and includes a few extra scenes that never appeared in either, most significantly a scene between Pat Garrett and his wife that reportedly was supposed to have been included in the preview cut. This cut shortens a number of scenes and, most curiously, deletes the epilogue that Peckinpah fought for with the studio. This release contains only the 2005 Special Edition cut of the film. While in many ways this is the most watchable and polished version of the film, it seems strange to not give preference to the preview cut which is the one cut of the film in which Peckinpah had a direct hand. In any case, the film remains a fascinating, messy, occasionally frustrating, but always interesting elegiac meditation on themes of mortality, self-destruction, and men being passed over by their times and/or the institutions they serve.
The DVD presentation of Ride the High Country is a fine rendering of a somewhat limited film element. The "Metrocolor" hues appear to be a bit faded and softened in contrast, but it appears that digital tools were employed discretely to clean up the picture and provide a consistent visual experience. The visual quality of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is considerably better, with excellent shadow detail, deeply saturated colors, and a generally filmlike appearance free from significant signs of element wear and tear. The color timing seems a bit unnaturally tilted towards orange and magenta, but this will likely only be a problem for the most critical of viewers. Both films receive Dolby Digital 1.0 mono tracks, and as with the video quality, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid fares a bit better, mostly due to improved dynamic range and a wider frequency response. Both films feature full length commentaries, from the same group of four Peckinpah scholars. They come off a bit dry but informative on Ride the High Country, but are a lot more energized on Pat Garrett and Billy the Kids, largely because of the films messy and interesting production and editorial history. For people interested in learning about Peckinpah's formative years, the Sam Peckinpah: A Justified Life featurette on the Ride the High Country DVD consists primarily of an extended interview with his sister, Fern Lea Peter.
Packaging
The films are spread across two DVD-18 "flippers".
Summary
Everything old is new yet again in the case of these sets of re-packaged titles from TCM/Warner. All of the sets present excellent value for those who do not already own these films in any of their prior incarnations with nothing new beyond packaging to entice viewers who already own them all.
War: Battle of the Bulge (1965), The Dawn Patrol (1938), Gunga Din (1939), Operation Pacific (1951)
Westerns: Chisum (1970), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), The Stalking Moon (1968), Ride the High Country (1962)
Studio: Warner
Year: Various 1938-1973
Release Date: May 4, 2010
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection
As with previous entries in the series, both of the releases in the sixth wave of the TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection series pull together the most recent DVD masterings of four films from the catalog controlled by Warner Home Video.
Each of these entries in the series encodes its four films across two double-sided "flipper" discs. The discs are packaged in a standard Amaray-style case with a hinged tray allowing it to accommodate both discs. The hard case is inserted into a cardboard slipcover with slightly glossier graphics that are identical to the hard case on the front, but different and more promotional in nature on the back.
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: War
In the case of the "War" entry, contents are bit-identical to the previous R1 releases of all four titles and include all of the content previously available on those single disc releases.
Battle of the Bulge (1965 - Warner Bros - 169 minutes)
Directed By: Ken Annakin
Starring: Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews, Pier Angeli, Barbara Werle, George Montgomery, Ty Hardin, Charles Bronson, Hans Christian Blech, Werner Peters, James MacArthur, and Telly Savalas
Aspect Ratio: 2.2:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1: English
Original DVD Release: May 3, 2005 also part of World War II Collection, Vol. 1 - Battlefront Europe box set released concurrently)
The Dawn Patrol (1938 - Warner Bros. - NR - 103 Minutes)
Director: Edmund Goulding
Starring: Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven, Donald Crisp, Melville Cooper, Barry Fitzgerald, Carl Esmond
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English
Original DVD Release: March 27, 2007, also part of the Errol Flynn Signature Collection Volume Two released concurrently
Gunga Din (1939 - RKO - NR - 117 Minutes)
Director: George Stevens
Starring: Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joan Fontaine, San Jaffe, Eduardo Ciannelli
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English
Original DVD Release: December 7th, 2004
Operation Pacific (1951 - Warner Bros. - NR - 109 Minutes)
Director: George Waggner
Starring: John Wayne, Patricia Neal, Ward Bond, Philip Carey
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Subtitles: English SDH, French
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English, French, Spanish
Original DVD Release: May 13, 2003
Extras
All four films include original theatrical trailers.
The Battle of the Bulge includes two featurettes: The Filming of "The Battle of the Bulge" and History Recreated
The Dawn Patrol includes a "Warner Night at the Movies" 1938 short subject gallery including a vintage newsreel clip, The Prisoner of Swing musical short, Romance Road musical short, What Price Porky? Looney Tunes cartoon, and a trailer for "Four's a Crowd".
