Product Details

• Actors: Marta Becket
• Directors: Todd Robinson
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: G (General Audience)
• Studio: Cinequest
• DVD Release Date: December 5, 2006
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000JLTSBW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #115,773 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Cinequest Inc. Release Date: 06/19/2007 Run time: 93 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating portrait of an artist, loner, dancer, free spirit, american woman, January 20, 2006

By 

T. Bryson "rabbit27" (Los Angeles, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Amargosa (DVD)

This is a lovely, fascinating, and OUTSTANDING documentary portraying Marta Beckett's development of the Amargosa Opera House...an abandoned theatre on the edge of Death Valley which she renovated, painting an audience on the walls and performing her vaudeville style ballets and skits. And then the real audience came. She was profiled in National Geographic in the 70's and is still performing. The documentary also discusses her help with saving wild burros and horses, the haunted hotel, and the local handyman who became her friend and colleague.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marta and Co., Oh How You Shine!, August 13, 2007

By 

Erin K. Booth "Library Aide" (Amargosa Valley, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Amargosa (DVD)

This is one of the truly most beautiful films I have ever experienced.

Not wanting to spoil it for anyone, I will say that you will be moved more then you could ever possibly imagine watching and ultimately experiencing it. From the beauty that is Amargosa and Death Valley themselves to the beautiful and multi-talented Marta Becket and company and her story - oh my gosh, what a Diamond mine in the desert this is!

I'm a newly implanted Amargosa Valley Resident myself who was interested in finding out about Marta's story and I have to say that having not been on a stage for awhile myself, I am inspired once again and I have Marta to thank for it, not to mention everyone in the film. They all have something significant to say and oh but the true beauty of Death Valley Junction and the surrounding area...the animals and people...you will love this, I know it! I was moved more then once to tears. A good thing!

The only thing I have left to do now is to make it to her performances.

Shine on, Marta and company!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Don't Fence Her In", May 30, 2008

By 

Susan K. Schoonover "Sue Yingling" (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Amargosa (DVD)

AMARGOSA is the story of Marta Beckett an artist and dancer who at the age of 43 left her native Manhattan to settle in a tiny isolated town in the California desert called Death Valley Junction. The town was developed in the early 20th century for the Borax mining industry but at the time Marta first came there it was a virtual ghost town with an abandoned theater and hotel that Marta and her then husband renovated. Marta soon covered the walls with intricate murals and begin giving solo dance performances as her audience gradually expanded.

The film meanders at time with too lengthy sequences concerning the possibility of the hotel being haunted, Marta feeding the wild horses and the shooting of wild burros by Death Valley National Park rangers. Yet the film is quite fascinating when Marta talks about her relationships - the complicated bond with her controlling but artistically nurturing mother, the breakup of her marriage to her husband because he took second place to her artistic visions and her unlikely late in life partnership with Tom a roto rooter operator who joins her on stage as a clumsy clown to her delicate dancer. Marta describes her life in the desert as one little yellow flower blooming all by itself and that is the image I will remember from this documentary about a strong and unusual woman.