Customer Reviews

The John Ford Film Collection (The Informer / Mary of Scotland / The Lost Patrol / Cheyenne Autumn / Sergeant Rutledge)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The John Ford collection is a set of vintage Ford films,without John Wayne while and I would NOT have included Mary of Scotland,and would have preferred either The Plough and the Stars,or The Fugitive (Henry Fonda)or the underrated Two Rode Together,this is still a very good film set.There is a separate Ford-Wayne collection,which I will review latter.The five films,in this collection are: The Lost Patrol;The Informer;Cheyenne Autumn:Mary of Scotland:Sergeant Rutledge: The following are my reviews of each individul film.

1.THE LOST PATROL-TENSE ANTI-WAR CLASSIC!*****
A British army Patrol,during the time of WW1, in the Mesopotamian desert gets lost,after their commander is killed,and he has left no notes or orders,in regard to their mission or exact location.With
their leader dead the small group's command falls to Sergeant Victor McLaglen.After a journey of unknown length,the patrol finds an oasis,and it is here where most of the action takes place as they are pinned down by (mostly unseen) Arab fighters.It is here where we really get to meet the men and get to know their hopes and fears.The other men include J.M.Kerrigan(as Quincannn-probably the most frequently used name in a Ford film!),Reginald Denny (Brown),Wallace Ford( excellent as Moretti),Boris Karloff,(,outstanding as Sanders-a religious fanatic),and Douglas Walton,as callow youth,who when he leaves for the service he relates that that was the ONLY time he saw his mother cry.This is (to me) one of the dramtic highlight so the film,when we see 19 year old Walton(about 25,in real life) pours his heart out to McLaglen.This scene,even more so than others shows the futility of war. Great direction,a great screenplay(Dudley Nichols,Ford's favorote writer,at the time-THE INFORMER-STAGECOACH),a fine Max Steiner score,and an excellent DVD transfer. A GREAT ANTI-WAR AND(mildly) ANTI-IMPERIALIST FILM,AND A MUST SEE!

MARY OF SCOTLAND:KATHERINE HEPBURN-FREDRIC MARCH **1/2
Katherine Hepburn,in her only Ford film,is Mary, Queens of Scots.This motion picture is derived from a Maxwell Anderson Play,and a screenplay by Dudley Nichols.To me of what I've seen of Ford's thirties films,"Mary of Scotland" it is Ford's least-good films of the period.Watchable,but forgettable.Two and one half stars.

THE INFORMER:VICTOR MCLAGLEN'S FINEST HOUR *****
The story of "the troubles",in Ireland, in told in a very somber way in the John Ford classic "The Informer",with Victor McLaglen(a Ford regular)giving an AA winning performance in the title role.McLaglen plays Gypo Nolan,a down and out Dubliner,who is without money,and because of this and having been recently "dismissed" from the IRA(Irish Republican Army'freedom fighters,hoping to obtain a united and totally free Ireland,with no British ties whatsoever) and because he is also in jeopardy of losing his girlfried Margot Grahame,(outstanding)as he is in a greatly strained emotional state,and when wondering the streets comes upon a reward poster for "IRA murderer"Frankie McPhillip(Wallace Ford-no relation to the director).The reward is worth enough so that both Gypo and his girl can get passage to America.A short while latter Gypo accidentally runs into Frankie,an old friend,and they have a short conversion about Frankie being on the run,how Frankes's mother is,and the reasons why Gypo was "sacked" from the(in this coversion a "Quincannon" is mentioned) IRA,after the conversion ends the wheels start to turn in Gypo's head and he wonders over to the "Black and Tans"station(the Black and Tans,so-called becuse of their uniforms,are special British militiary(police)men assigned to Ireland when "the troubles" are at their height,""Up the Irish" or in this film,"Up the Rebels" types may look at the B&T's as THE REAL TERRORISTS,but that's for another discussion)and reluctanly tells the "Brits" that Frankie will be at his mother's.After Frankie is killed in a shoot-out,Gypo is given disdainfully(even the B&T's don"t like Informers) his money and goes.Drinking,fighting,and partying are on the night's program for Gypo,but his drining is only a mask,to hide his emotional breakdown from his wicked deed.The IRA figures out what went on,in regard to Frankie's death, and Gypo is a doomed man!
Other supporting members of the cast are very good to excellent,J.M.Kerrigan,Preston Foster,Donald Meek,Joseph (then Sauers)Sawyer,and Una'Connor as Frankie's mother who is a bite "over the top" early in the film,but comes through poignanly at the coclusion.From a LiamO'Flaherty story,an excellent Dudley Nichols screenplay,with a haunting Max Steiner musical score,and a very crisp and clear DVD transfer.The ONLY MINUS NO DVD COMMETARY-A MUST SEE!!


