Customer Reviews

John Wayne Collection: Volume One (The Quiet Man / The Sands of Iwo Jima / Flying Tigers / The Wake of the Red Witch)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The dvd quality of the quiet man is pretty bad. Blurry.
Looks like a copy from copy of a vhs tape.

I have an older vhs tape that is better picture quality...
The others are OK.

I had wanted to get Quiet Man, and it was put in with other great movies. For a few bucks more than JUST the movie Quiet Man, you get 3 more movies. Bacjak productions (John Wayne's family) is starting to put some very good stuff together. I watched Quiet Man 3 times and all the extra footage. Hours of great fun.

Waht can you say about John Wayne that hasn't been said before? These are four good movies and I never so the Wake of the Red Witch before so that was a special treat. All the black and white ones came in great but the color version of The Quiet Man, was a little rough on the eyes. I know they can do only so much, even today with the old films but the movie itself is still a big time favorite and I will keep adding to my collection. Way to go Amazon!!!

This review is in response to the other review because I can't stand to have a John Wayne collection with some of his best movies with a three star rating from a guy who doesn't own the thing yet but is upset because his "Alf" collection didn't quite work out. First of all any review of John Wayne that also happens to mention Alf in the same review deserves negative votes, and should be pulled by Amazon. This is the only time I have ever reviewed a product I don't own (though I do own all the movies in their individual forms and the transfer is great, the only beef I've had is the lack of subtitles) and I realize in that sense I'm no better that the other guy, but giving John Wayne three stars is just outrageous.

Classic ,Timeless,Simply Superb there are many good Words and Thoughts. One would associate with with this Brilliant Legend of the silver screen. I have around 60 of the 200 movies which this man was in, shame they dont do a Complete Box Set of All his movies, wow it would be Huge.

These are four of John Wayne's upper echelon movies in my opinion. Here he started to become an actor with good credits.

My husband and son are John Wayne fans. We have several John Wayne movies/memorabilia in our collection. I got this for my son, however, my husband elected to keep for himself! This is a great gift for John Wayne fans!

As a retired Army Major and adjunct history prof. I love war movies. I find few war movies that are really good at depicting the challenges leaders face in making decisions in combat. "Sands of Iwo Jima" is one of the best at depicting good leadership traits and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

I always liked John Wayne in war movies more than in westerns. In "The Sands of Iwo Jima the "Duke" plays the hard as nails uncompromising Sgt. Stryker. He is tasked with training a Marine rifle squad before they invade Iwo. Needless to say he is unpopular with the men, but in the end he makes a fighting unit out of them and earns their respect. One of the few movies that the "Duke" dies in. Makes one just want to cry.

A classic war movie that should be viewed by all who like the genre.

I purchased this collection because I'm looking for a specific film that I only caught the last part of therefore, I don't know the name of the movie. It was some what of a war movie so I thought it might be included in this collection based on the cover. To my surprise, only two of the movies are war movies (and not the one I was looking for). The other two are, according to the jacket, romance movies (though not the mushy stuff of today). I've never seen any of these (if I did, it was only bits and pieces of the war movies) and all were quite enjoyable.

The Sands of Iwo Jima (war): This is an exceptional movie with many historic images. The bonus documentary was quite informative. I would have to flag this as the best of the four in this collection. (Black & White)

Flying Tigers (war): Good film with a strong message. Haven't watched the bonus features yet so I can't accout for it's historic accuracy. The special effects are poor by today's standard but was probably the best they could do at the time. This doesn't take away from the movie but does remind you that it is an old film. The transfer to DVD is not perfect (a little grainy) but is still watchable. Very good movie and well worth watching. (Black & White)

The Wake of the Red Witch (Romance): This movie was quite interesting to me. I didn't know that John Wayne play in a swash buckling type movie as this one. Though the jist of the movie isn't about swash buckling the tone is there. In the first part of the movie, John Wayne sinks the ship Red Witch carrying a cargo of gold. The rest of the movie is about recovering the gold. Along the way, he falls in love but his nimesus end up marrying her. He end up fighting a giant octopus and eventually rejoining with his love, BUT not the way you'd expect. Very entertaining movie. (Black & White)

The Quiet Man (Romance): This movie is the only one I have a complaint about. The transfer to DVD is not as good as you'd expect. I don't know if it's due to the poor quality of the actual film or some idiot not paying attention to what he was doing. The movie is a little blury. If you have a standard size TV, it's not too bad (but still noticable). However, if you have a widescreen TV, don't plan on watching this in the wide-to-fit format. I tried to tough it out but within the first 10 minitues of the movie, I found myself switching back and forth on the settings. This is the reason I didn't give this collection 5 stars. The movie itself is quite good but quality is the poorest I've seen. This film is about an American boxer, who killed a man in the ring, going back to his home town in Ireland, making an enemy, falling in love with his enemies sister, corting the sister in the Irish custom, marrying the sister, and fight with his brother-in-law. The last part is remanicent of McClintock when he pulls his wife off the train, drags her 5 mile to find his brother-in-law, and the whole town ending up in a knock-down, drag-out fight. There's quit a bit of suddle humor enterlaced through out the movie which made this quite enjoyable dispite the blurriness. (Color)

In summary, the movies themself in this collection are quite good. The only negative is the picture quality.

Am hoping BluRay version of Quiet Man becomes available soon. This year could no longer watch VHS version on St Patties day. So ordered this collection. All are good Wayne movies. Quality is not as good as Bluray versions of some of his other movies (The Searchers is VERY good Bluray quality), but still enjoyable and entertaining.