There are two different potential audiences for The Gary Cooper Collection. The first is composed of viewers who are already big fans of classic films, who've seen and loved all five of the movies on the set. The second is composed of viewers who aren't familiar with the early days of the cinema, and perhaps have only heard the name of Gary Cooper in passing as one of the stars of a past Hollywood golden age. It's this latter category of viewers that I have in mind in this review: those who are curious, but not convinced about whether or not these 1930s-era films are worth picking up nowadays. So go ahead and skip to the technical section if you're already a Gary Cooper fan, and read on otherwise.

While Gary Cooper's career spanned five decades, The Gary Cooper Collection pulls together five films from a narrow span of years in the 1930s: Design for Living (1933), Peter Ibbetson (1935), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), The General Died at Dawn (1936), and Beau Geste (1939). As a result, a better description of the set would be "The Early Gary Cooper Collection"; viewers who know him mainly from later westerns like High Noon will find these films to be quite different.

In all five films, there's definitely a sense that this is a transitional stage from the not-too-long-ago dominion of the silent film. Most notably, that comes across in the liberal use of narrative title cards to convey information about time passing, or events that have happened off-screen, things that would in later films be conveyed in the filmed action or left to the viewer to figure out from context. There's also a strong theatrical feel to many of the films, with the story's action tending to stick to one unified time and place before shifting entirely to a new setting, much as a play changes scenery between acts. Beau Geste, the latest of the films included here, is the most modern in some senses, with its use of flashbacks within a frame story, but even so, the scenes feel very much like set-pieces: the old estate, the desert fort, the training camp, and so on.

For viewers who are interested in sampling what the 1930s had to offer in film, The Gary Cooper Collection provides a nice variety of films. Design for Living is the one comedy of the bunch, a pre-Code romantic farce that's quite shockingly modern in its premise: a woman can't decide which of two men she prefers, so she moves in with both of them! The dialogue is the highlight of the film, with witty repartee from Cooper and his co-stars taking center stage. I'm not a big fan of this type of comedy, but I can see that it would be quite entertaining if you're fond of dialogue-heavy, bantering humor.

Peter Ibbetson takes the idea of romance in an entirely different direction. Based on a novel by George du Maurier, this story gives us Cooper as the ill-fated title character, who discovers that his childhood sweetheart has married the man he's been hired to work for. Things don't work out well at all for Ibbetson or his lover, and the film aims for a strong emotional impact. It feels rather stilted and at times heavy-handed now, but the story is interesting, and there are some imaginative moments in the film.

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is adventure through and through. Cooper is one of three dedicated friends in the British Bengal Lancers, defending British interests in India against Islamic aggressors. The film was, of course, made many years before India achieved independence from Britain, so there's not even the remotest hint that British colonialism was anything but the right and natural thing (and, of course, the inhabitants of India are savage fellows, bandits rather than freedom fighters). The film's action sequences aren't badly done, and may be of particular interest to viewers who mistakenly think that it's only modern films that are violent: in fact, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is quite a violent film, even if the carnage is in black and white.

The General Died at Dawn is another film that boasts an exotic locale, this time China, with Cooper playing an American soldier of fortune helping the inhabitants of Northern China stave off conquest by a ruthless general. On the bright side, the Chinese are played fairly straight, as reasonable fellows who speak normally; on the other hand, there's not a whole lot that's memorable about the film otherwise.

Beau Geste tells the story of three brothers (with Cooper as the eldest, in the title role) who are so devoted to each other that they'll follow each other to the ends of the earth... or the Foreign Legion and warfare in distant lands, if that's what honor asks of them. While it's very oddly paced, it's an interesting story overall, with various pieces of the story introduced at the beginning that end up fitting together nicely at the end. I enjoyed Beau Geste the most out of the five films in the set, and for viewers who are unfamiliar with films of this era, I'd say it's the most accessible and entertaining.

The DVD

The Gary Cooper Collection is attractively packaged in a two-disc set, with the two double-sided DVDs in a digipak that in turn slides inside a narrow slipcover.

The only quibble I have about the packaging is that all the images and screenshots from the films have been colorized; there's not a single visual indication that these films are really black and white, apart from the tiny B&W in the corner of the back-cover copy. Why is Universal trying to hide the fact that these are black and white?

Video

Frankly, it's impressive that we're watching films that were made 70 years ago at all. Universal has done what I'd say is a very good job of restoring all five films. They're not in perfect condition here, but especially if you look at the three trailers that are included, it's quite evident that they started out looking a whole lot worse. All five films are presented in their original black and white format and original 1.33:1 ("Academy") aspect ratio.

Some issues appear across the board. All the films have at least some grain and edge enhancement, and anything out of close-up distance tends to be a bit soft. On the flip side, all the films have been cleaned up, with print flaws and scratches essentially non-existent; contrast is at least reasonable in all five of them.

Beau Geste looks the best of the lot, with contrast handled well, and a generally clean appearance. The close-up shots here are particularly nice-looking, with excellent detail and texture. Peter Ibbetson also looks excellent, except for tending to have a lot of grain in darker scenes; the details of light and shadow are handled quite well. The General Died at Dawn and Design for Living both have contrast that's a bit on the heavy side, and a generally soft look, but both are also watchable. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer looks to be in the worst shape of the five films, with outdoor scenes in particular being very soft and worn-looking.

Audio

A Dolby 2.0 mono soundtrack is provided for each film, along with English closed captions and French and Spanish subtitle options. The sound quality is reasonable across the board, with dialogue consistently sounding natural and clean. The balance of volume for different parts of the soundtrack is also handled well, so that music, sound effects, and dialogue all are at correct levels in relation to each other. None of the films has any real problems in terms of sound quality, though not surprisingly the tracks aren't perfect; all have a background hiss to one degree to the next, and some tend to sound tinny when the volume level goes up.

Beau Geste and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer sound the best, with the background hiss at a minimum or even absent in some scenes. The General Died at Dawn, Design for Living, and Peter Ibbetson have a more distinct background hiss, and when voices are raised, the sound gets a bit harsh and tinny-sounding.

Extras

The only special features are trailers for Beau Geste, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and Peter Ibbetson.

Final thoughts

The Gary Cooper Collection brings together five early films starring Cooper, all from the 1930s: Design for Living, Peter Ibbetson, The General Died at Dawn, Beau Geste, and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. This isn't a set that I'd suggest for all viewers, as the films don't necessarily stand up well out of their historical context. If you're a big fan of older films in general, then of course you'll enjoy this set, and should certainly pick it up. If you've never seen any of these films or others of the era, you might want to test the waters with a rental first; on the other hand, this collection offers a slice of the best-quality films of the 1930s, so if you're intrigued by the period and want to experiment, you won't go wrong here. Universal has done a nice job of restoring all five films; they're not in perfect condition, but considering the age of the source material, they look quite respectable, and are quite watchable. Overall, I'll give this set a "recommended."