The Man From Snowy River (1982) Review

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(More customer reviews)The rural grazing life in the Snowy Mountains has hardly changed since Banjo Paterson traveled the high country and wrote his famous "Man from Snowy River" poem. His poetry is an authentic voice of a frontier society in which song and campfire recitation were much appreciated entertainment.
"And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."
Andrew Barton Paterson was born in New South Wales and was the son of a Scottish immigrant. Paterson was a poet, journalist, lawyer, jockey, soldier, farmer and one of the best-loved figures of Australian literature. His poem is the basis for this gorgeous movie about the treacherous terrain and bands of wild, stampeding horses. He also wrote Waltzing Matilda, which is lovingly woven into the soundtrack.
The Man from Snowy River Movie tells a more in depth story of a cattle baron Mr. Harrison (Jessica's father) who has had a long quarrel with his brother Spur. Kirk Douglas plays both roles. When one brother finds his fortune, the second goes searching for gold. This is a story based on a time when families tended their sheep and cattle. Ghost towns from the gold rush still haunt the landscape.
Set against the untamed Australian Outback, a love story unfolds between Jessica Harrison ( Sigrid Thornton) and Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson). Jim seems to have a way with horses and Jessica is a bit of a brash filly herself.
She has her own ideas regarding a woman's choices in life and choosing the path she will take in her own career. She defies her father and runs off to find Jim. Her anger towards Jim over a horse riding accident is like a summer storm that quickly disappears once she experiences the excitement of forbidden love.
Her father, Mr. Harrison, has not yet learned that there is a beautiful place inside each person where we are either nurtured or destroyed. He seems emotionally destructive and Jessica rebels because he won't let her follow any of her dreams. He seeks to trap her in his own wishes and thinks she should settle down into a domestic lifestyle.
Jim and Jessica are soul mates with hearts as wild as the horses running free through the snow. While at first they fight their mutual attraction, Jessica seems clearer in her thinking after she almost dies and realizes there are just some things in life worth fighting for.
Equestrian Heaven with an impressive conclusion! You must see this movie once in your life if you love horses. The wide-screen edition is highly recommended!
~The Rebecca Review

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With its unforgettably heroic story, its stunning cinematography, and acting performances that are uniformly excellent, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is one thrilling adventure you won't want to miss.Set during the 1880's, when the Australian frontier was as wild and dangerous as the American West, the film follows the exploits of a handsome youth (Tom Burlinson) who sets out to tame a wild herd of horses.Taking on a challenge many men had attempted before him, he rides deep into the treacherous and untamed wilderness of his native timberlands where boys become men fast - or die trying.Featuring Kirk Douglas in a remakable dual role and highlighted by a climactic chase involving 40 horsemen and 90 wild stallioins thundering across snow-covered peaks, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is destined to become a legendary film!

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Alias Smith And Jones: Seasons 2 & 3 Review

