Product Details

• Actors: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Chief Dan George, Bill McKinney, John Vernon
• Directors: Clint Eastwood
• Writers: Forrest Carter, Philip Kaufman, Sonia Chernus
• Producers: James Fargo, John G. Wilson, Robert Daley
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Subtitles: Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: November 20, 2001
• Run Time: 135 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (335 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005NTNW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,352 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "The Outlaw Josey Wales" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

During the Civil War, Union "Redlegs" attack Southerner Josey Wales's dirt farm and wipe out his family. Seeking vengeance, Wales throws in with a company of Reb guerrillas. Tagged as a renegade after the surrender, he flees west into the vastness of the Indian Territories, where, quite unintentionally, he finds himself cast as the straight-shooting paterfamilias of an ever-growing, spectacularly motley community of misfits and castaways. Which is to say, Josey's personal quest for survival and something like peace of mind evolves into a funky, multicultural allegory of the healing of America.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Clint Eastwood's 31st film as an actor, 20th as international star, and 5th as director, was the first to win him widespread respect. Critics had grumbled when the producer-star replaced Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) in the director's chair a week into shooting. They ended up cheering when Eastwood delivered both his most sympathetic performance to date and--with the heroic collaboration of cinematographer Bruce Surtees--an impressive Panavision epic that stresses the scruffiness, rather than the scenic splendors, of frontier life.

Though it's been honored with a place in the National Film Registry, Josey Wales is good, not great, Eastwood. The big-gun fetishism can get tiresome, and too many characters exist only to serve as six-gun (and at one point Gatling gun) fodder. But mostly the film is agreeably eccentric, and almost furtively sweet in spirit--a key transitional title in the Eastwood filmography, and one of his most entertaining. --Richard T. Jameson

Amazon.com
Clint Eastwood fired the original director, Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff), and took over the reins of this project himself. He may have had a point: this brutal, thoughtful western, a near-tragedy about a Civil War veteran whose past comes looking for him, is probably Eastwood's most mature frontier drama prior to the Oscar winning Unforgiven. Hoping to build a quiet life in a cooperative community of settlers, Eastwood's Wales blames himself when his enemies attack the homestead, and he has to revert to his warrior instincts to help fend off the threat. The jittery intensity of Sondra Locke (who would be Mrs. Eastwood, at least for a while), and the screen-filling charisma of the late Chief Dan George harmonize beautifully with Eastwood, who had finally figured out how to add depth and texture to his stock-in-trade Man of Steel persona. This one may be too short on action to satisfy fans of Eastwood's Dirty Harry films, or of the Italian westerns he made with Sergio Leone, but it's an honorable effort. --David Chute

Product Description

Josey Wales is a farmer turned fugitive in the post-civil war south who is chased by the law after he avenges the murder of his family and friends.

DVD Features:
Introduction:Introduction by Clint Eastwood
Other:"Hell Hath No Fury" - 30:25 "Eastwood in Action" - 7:45

See all Editorial Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

137 of 144 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Clint Eastwood's best movie: an American Classic March 27, 2004

By Claude Avary

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Although Clint Eastwood gained his greatest critical acclaim as a director for 1992's "Unforgiven" and 2003's "Mystic River" -- both of which are incredible pieces of American cinema -- his best film remains this perennially popular Western from 1976. Here's Eastwood's own take on it: "I do believe that if I'd made that picture in 1992, in place of `Unforgiven,' it might have received the same amount of attention, because I think it's equally as good a film. I think the subject matter of `Josey Wales' is timeless." Orson Welles himself named it one of his favorite movies!

Yet critics at the time completely dismissed it as just another Clint Eastwood Western-Revenge flick. On the surface, the plot might give you that illusion: Missouri farmer Josey Wales loses his family to marauding Union cutthroats during the civil war. In retaliation, he joins Qunatrill's raiders in the guerrilla warfare that flames across Missouri. When the war ends, Wales refuses to surrender. He flies west across the country, chased by his former leader Fletcher (John Vernon in a great, sympathetic performance) and Terrill, the Union captain who murdered his family (Eastwood regular Bill McKinney). It seems Wales has no future except to stay alive long enough to get his revenge.

But...that's not at all what movie ends up being about. Gradually, Wales finds himself at the center of a growing community of outcasts from many different backgrounds: an old Cherokee named Lone Watie (Chief Dan George, in the film's most unforgettable performance), a band of Northern settlers (including Sondra Locke in her first role with Clint), a girl from another Native American tribe, the residents of a dying Texas town, and a red bone hound. Gradually, "The Outlaw Josey Wales" turns into a story about forgetting revenge and a fixation on death, and instead about embracing life and rebuilding a community. "Dying is easy for men like you and me," Wales says to a Comanche chief (Will Sampson) in one scene. "It's living that's hard." It's one of the most unexpectedly uplifting and moving films ever made. And, let's make no mistake about it, it's also an action-packed, tough, and exciting film.