CHEYENNE AUTUMN-DESPITE FLAWS ALMOST A CLASSIC ****
Ignoring "Fort Apache",and the anti-racism of "The Searchers",many critics (falsely) claim that John Ford set an anti-Native American(Indian) tone in films that increased racism in America.Well, whatever truth there is to either side of the argument is,in this film John Ford,in his last Western,is FIRMLY on the Indians side.But is was still (somewhat justified)critised fom casting,in VERY IMPORTANT roles none-Idians,especially The Victor Jory,Gilbert Roland,Richardo Montalban,Dolores Del Reo,and Sal Mineo(!)roles.
This motion picture tells the true story of the Cheyenne's plight at the hand of "THE GREAT FATHER" and their trek,and persuit(by U.S.troops) back to their Yellowstone homeland.
On the minus side is the appearrance of Carroll Baker(miscast) as a Quaker school marm) and Karl Malden,with an"over the top performance" as a muderous,racist American(German born) General.The screenplay by James Webb(Pork Chop Hill,The Big Country,Cape Fear) is lacklustre,and the comic interlude of Jimmy Stewart(as Wyatt Earp) with Arthur KennedyI"Doc" Holliday) and John Carradine(a dishonest gambler) and a bunch of hooligian ,led by Ken Curtis is out of place,and NOT VERY FUNNYI did lke Elizebeth Allen,was a damsel of ill-repute.This is a heart-felt film by John Ford with good performances by Richard Widmark as a "liberal" U.S. "horse soldier",and LaBaker's love interest,and in a cameo Edward G.Robinson.The musical score by Alex North is OK,but I would have preferred Elmer Bernstein.An An excellent DVD transfer.Despite my misgivings,4 stars.

SERGEANT RUTLEDGE-ANTI RACIST CLASSIC WESTERN *****

In this unheralded John Ford anti-racist Western, set in 1881,Sergeant Braxton Rutledge(Woody Stode) is accussed of rape and murder,and mostly in flashbacks the events of his accusation,his fleeing,and trial are told.The pace is perfect and acting and direction excellent.In his third Ford film Jeffery Hunter proves again that he was a very underrated actor.His performance is excellent,also good are Constance Towers,as Hunter's love interest and Braxton sympathizer,Willis Bouchey(a Ford grouchy regular),Juano Hernandez,Routledge's fellow "Buffalo Soldier",and sort of "father figure".for the rest of the black soldier's,and Charleton Young(another Ford regular) as the intentially racist prosecutor.But it is Strode(a Ford regular,in support roles) who carries the film.His pride and dignity are evident, in every scene in which he appears.There re two ways to look at this film,or more properly to look at Hollywood,either this film was way ahead of its time or Hollywood took to long to look at U.S. race relations,in any meaning manner.The anti-racists films,of Hollywood, did not really start to make an appearance until the late 1940's,with films such as "PINKY" and the 1950 film debut of Sidney Poitier in "NO WAY OUT"(see my review)My opinion is "so-called liberal Hollywood"(remember the blacklist) was and is always interested IN PROFITS,and NOT PREACHING!.
A GREAT FILM by "AMERICA'S GREATEST DIRECTOR!!
Excellent DVD transfer,but no commetary.5-stars!!

For fans of John Ford this will be a long-awaited set of previously unreleased films made by the great between spanning a period between the 30's till the 60's. Titles included are a great choice, personally I would have liked to see 'The Hurricane' in this one or another title starring Dorothy Lamour with whom he worked on several films, but that's just my opinion!
As usual, the price for the whole collection is reasonable, much more so than just buying the individual titles.

This collection is of hard to find films. The Informer, Mary of Scotland and SGT Rutledge are impossible to see other than on TMC. Cheyanne Autumn is a frequent flyer on the Western Channel. If you are a Ford film collector, this grouping is a must. Movies then and now are not history and are entertainment and a cinematic view of director,writer, cinemetographer and editor. Not to mention the cast of thousands like actors and grips etc. Movies are great because for a couple of hours, they launch you into entertainment on all levels and unlike a book which is almost always the author as the main conductor of entertainment. Movies take a ton of different talents and blend them into the film. the director is just that and compiles these talents. This, tempered withj the studio system, mad movies then. Now, who knows, few are going to be on the TCMs of the future. Holly wood takes old miovies ideas and revamps them to modern standards because,I think, they are running out of ideas. Remember the line "Actors had faces"! Now they are just computer images! Soon the entire Hollywood movie industry will be in one building on a bunch of computers. John Ford and his compatriots from the B and C movies, serials and newsreels, the Black Film industry brought us the spirit of movies.