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(More customer reviews)Updated on April 11, 2010.
I have not yet received the AS&J Seasons 2 and 3 DVD set that I ordered from Amazon (because the official release date has not yet arrived). However, I do have a copy of this set that I purchased at a brick and mortar store.
The video and audio quality is excellent! This is the first time that I've seen a bright, vivid, clear version of the second season opener "The Day They Hanged Kid Curry" since 1971! It is absolutely wonderful. The other episodes are great, too. The recordings on the DVDs appear to be the wonderfully remastered versions of the 50-minute episodes that Starz Encore Westerns aired on TV from 2005-2007.
Since the Amazon listing does not provide much detail at present, here's what the set contains. There are 35 episodes on 6 DVDs. All have 6 episodes per DVD except the first one, which include the 75-minute episode "The Day They Hanged Kid Curry." There are no "extras" on the DVDs. The DVDs are in three black plastic cases and the entire set is in a cardboard case. I think that the case graphics are gorgeous. There is a great picture of Heyes and Curry on the front (which can be seen at the website for Timeless Media Group, who was licensed from Universal Studios to put out the DVDs). On the back of the black cases, there is a short description of each episode. The descriptions are helpful, although they aren't always totally accurate (e.g., the blonde female character in "Only Three to a Bed" wasn't married as the box says). The show's description on the back on the main cardboard case also has some errors (e.g., AS&J originally aired on ABC, not NBC). But, this certainly does not take away from the wonderful DVDs.
"Alias Smith and Jones" is my favorite TV show of all time. I'm an original fan from 1971. The series is a wonderful mix of charm, action, humor, and wit. It has held up over time extremely well. I am very happy that all 50 episodes are now available on commercial DVD sets.
Thank you to Timeless Media Group and Universal Studios for this wonderful release. I'm sure that it will be a big hit with fans of "Alias Smith and Jones." I hope that this release and its availability at Amazon.com will cause new people to discover this wonderful show.
Edited on April 11, 2010: Now that I have had time to watch more of the DVDs, I have a few comments to add.
The second reviewer questioned whether these episodes were remastered. I believe that they are the remastered versions which aired on Starz Encore Westerns from 2005-2007 (except with more file compression, as I'll mention below). For example, take the scene from "Smiler with a Gun" where Heyes and Curry find Seth's body in the desert. In the original films, including the unremastered version airing online at Hulu (Hulu appears to be airing a remastered season 1, but unremastered seasons 2 and 3), there's a boom mike hanging over Heyes and Curry as they discuss the dead Seth. This boom mike is gone from the remastered episode that aired on Encore Westerns. It is also missing from the commercial DVDs, showing that they were remastered. However, even on the remastered prints, there are flaws in frames of the film in the stock desert footage; the remastering was not perfect and some episodes look better than others.
Also, it's obvious that the second season opener, "The Day They Hanged Kid Curry," was not remastered at the same time as the other episodes. This episode originally aired in a 90-minute timeslot and was not shown on Encore Westerns in 2005-2007, when they aired remastered versions of the 48 episodes that originally aired in 60-minute timeslots. "They Day They Hanged Kid Curry" that is on the commercial DVDs has very vivid colors (sometimes too vivid, which I compensated for by setting down the chroma on my TV), with more color saturation than the other episodes. It was remastered, but probably by a different person than remastered the other episodes. (By the way, I have 5 versions of this episode that were recorded from TV to VCR over the past 25 years and the version on the commercial DVD set is far better than any of them-with brighter colors and a sharper picture. For me, just getting a good version of "They Day They Hanged Kid Curry" was worth the price of the DVD set.)
In 2005, I recorded all of the 50-minute AS&J episodes at the highest quality homemade DVD mode from digital cable TV when they aired on Starz Encore Westerns. My personal recordings have a picture quality that is somewhat sharper than those on the commercial DVDs. As for the color and audio of the commercial DVDs, both are excellent, although I do occasionally see a faint purple band running vertically through the commercial versions on some episodes that I don't see in my own recordings from Encore (e.g., the initial chase scene in "The Posse That Wouldn't Quit"). This may be a compression artifact. I believe that commercial DVDs used the gorgeous remastered versions from Encore Westerns, but in order to fit 5 or 6 episodes onto a disc they compressed the file size to about 1.5 Gb. My recordings from Encore Westerns in highest quality homemade DVD mode are 3.8 Gb per 50-minute episode. On smaller screen TVs or computer screens or older lower quality TVs, the loss of sharpness is probably not obvious, but on a larger flat screen high definition TV it could be noticeable.
Incidentally, the AS&J season 1 DVDs, produced by Universal Playback and released in 2007, were 4 episodes per DVD, meaning less compression. I suspect that this is why the second reviewer observed them to have better picture quality than the seasons 2 and 3 DVD set.

