13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A nice sampling from McQueen's career, June 6, 2005
This review is from: The Steve McQueen Collection (The Great Escape / Junior Bonner / The Magnificent Seven / The Thomas Crown Affair) (DVD)
The one word that is always used to describe actor Steve McQueen is cool. He was the essence of cool. The movies he made were always considered the epitome of cool. He was a hard working, hard playing rebel who had the kind of dangerous charisma that women found attractive and men wanted to emulate. McQueen died in 1980 but left behind a considerable legacy. MGM has repackaged several of his movies in a box set that provides an interesting cross-section of his work, that ranges from the ensemble piece, The Magnificent Seven to the rich, characterization of Junior Bonner that would mark his later films.
McQueen died from lung cancer at the age of 50 but left and enduring legacy behind. He continues to be a much admired and respected actor. This box set is a fitting reminder of the kind of range McQueen was capable of as an actor.
On The Magnificent Seven DVD there is an audio commentary by James Coburn, Eli Wallach, producer Walter Mirisch and assistant director Robert Relyea. This is a solid commentary packed with rich anecdotes with no one person dominating.
"Guns for Hire: The Making of The Magnificent Seven," is a retrospective look at the making of this classic. Most of the main cast are interviewed either in new or vintage footage in this excellent documentary.
There are two trailers and a still gallery with behind the scenes photos, portraits and production and poster art. *NOTE* However, be forewarned, this is not the awesome 2-DVD Special Edition that came out awhile ago. Why MGM didn't include this version in the box set is beyond me. Disappointing.
The Great Escape DVD features a decent making of documentary entitled, "Return to the Great Escape." Interestingly, the screenplay was never finished and this upset McQueen so much (because his part had not been defined) that he walked out after six weeks demanding his part be rewritten. It took Coburn and Garner to coax him back.
Also included is a theatrical trailer.
The Thomas Crown Affair disc has an audio commentary by Norman Jewison. He admits that the film places an emphasis on style over content and saw it as an experiment in film style. This is a solid track from the veteran filmmaker.
There is also a trailer.
Finally, on the Junior Bonner DVD is an audio commentary by Peckinpah authors Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle with moderator Nick Redman. They point out the richness of the direction and how it is a very visual film with minimal use of dialogue, especially McQueen's character. Like with their Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia commentary track, these guys provide an excellent analysis of the movie.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Flawless, May 18, 2005
This review is from: The Steve McQueen Collection (The Great Escape / Junior Bonner / The Magnificent Seven / The Thomas Crown Affair) (DVD)
In The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven, Steve McQueen gives worthy performances but they are more or less ensemble films. In ESCAPE you might argue that McQueen is the actual star and the other characters, vivid as they are, serve only to support him, but in SEVEN he's not even the main star. People like myself with action fever in our blood think the world of these two films, early exposures to adrenaline pumping, and we remember them with the same intake of breath we remember the first time we jumped out of a plane or got into a fistfight.
In JUNIOR BONNER, the action is more subtle, though the rodeo background is colorful and McQueen, a little more weathered, is even better than before. His tangles with Ida Lupino are legendary and she was never better than in this film, a nice valedictory on Sam Peckinpah's part to one of Britain's (and Hollywood's) finest actresses, a woman who could spit out nails when she wanted to and a fitting progenitor for McQueen's icy stare (she plays his mother). It's a softer and more lyrical Peckinpah film, unlike the later THE GETAWAY (also with McQueen, although not in this boxed set).
Finally there's Norman Jewison's remake/remodel of Steve McQueen as a dashing, dapper Cary Grant type in the sophisticated caper thriller THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. To McQueen's credit, he was able to st-r-e-t-ch his screen image to accommodate the rapier verbal wit of the screenplay as well as do his customary "blue haze" screen stare. Faye Dunaway, as the curious heroine, is also very good and hardly mannered at all. When the film appeared, there was a lot of attention paid to their chess scene, which more or less frankly tried to imitate the baroque erotics of TOM JONES' famous "eating scene" with Albert Finney. Everything in the sequence is a complex double entendre, and often the actors are photographed in intense closeup, letting their eyes do all the talking for them. It works today, even though it has itself been imitated dozens of times since. On the entertaining commentary track Jewison acknowledges the prickly personae of his stars, and hints at how difficult they both could be, and he'll make you smile with some of his insider info.
This MGM set is released at a low (if not quite budget) price and has four great films in it. The competing McQueen set may have more discs, but it has more duds too. You pay your money, and you make your choice!