Any collection that has The Lost Patrol has got to be worth the 40 bucks. That movie and Boris Karloff alone is something to behold. But this collection also contains Sgt Rutlidge which a movie way before its time. Mary Queen of Scots, I wasn't even aware was a John Ford Movie. The Informer another great and Cheyene Autumn. I think this set has a little bit of something for everyone. I just wish that we knew if this was the 66 minute watered down version of Lost Patrol or the original uncut version.

I agree with one reviewer that "The Hurricane" should have been included. Also, "Three Bad Man" and "The Iron Horse" need to be accessed but they very likely still belong to Fox. My take on the films here:

"The Lost Patrol" Victor McLaglen and Boris Karloff made an odd team indeed. McLaglen has led this patrol to somewhere in North Africa and he has to thankless job to hold his men together to maintain his own sense of sanity. Karloff already lost his and there's really not much anyone can do until the rest of the troops find them. Almost ten years later, Bogart would star with an all male cast in "Sahara", but the outcome would be different. Kurasawa may have been influeneced with the simple graves at the end as he used graves to an even more haunting ending in the "Seven Samurai".

"The Informer" As mentioned in the extras, Ford was very influenced with German Impressionism and loved "Sunrise" that starred George O'Brien, Ford's early star in the above mentioned silent westerns. So, it could be said that this Irish tale is actually a film noir, years before its name was ever invoked. Very sad to watch as the viewer clearly sees that poor Gypo doesn't know what he's doing. This is clearing the best film of this lot and stands as one of the best films Ford has ever done. Very catholic, too, as the poor lad dies forgiven. Kudos to the rest of the cast as well.

"Mary of Scotland" There is actually to lot to like about this movie. After all, this stars Katherine Hepburn who gives great a regal performance not too different from all the other roles she's done. This also costars Fredrick March, who appeared in many high brow movies in this time period. The language is rich but is guilty of being too wordy. It's interesting to compare this to other costume drams that starred actresses of this time period, such as Marlene Dietrich "The Scarlett Empress", (my favorite), Greta Garbo "Queen Christina" (a masterpiece, but it bombed at the time), Norma Shearer "Marie Antoninette" and Bette Davis who got away with several, including two in which she played Elizabeth I.

"Sergeant Rutledge" This is intentionally an umcomfortable film to watch and the same theme was much more sucessful in "To Kill A Mockingbird", made just a year later. It must be said that Woody Strode was a very stiff actor. He was such a demanding presense that he usually was given little or no lines in the movies he appeared. Here, he's the title character, a black man accursed of raping and strangling a white woman. After different viewpoints are shown in flashback, he's called upon to give a speech in which he does say the n word. I actually don't have much problem with Jeffrey Hunter. The guy did what he's supposed to do, but Montgomery Cliff he wasn't. He suffered the same kind of blandness John Agar had. It was the Perry Mason type ending, which was a hit show back then, that I have a problem with. The guilty party confesses only because his conscious bothers him. It's simply not believable.

"Cheyenne Authumn" I actually like this film. True, Gilbert Roland, Ricardo Montaban, Sal Mineo and Dolores del Rio weren't actually native Americans but they wouldn't weren't bad at playing them. Ricard Widmark is between a rock and a hard place when he reluntuntly leads the natives. There's also the Quaker love interest played by Carole Baker. There's tension in every meeting they have. I must commend Ford for having the "got to kill me an Indian" scene. Natives ride up to whites begging for food and one gets murdered and scalped in the process. This is quickly followed with Ford satirizng himself. The killer gets accidently shot, then relunctantly treated by a poker playing Wyatt Earp, played by James Stewart. Then we get the Indians trapped by Karl Marden, who claims he knows all about Indians due to all the books he got about them, most in German. Widmark sneaks off to get Edward G. Robinson and they both get to save the Indians from slaughter for the time being. This is a sad movie to watch but there is much to appreciate here. It was a brave film to make in 1964.