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Alias Smith and Jones - Seasons 2 & 3! One of the most popular Western series of the 1970's, "Alias Smith and Jones" aired on NBC for three years, from 1971-1973. In the tradition of the hit movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "Alias Smith and Jones" follows the exploits of former Devil's Hole Gang leaders Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes, a pair of successful and popular outlaws trying to go straight after a lifetime of mostly non-violent banditry.Settling in a small western town, Curry/Jones and Heyes/Smith must stay out of trouble for an indefinite period of time to earn the pardon the Governor will grant if they can keep to the straight and narrow. In the meantime, they are fair game for the bounty hunters and the long arm of the law trying to put them away for good. Only the silver tongue of Heyes/Smith and the fast draw of Curry/Jones, (plus occasional help from their friends on both sides of the law!) keep them out of the hoosegow.Starring Ben Murphy and Pete Duel as the two charming rogues, the series features a strong cast of recurring characters, including Burl Ives (Big Mac McCreedy) and Walter Brennan (Silky O'Sullivan), as well as an outstanding roster of guest stars including Rory Calhoun, Jack Cassidy, Neville Brand, Anne Archer, Chill Wills, Slim Pickens and John Russell, many of whom made multiple appearances on the show.Narrator Roger Davis took on the role of Hannibal Heyes, following the untimely and unfortunate death of Pete Duel during the second season.

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Broken Trail (Two-disc) (2006) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Broken Trail", a dream project for producer/star Robert Duvall, and AMC's first original film, is the spiritual heir to Kevin Costner's 2003 "Open Range" (also starring Duvall), and one of the most moving, involving Westerns of recent years.

With a charismatic, extremely effective performance by Thomas Haden Church, as Duvall's long-estranged nephew, the film is one of only a handful of Westerns that combine epic sweep, superb characterization, and an understanding of the 'Real West', without shortchanging decency, or respect of an individual's worth. The era was hard, justice could be swift and brutal, and Duvall, as aging but upright Prentice Ritter, lives by his own rules; to protect the helpless in his care, to respect others, and to be unafraid to resort to violence, if necessary. Tom Harte (Church), despite some family history problems with his uncle, lives by the same code, and the two men, driving a herd of horses from Oregon to Wyoming to raise cash for a ranch, become the 'saviors' of five young Chinese women, sold into prostitution, who inadvertently fall into their hands.
These are good men, in a jaded world, and their journey picks up other 'strays', as well as the women; young Virginian fiddler Heck Gilpin (an engaging Scott Cooper), is rescued by Tom in a saloon; aging Chinese laborer Lung Hay (Donald Fong), and careworn prostitute Nola John (the wonderful Greta Scacchi) join the group after Tom saves the Chinese women from rapists, in a boarding house/bordello. While neither Ritter and Harte were overjoyed at the strange direction the drive was taking, they would not allow harm to fall on 'innocents', and the group bonds into a warm 'family', with Nola and Ritter finding a mature attraction between each other, and Tom and Sun Foy/#3 (Gwendoline Yeo, who speaks only Mandarin, in the film), gently falling in love.
Danger is never far behind them, however, as brutal ex-con 'Big Ears' (Chris Mulkey), with a score to settle with Nola, and a 'contract' to return the Chinese women to whorehouse owner Kate 'Big Rump' Becker (Rusty Schwimmer), trails them, leading a gang of killers...
While the film is long (240 minutes), director Walter Hill, an old hand at Westerns (his "The Long Riders" is one of my favorites), keeps the story constantly engrossing, and Duvall and Church have a warmth and authenticity as the characters that will stay with you, long after the movie ends.
Shot in the Canadian Rockies, "Broken Trail" combines grandeur and intimacy seamlessly, has moments of great humor to lighten the drama, explosive action, and a bittersweet sense of nostalgia...
It is, simply, superb!