Gunga Din includes a Commentary by Film Historian Rudy Behlmer, "On Location with Gunga Din" featurette, "The Film Fan" Looney Tunes Cartoon, and a 1957 Re-release Trailer.
Operation Pacific includes menu text-based Cast/Director Film Highlights.
Detailed Assessments
For a detailed assessment of the A/V Quality and extras for Batle of the Bulge please click on the following link for Herb Kane's forum review.
For The Dawn Patrol, my forum review of the "Errol Flynn Signature Collection Volume 2" can be found at this link.
For Gunga Din, please click on the following link for Herb Kane's forum review.
There is no archived forum review for Operation Pacific so I will address it briefly here. The film itself is about as "standard" a John Wayne war film as one is likely to encounter. It does not achieve the cinematic heights of films like "They Were Expendable" and "Sands of Iwo Jima", mostly due to its tendency to get bogged down in its melodramtic romance plot between Wayne and Patricia Neal. While the filmmakers likely threw in the dull domestic drama and schmaltzy sequences involving the rescue of nuns and orphans out of a desire to avoid being like every other submarine movie, the parts of the film that work best are the ones that are the most conventional. The action scenes are generally top notch, in particular the battle sequence at the film's center where Ward Bond's submarine Commander makes a heroic effort that proves central to all of the film's subsequent plot threads. Also entertaining are the efforts by Wayne and his crew on land to solve a problem involving torpedo detonations through experimentation. While it's no Dam Busters and the science is presented pretty inauthentically, I am always willing to provide bonus points to films that portray engineering and science work heroically. As for the presentation on DVD, it was a pretty average presentation by 2003 DVD standards and it does not look much better from the vantage point of 2010. The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio track is solid and generally well-encoded, with a well-produced mix employing sound effects so effectively during the action sequences that it helps to sell the crude by modern standards miniature work. The 4:3 black and white video presentation is a bit lacking due to compression artifacts and a somewhat worn element used for transfer (even when forgiving the inherently rough nature of stock combat footage and vintage 1951 opticals). That being said, the range of greyscale looks appropriate and edge enhancement is minimal to non-existent.
Packaging
The films are spread across two DVD-18s.
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Westerns
In the case of the "Western" entry in the series, contents are bit-identical to the previous single disc R1 DVD releases of Chisum, The Stalking Moon, and Ride the High Country, and
Chisum (1970 - Warner/Batjac - G - 112 Minutes)
Director: Andrew V. McLagen
Starring: John Wayne, Forrest Tucker, Christopher George, Ben Johnson, Bruce Cabot, Glenn Corbett, Patric Knowles, Andrew Prine, Richard Jaeckel, Lynda Day, Geoffery Deuel, Pamela McMyler
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English, French
Original DVD Release: June 3, 2003
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973/2005 (recut) - MGM - R - 115 Minutes)
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Jason Robards, Bob Dylan
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English, French
Original DVD Release: January 10, 2006 also released concurrently as part of the Sam Peckinpah Legendary Westerns Collection box set.
The Stalking Moon (1968 - Warner/National General - G - 110 Minutes)
Director: Robert Mulligan
Starring: Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint, Robert Forster, Noland Clay
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English
Original DVD Release: August 26, 2008 - also released concurrently as part of the Warner Home Video Western Classics Collection Box Set
Ride the High Country (1962 - MGM - NR - 94 Minutes)
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Mariette Hartley
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: Dolby Digital 1.0: English, French
Original DVD Release: January 10, 2006 also released concurrently as part of the Sam Peckinpah Legendary Westerns Collection box set
Extras
All films except The Stalking Moon include original theatrical trailers.
Chisum includes a Commentary by Director Andrew V. McLagen, and a Vintage "John Wayne and Chisum" Featurette
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid includes a Commentary by Peckinpah Biographers/Documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, and David Weddle, a Sam Peckinpah Trailer Gallery, and a James Dean Collection DVD Promo
The Stalking Moon includes no extras.
Ride the High Country includes Commentary by Peckinpah Biographers/Documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, and David Weddle, "A Justified Life: Sam Peckinpah and the High Country" Featurette, and a Sam Peckinpah Trailer Gallery
Detailed Assessments
For a detailed assessment of the A/V Quality and extras for Chisum please click on the following link for Stuart Galbraith's forum review of the original release.
For The Stalking Moon, a detailed assessment can be found in my forum review of the Warner Home Video Western Classics Collection available at this link.
There is no archived forum review for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid or Ride the High Country, so I will offer some brief thoughts on them here.