John Ford was arguably the greatest American movie director of the 20th century. His career spanned the end of the silent era to the Vietnam era, and though he is most famous for his Irish films - namely "The Quiet Man" and his John Wayne westerns, this five movie set is an interesting mix of his non-Wayne movies. The development and perfection of his craft can be seen through this range of five films. The people who put this collection together, however, were faced with an impossible task - show the scope, power and breadth of John Ford's career WITHOUT including any John Wayne movies! The actor and director were so inseperable, that the decision to exclude any Wayne film meant that the very best of Ford's movies are missing. And one wonders, seeing most of John Ford's stable of actors wandering through these five movies, except Wayne, if some of these films might not have been better with John Wayne in a starring role.

"The Lost Patrol" is a decent World War I film, that displays the burgeoning talent of the younger John Ford, who had not yet cut his ties to the silent film era. This movie is overdramatized like a silent film, and would only need to have the dialog replaced with cue cards to be a run-of-the-mill silent movie. Yet the promise of Ford's directorship starts to leak through. This movie stars Victor McLaglen, who has trouble deciding if he is acting with a British Accent, an Irish Accent or an American accent and a young, tall Boris Karloff (!). The most interesting thing about this movie is we see the beginning of not only John Ford's family stable of actors in this film, we also see names like Quincannon and Corporal Bell that will appear again and again in Ford's later western films.

"Mary of Scotland" is the only painful movie of the batch. It is a sad costume drama with Katherine Hepburn trying to play the title role. This movie comes off as a stage play performed before the camera. The movie is about as difficult to watch as a mediocre opera, with people in immaculate costumes, posturing their way through dialog, only without singing. I suspect that this was either one of the movies Ford was forced to make for a studio in order to get the funding for a project he would have preferred to do, or else it was one of those director's pet projects that would better have been shelved. In a "garage" full of Ford classics, this movie is an "Edsel".

"The Informer" was a very low budget film, and, like the later "Rio Grande", John Ford turns the lack of money for sets and extras into strengths, getting the most out of his characters and script, and using the camera and lighting (or lack thereof) to enhance the story. Victor McLaglen plays a former IRA terrorist who turns in his own best friend for a reward in order to get the money to flee to America with his doxie girl friend, and is so consumed by guilt that he tries to lose himself in a night of debauchery, but cannot escape the consequences of his actions. The interesting thing about this film is that the IRA are not protrayed as heroic buffons (as in The Quiet Man) and the English occupiers are not portrayed as villians. This is John Ford at his best!

"Sergeant Rutledge" is the forgotten treasure of the collection. Jeffery Hunter stars as an army officer who defends an African American Buffalo Soldier accused of rape and murder. Woody Strode excels as Sgt. Rutledge, trapped in a situation where it appears there is no chance of his receiving justice because of the color of his skin. John Ford stacks the deck to make it appear that Rutledge is indeed guilty of the charges against him, and Jeffrey Hunter as a misguided crusader. Jeffery Hunter is most famous for making the most bone-headed Hollywood career move ever made. Offered the role of Captain Pike in the TV Series "Star Trek", he turned the role down in preference of his movie career. He lived only four years after making this decision, and thus lost his one chance at film and TV immortality.

"Cheyenne Autumn" is the only one of these films to receive continued critical acclaim and air time. It is noteable as John Ford's final western. Ford returned to Monument Valley for the final time in order to make this movie, and it is interesting to watch as he tries to use different vistas of the region to pass for Nebraska and the Dakotas and every place inbetween, none of which the land resembles. The cinematography is beautiful. Ford also called upon the natives of the Monument Valley to protray the Cheyenne - but only in bit parts. As if to reinforce his patriarchal attititude towards the Native Americans, he puts white actors like Delores Del Rio, Sal Mineo, and Ricardo Montalbahn in the indian speaking roles. Surely by the time Ford made this movie there were enough Native American actors in the business to have filled these roles. Although the story contains powerful material, Ford is unable to pull it off with anything like the power of "The Searchers". The movie wanders, with a completely ridiculous and unnessesary comic relief section in the middle where Jimmy Stewart plays Wyatt Earp as a buffoon, fool and dandy. This overlong section completely destroys the pacing and tension built up over the course of the pursuit. It is almost like Ford suddenly realized that the humor in his earlier westerns was missing and so he decided to throw some in. "The Searchers" ended with John Wayne standing in a doorway, determined face set, looking in on an unseen domestic future he has no part in. It is a powerful scene that speaks volumes, possibly the best ending in any Ford movie ever. In "Cheyenne Autumn" the aging and ailing Ford was unable to pull such a grand and subtle performance from his actors, and relies instead on a cliche ending with Ricardo riding away into a sunset. "Cheyenne Autumn" is a very good Ford western, it is just not a great Ford western. One wonders why John Ford did not cast John Wayne in this movie. There were three or four roles Wayne could have played, and he might have given Ford the focus necessary to pull the movie off better. Perhaps Ford believed the public would not have accepted a John Wayne sympathetic to indians but given the strength of Wayne's performance in some of his final films, there is no doubt he could have pulled it off. It may be that since Wayne had his own career directing and producting films, Ford did not want to have another "director" - especially one he had brought along from nothing - hanging over his shoulder.