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Set in 1897, a man and his nephew are trying to deliver a herd of horses when they become the reluctant guardians of five abandoned Chinese girls.Genre: TelevisionRating: NRRelease Date: 30-JAN-2007Media Type: DVD

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Alias Smith & Jones - Season One (1971) Review

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(More customer reviews)Finally this classic western is released to DVD! Universal has done a fine job the shows themselves look extremely good (with just a bit of dirt and grit during the opening montage for each episode--probably due to the original source elements). We get the entire first season of the series as well as the TV movie that essentially served as a pilot episode for the series. While the tone differed a bit from the pilot, the series is equally as good with top notch production values and acting.
The story revolves around Hannibal Heyes (Pete Duel) and Kid Curry (Ben Murphy)a pair of robbers who never killed anyone as they broke the law (although interestingly, Roger Davis who went on to play Hannibal Heyes played a villian that WAS killed by Curry)during the regular season. They're given an option to go straight by the governor (they see a handbill offering amnesty to criminals who haven't committed any murders)--if they can stay clean for an entire year. It'll be their secret until the 12 months (probably in case it fails) are up but that also means the guys are fair game for bounty hunters who may discover their identity. Trouble follows them wherever they go though and they end up performing one good deed after another hoping that they don't get caught in the gun of someone's crosshairs since the original wanted poster still says "Dead or Alive".
The first season set include the pilot movie plus the first 14 episodes of the show (the show was a mid-season replacement which is why it doesn't have a full season of 22-24 episodes). While clearly inspired by "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" the film achieves its own quirky tone by the first regular season episode. Duel and Murphy's charm and chemistry on camera is immediately evident. 30 plus years later the show still retains its charm.
The show looks good in its first ever DVD presentation. Colors have faded a bit (but that's to be expected given the age of the show)and some of the stock footage (including the opening for the pilot)has some dirt, grit and a bit of wear and tear evident but overall the show looks darn good. The guest star list is a who's who of TV from the 70's including Early Holliman, Forrest Tucker and Susan Saint and James Drury--just in the pilot episode alone! Later guest stars would include Burl Ives, Slim Pickens and Sally Field among many others.
The lone extra here is a commentary track by co-creator/co-writer/producer Glen A. Larson. While there are some stretches of silence Larson's comments are intelligent, observant and has trivia about how the series came to be produced. He notes that the amnesty plot that makes the series different from other westerns was real and, in fact, was offered to Butch and Sundance as well as the real Kid Curry. When news of the amnesty was delayed, they got mad and robbed a bank blowing their chance of receiving it!
While we did get Alias Smith And Jones: Seasons 2 & 3 the second set looks a bit rough at times (although the best looking episodes rival those seen here). Unfortunately, the second boxed set with seasons 2 & 3 don't have any extras that are worthwhile although the longer season opener from season two is included. You can also buy the entire series repackaged as Alias Smith and Jones - The Complete Series! 50 episodes on 10 DVDs!.

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ALIAS SMITH AND JONES:SEASON ONE - DVD Movie

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The Magnificent Seven: The Complete Series Review

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(More customer reviews)First, a review of the series itself: 5 gigantic gold, gleaming stars. I caught a few re-run episodes on Encore Westerns and fell in love instantly. Amazing cast, phenomenal acting, great sets, and no gore. It achieves that delicate balance of drama and adventure of the genre without the violence and sex that plagues most modern movies/show today. I really credit whoever cast the series because each actor shines in his role and their personalities play off each other perfectly. I am saddened that the series was cut off after two (all too short) seasons and was floored when I heard that it only came back a second year after an intense fan campaign. Once again primtime networks don't know a truly good show when they see it.
So why 4 stars? I was very disappointed at the picture quality of the DVDs. In the age of digital media when consumers are seeking crystal clear imaging, this set has the graininess of a VHS. Acceptable for an old show of the 60's or 70's, but one that aired in 1999? No way. The quality of the current TV re-runs far exceedes these DVDs. Apparently this is just a re-packaging of the individually sold seasons so I can't imagine that purchasing them separately would be any improvement.
That said, don't pass up the series on that account. Better to have it available with a sub-quality picture than not have it it all. The subperb show itself far outweighs this one downfall and I look forward to re-watching both seasons again and again.

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Disc 1: Magnificent Seven SSN 1 Disc 2: Magnificent Seven SSN 1 Disc 3: Magnificent Seven SSN 2 Disc 4: Magnificent Seven SSN 2 Disc 5: Magnificent Seven SSN 2

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