Strangely, the film came out of extremely difficult circumstances and rough beginnings. Eastwood purchased the rights to Forrest Carter's novel "Gone to Texas," only to discover that the author was actually Asa (Ace) Carter, who had worked as a speech writer for George Wallace supporting racial segregation and had once created a subgroup of the Ku Klux Klan. Upon meeting Carter, Eastwood and his producer Robert Daley found the man to be a borderline sociopath (he drew a knife on one of Daley's secretaries at a restaurant). Regardless, Eastwood loved the beautiful story too much and pushed on with making the film. He hired Philip Kaufman to both write and direct the movie, now re-named "The Outlaw Josey Wales." Kaufman (along with Sonia Chernus) wrote a stunning script, but after only a few days on the set, it became obvious he wasn't working out as a director; his style clashed with Eastwood's. Eastwood quietly removed him as director and took over the job himself. As Eastwood's biographer notes, "Kaufman was to a degree the victim of Clint's growing confidence in his own abilities."

Despite this confused beginning, "The Outlaw Josey Wales" turned into a magical piece of Western cinema and a huge hit with audiences. It gets better and better with each viewing: a thrilling adventure when you first see it, its many layers of beautiful subtlety emerge each time you go back to it. Bruce Surtees's photography is astonishing, Jerry Fielding's music exciting and unusual for a Western, and every performance top-notch. Few films are as all-around well done as this American classic.

The DVD offers the film in a glorious widescreen transfer with a new 5.1 sound mix, but there are no extras. Considering the history behind the making of the film, this disc really ought to sport some fascinating commentaries and documentaries, but alas, nothing. Still, I can recommend few films higher than "The Outlaw Josey Wales."

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Josey" Remastered...Looks and Sounds Great February 2, 2003

By L. Shirley TOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

This review refers to the Warner Bros DVD Widescreen Edition of ""The Outlaw Josey Wales".......

Josey Wales is another of Clint's Eastwood's bigger than life Western characters that you won't soon forget.Josey though, is not like the others that preceeded him. It becomes apparent throughout this film, that this tough loner, on the run from murderers, has a heart the size of Texas.(And of course in this one we DO know his name!).
Eastwood also does an artful job of directing this tale, that has everthing from action to romance, and even a little comedy.

The end of the civil war is nearing. The northern soldiers though, won't let up. The "Red Legs" as some of these notorious war criminals are called are still pillaging,and plundering the homesteads in the territory and...killing the families.Wales is a victim of these brutal attacks, his house burned to the ground and his wife and son viciously attacked and murdered. He joins up with a group of others who are out to avenge their families and they become a notorious group. When they are offered a deal at the end of the war, they all turn themselves in..all but one...Josey Wales!

Ride with Josey(everyone else does) across the beautiful western vistas, as he takes on the "Red Legs" that are after him, saves a family from "Commancheros", makes friends with the Indians, and wears his heart on his sleeve as along the way he seems to attract a group of outcasts, including a dog, that he just can't leave behind.

Clint surrounds himself with the most marvelous cast, including Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney, John Vernon and Chief Dan George who provides many of the lighter moments in this action packed western.

If you are already a fan of this film made in 1976 and wondering about the quality of the transfer, you will be thrilled by the way it looks and sounds. The picture in widescreen is gorgeous. All scenes including the darker and nighttime are sharp and clear. Colors are vibrant. The soundtrack remastered in 5.1 Dolby Digital is also wonderful. From the pounding hooves of the racing horses, to the rain, to the music and the dialouge,you won't miss a thing.It's a dual-layer format, but I did not notice any of those little pauses that casues sometimes."Extras" are in the way of production notes only. There are some interesting facts on how Eastwood came to read the book and make the film.

What?! You haven't seen this yet??? It's a must for any Eastwood or Western fan! Go for it. "Now, Spit!"..Chief Dan George......Enjoy..Laurie

Clint multi-packs:The Gauntlet/True Crime,
The Clint Eastwood Collection (In the Line of Fire/Unforgiven/Bronco Billy/Dirty Harry/The Outlaw Josey Wales/The Beguiled),City Hall/Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil*actually a John Cusak double feature but Midnight in the Garden of Eveil is directed by Clint

47 of 54 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars THEY DONE HIM WRONG.... August 9, 2002

By Lawyeraau HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

As I am not ordinarily a fan of westerns, I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed this film. It was an engrossing and entertaining movie, and, unlike others in this genre, it is an intelligent and well thought out film.

The film tells the story of a Missouri farmer who, towards the end of the Civil War, finds his home overrun by renegade union soldiers who set fire to his homestead, kill his wife and son, and leave him for dead. After burying his family, he joins a group of confederate guerillas who have suffered similar tragedies. Ultimately, the war ends and their leader brings them in for surrender, except for Josey Wales, who watches their surrender from afar. Good thing he did not join them, as their surrender turns into an execution by the very same men who had pillaged his home and killed his family.

Wales escapes only to be relentlessly hunted down by the very men who had wronged him, as well as by bounty hunters who want that five thousand dollar reward offered for his capture. Wales rides on to escape them, and along his travels acquires a motley entourage whom he befriends and who befriend him. What happens on his journey is classic Eastwood.

Clint Eastwood plays his role as a stoic man of few words, while Chief Dan George is an absolute delight as part of Wales' entourage. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent. Of course, Sandra Locke, as Eastwood's real life main squeeze at the time, got star billing, even though her role was one of the smaller ones and her performance the least impressive of the supporting cast.

This remains one of the more entertaining films in this genre. It also made Hollywood sit up and take serious notice of Eastwood as a major force in the film industry.