Thus this Wayne-less collection spans most of Ford's career, and is thus a good representation of his body of work (if one wanted to do so by ignore all the John Wayne movies) though I do wonder if some better choices might have been made for some of the pictures. "The Iron Horse" might have been a better choice for his early career than "The Lost Patrol". And certainly Ford made some oddities that could have been a better pick than "Mary of Scotland", after all, he directed such unusual actors as Will Rogers and a young Shirley Temple. I would like to see a second collection of non-Wayne Ford movies, that might include "The Iron Horse" as well as some classics like "My Darling Clementine", "The Long Grey Line", "Two Rode Together" and "The Plow and the Stars".

Over a 54 year career John Ford (1894-1973) made 140 films, half of them silent. He won 4 Oscars ("The Quiet Man", "How Green was My Valley", "The Grapes of Wrath", "The Informer") and was nominated for "Stagecoach" (he lost to Victor Fleming for "GWTW"). He had 3 DGA nominations and 1 win ("The Quiet Man") and 4 wins by the New York Film Critics. Interestingly enough he never won a major award for a western, even though he often described himself simply as "I make westerns".

Most people agree his major westerns were "Stagecoach" (1939), the cavalry trilogy ("Fort Apache" in 1948, "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" in 1949, and "Rio Grande" in 1950), (my personal favorite) "The Searchers" (1956), and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) .

Given Ford's career, why would anyone bundle these 5 films? They have nothing in common nor do they represent any theme in Ford's directorial style nor his personal life. "The Lost Patrol" and "The Informer" are early talkies that started his fruitful collaboration with Merian Cooper. They also starred Victor McLaglen who was Ford's most frequent star prior to John Wayne. But otherwise they have nothing in common, and one, in fact, is a relatively poor film and the other a relatively good film.

These two Ford/Cooper/McLaglen films are followed by "Mary of Scotland" which is one of Ford's worst films, notable only by his infatuation with Katherine Hepburn and the relatively excess use of close-ups.

From these mid 30s films we jump decades ahead to the 60s and two of Ford's lesser westerns. Both films are made near the end of Ford's career and are an attempt to set the record straight with respect to his portrayal of blacks and Indians, which had been horrific even if consonant with the times. Yet for all the tenderness in which he treats blacks in "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960), Indians remain one-dimensional savages even as late as 1960, and only in 1964 with "Cheyene Autumn" (1964) would he attempt to improve his characterization of them. Yet even here, his ludicrous casting of not a single Indian as a star is most revealing - the "Indians" are played by Sal Mineo (an Italian), Victor Jory (a Canadian), Dolores del Rio, Gilbert Roland and Ricardo Montalban ( Mexicans).

There certainly is good reason to group Ford films, and they could be grouped in many ways. But the grouping here makes no sense and will give you nothing to learn from.

I can't review this collection yet because I am writing this prior to its issue date, but it should be worthwhile for "The Informer" alone, which is surely one of the greatest movies ever made. However, even this great film is almost ruined by the syrupy and overblown "redemption" music at the end, when the fatally wounded Victor McLachlin staggers inside a church and encounters the mother of the man he betrayed to the British.

The "missed opportunity" I am referring to in the title of this review is the failure to inlcude another John Ford classic in the set, namely "Steamboat Round the Bend", which stars Will Rogers, Wiley Post and (the presumed reason for its non-inclusion), Stephen Fetchit. The latter gives his usual subversively servile and racist performance which by today's standards would be unacceptably offensive. But let's face it, in the context of this movie he's very funny. Why keep this film out of circulation when "The Birth of a Nation", not to mention "Gone With the Wind", is freely available? It should be noted that "Steamboat" has been issued on DVD in Britain. Perhaps the fact that two biographies of Stephen Fetchit have recently been published will help pave the way for reissuance of this film in North America.

Perfect condition, arrived on time. Two of the movies I have searched for two of the movies in the collection for many years. I am SO HAPPY!

Would have been a much better set with a few other classic s.