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
FOR YOUR INFORMATION:, March 21, 2005
This review is from: The Steve McQueen Collection (The Great Escape / Junior Bonner / The Magnificent Seven / The Thomas Crown Affair) (DVD)
Description for Steve McQueen Giftset - 4 Pack DVD
--This exciting compilation features four classic Steve McQueen adventures, described individually below:
THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) - John Sturges's dramatization of the true story of a group of British, American, and Canadian POWs who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III in Upper Silesia in March 1944 remains arguably the best World War II adventure film ever made. A host of excellent up-and-coming actors, including James Garner (MAVERICK and THE ROCKFORD FILES), Richard Attenborough (future director of GANDHI), James Coburn (IN LIKE FLINT), and Charles Bronson (DEATH WISH) mesh beautifully in this meticulous recreation of the legendary escape. The German high command rounded up all of the allies' most talented escape artists and placed them in a POW camp specifically designed to foil any unwanted departures, but many of them laboriously tunnel out anyway. Steve McQueen's thrilling motorcycle chase sequence instantly made him a major movie star.
MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) - John Sturges's remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic THE SEVEN SAMURAI has become an extremely influential film in its own right. A small farming Mexican village that makes involuntary donations of its harvest to a gang of bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach) decides to hire a group of professional gunmen, headed by gunslinger-for-hire Chris (Yul Brynner), to protect them. Despite the meager pay, Chris and Vin (Steve McQueen) sign on after the Mexicans see them face down some racist thugs. As they ride back to the village, Chris begins to pick up other gunmen, including Bernardo (Charles Bronson), Lee (Robert Vaughan), Britt (James Coburn, looking eerily like his alter ego in the Kurosawa epic), Harry (Brad Dexter), and aspiring gunslinger Chico (Horst Buchholz falling short in the role played to perfection by Toshiro Mifune in the Japanese original). This rousing action film launched the movie careers of McQueen, Coburn, and Bronson. Although McQueen's character had only a few lines of dialogue, Sturges told the young actor that he would "give him the camera," and certainly kept his word. The movie also benefits tremendously from the unforgettably polyrhythmic score by Elmer Bernstein, among the most famous in film history, so popular and effective that it was used to sell Marlboro cigarettes for years afterward (and was memorably "sampled" in a very early Yes album from the 70s).
JUNIOR BONNER (1972) - Steve McQueen plays Junior Bonner, an aging rodeo champ who returns to his hometown to participate in the annual rodeo. He finds his family estranged, does what he can to help, and then moves on...after some serious rodeo riding and a few brawls. Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, and Ben Johnson lend strong support to McQueen's laconic loner.
THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1968) - Rich and charming (but thrill-seeking) businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) must be the last person anyone would suspect as a bank-robbing mastermind, but Vicki Anderson (Faye Dunaway of NETWORK and BONNIE AND CLYDE), the insurance investigator assigned to the case, gradually catches on. A memorably erotic chess match between McQueen and Dunaway, both at their stratospheric career heights when the movie was filmed, serves as a metaphor for their relationship in the film.
DVD Features:
Region 1
4-Disc Box Set
Disc 1: THE GREAT ESCAPE
Widescreen - 2.35
Single Side - Dual Layer
Audio:
---Dolby Digital Mono - English
---Dolby Digital Mono - French
Additional Release Material:
---Making-of
---Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
Text/Photo Galleries:
---Production Notes
---Additional Text - 1. Trivia
Disc 2: JUNIOR BONNER
Widescreen - 2.35
Audio:
---Mono - English
Additional Release Material:
---Audio Commentary
---Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
Disc 3: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Keep Case
Widescreen - 2.35
Audio:
---Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
---Dolby Digital Mono - Spanish
---Dolby Digital Mono - French
Additional Release Material:
---Audio Commentary - 1. Eli Wallach - Star, James Coburn - Star
---Trailer - 1. Original Theatrical
---Documentary
Text/Photo Galleries:
---Stills/Photos - 1. Gallery
Additional Products:
---Booklet
Disc 4: THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR
Full Frame - 1.33
Letterboxed - 1.85
Audio:
---Mono - English
---Subtitles - English - Optional
---Subtitles - French - Optional
Additional Release Material:
---Audio Commentary - 1. Norman Jewison - Director
---Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
Additional Products:
---8-Page Booklet featuring Trivia, Production Notes, and Making of the Film
Release Info:
--Color Film
--Year Released: 1960-1972
--RunTime: 502 Min.
--Release Language: English
--Original Language: English
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