Juxtaposing Sam Peckinpah's second theatrical western, 1962's Ride the High Country with his last, 1973's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, provides for an interesting illustration of his development as a filmmaker as well as his deteriorating relationship with movie studios. Ride the High Country touches on many of the themes that would recur in Peckinpah's subsequent work and his westerns in particular. His fascination with the passing of the old west and the encroachment of civilization is in full effect, as illustrated by a line of dialog early in the film: "The day of the Forty-niner is gone. The day of the steady businessman has arrived." While the kinetic editing style and utra-violence that would come to define Peckinpah are not yet in evidence, the film still bears his distinctive auteurist stamp, departing from the studio norms more in its thematic than its technical approach. The casting of aging western stars Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea as a pair of aging former lawmen adds a certain "meta" level to the proceedings suggesting a parallel between the "Old West" and the traditional Western genre both having "run their course". McCrea and Scott both give outstanding performances that simultaneously build upon and gently subvert their distinguished histories in the genre.
By the time Peckinpah made Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid a decade or so later, revisionism and post-modernism had turned the gernre on its ear with 60s European filmmakers such as Sergio Leone injecting a strain of anti-heroism and upping the violence ante and late 60s/early 70s American films from the likes of Peckinpah and Robert Altman putting their own personal stamps on the genre. By the mid 1970s, Peckinpah had ruined and rehabbed his reputation as a filmmaker multiple times. The Nadir of his early career had come during the production of 1965's Major Dundee during which he developed a reputation as a wild man on set and embroiled himself in constant battles with Producer Jerry Bresler and studio Columbia Pictures. The end result was a film with which nobody was completely happy. Having overcome this negative perception over the course of several years, history appeared to be repeating itself with Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Peckinpah bristled over attempts by MGM studio head James Aubrey to creatively meddle in the film's production. The studio in turn fretted over Peckinpah'a apparent personal volatility as well as reports of his binge drinking on location. As a result, the film was taken out of Peckinpah's hands and finished without the benefit of his creative direction. The theatrical cut has actually never appeared on DVD. In 1988, a "theatrical preview cut" was discovered and released on laserdisc. Never intended as a final cut, this at least had the advantage of being assembled with Peckinpah's participation and had several significant structural changes compared to the theatrical cut, most significantly a prologue and epilogue dealing with Garrett's later years. When a DVD was released in 2006, it included both the 1988 preview version and a new 2005 cut assembled by film editor and Peckinpah scholar Paul Seydor. This version tightens up the editing of the preview cut, mixes in some elements of the theatrical cut, and includes a few extra scenes that never appeared in either, most significantly a scene between Pat Garrett and his wife that reportedly was supposed to have been included in the preview cut. This cut shortens a number of scenes and, most curiously, deletes the epilogue that Peckinpah fought for with the studio. This release contains only the 2005 Special Edition cut of the film. While in many ways this is the most watchable and polished version of the film, it seems strange to not give preference to the preview cut which is the one cut of the film in which Peckinpah had a direct hand. In any case, the film remains a fascinating, messy, occasionally frustrating, but always interesting elegiac meditation on themes of mortality, self-destruction, and men being passed over by their times and/or the institutions they serve.
The DVD presentation of Ride the High Country is a fine rendering of a somewhat limited film element. The "Metrocolor" hues appear to be a bit faded and softened in contrast, but it appears that digital tools were employed discretely to clean up the picture and provide a consistent visual experience. The visual quality of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is considerably better, with excellent shadow detail, deeply saturated colors, and a generally filmlike appearance free from significant signs of element wear and tear. The color timing seems a bit unnaturally tilted towards orange and magenta, but this will likely only be a problem for the most critical of viewers. Both films receive Dolby Digital 1.0 mono tracks, and as with the video quality, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid fares a bit better, mostly due to improved dynamic range and a wider frequency response. Both films feature full length commentaries, from the same group of four Peckinpah scholars. They come off a bit dry but informative on Ride the High Country, but are a lot more energized on Pat Garrett and Billy the Kids, largely because of the films messy and interesting production and editorial history. For people interested in learning about Peckinpah's formative years, the Sam Peckinpah: A Justified Life featurette on the Ride the High Country DVD consists primarily of an extended interview with his sister, Fern Lea Peter.
Packaging
The films are spread across two DVD-18 "flippers".
Summary
Everything old is new yet again in the case of these sets of re-packaged titles from TCM/Warner. All of the sets present excellent value for those who do not already own these films in any of their prior incarnations with nothing new beyond packaging to entice viewers who already own them all.
