Gary Cooper - The Signature Collection: Sergeant York, The Fountainhead, Dallas, Springfield Rifle, The Wreck of the Mary Deare Warner DVD Sergeant York, The Fountainhead, Dallas, Springfield Rifle, The Wreck of the Mary Deare Starring Gary Cooper Street Date November 7, 2006 49.98 the boxed set Available separately at 26.98 and 19.98 Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
	Warners brings together one bona fide Gary Cooper classic, one weird masterpiece and three of his lesser program pictures in Gary Cooper - The Signature Collection, yet another attractive boxed set guaranteed to empty out savings accounts. The idea that Cooper made 'lesser' pictures is probably irrelevant as he's one of the most watchable stars in film history; even when going through the motions in a stock western or just looking stressed in a late-career thriller, he's a pleasure to spend one's time with. Savant reviews two of the discs in this boxed set separately. Sergeant York 1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 134 min. / 2-Disc Special Edition / Available separately at 26.98 Starring Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Stanley Ridges, Margaret Wycherly, Ward Bond, Noah Beery Jr., June Lockhart Cinematography Sol Polito Second Unit Director Don Siegel Art Direction John Hughes Film Editor William Holmes Original Music Max Steiner Written by Abem Finkel, Harry Chandlee, Howard Koch, John Huston from the diary of Alvin C. York Produced by Howard Hawks, Jesse L. Lasky, Hal B. Wallis Directed by Howard Hawks Sergeant York is reviewed separately at this URL. The Fountainhead 1949 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 112 min. / Available separately at 19.98 Starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith, Robert Douglas, Henry Hull Cinematography Robert Burks Art Direction Edward Carrere Film Editor David Weisbart Original Music Max Steiner Written by Ayn Rand from her novel Produced by Henry Blanke Directed by King Vidor The Fountainhead is reviewed separately at this URL. Dallas 1950 / 94 min. / Not available separately Starring Gary Cooper, Ruth Roman, Steve Cochran, Raymond Massey, Barbara Payton, Leif Erickson, Antonio Moreno, Jerome Cowan Cinematography Ernest Haller Art Direction Douglas Bacon Film Editor Clarence Kolster Original Music Max Steiner Written by John Twist Produced by Anthony Veiller Directed by Stuart Heisler Dallas is the least of the films in this set, a western with an unchallenging story that genre critics might say wasn't worth Gary Cooper's time. Yet it's far better than average, the main strength this time around being the colorful dialogue in John Twist's screenplay. Characters throw interesting colloquialisms about like modern slang, keeping our ears tuned to what's going on. Also providing a solid push are Max Steiner's bouncy score and an attractive Technicolor sheen. Synopsis: U.S. Marshall Martin Weatherby (Leif Erickson) is a Boston tinhorn incapable of arresting the notorious Marlow brothers Brant and Will (Steve Cochran and Raymond Massey), so with the blessing of Wild Bill Hickock (Reed Hadley), misunderstood outlaw Blayde Hollister (Cooper) takes Weatherby's identity. Blayde has a personal score to settle with the Marlows. The deception works when Weatherby's fiancée Tonia Robles (Ruth Roman) kisses Blayde and discovers that she prefers the fake Marshall to the real one. Helped by rancher Don Felipe Robles (Antonio Moreno) and townsman Matt Coulter (Jerome Cowan), Hollister tricks and traps the Marlows into revealing their dirty land swindles. Dallas plays like a higher-class version of a series western: A top gunslinger comes to town to get the bad guys and ends up winning the girl as well. There's plenty of thieving and murdering, thanks to Steve Cochran and his evil beard. Just one year after The Fountainhead Raymond Massey seems no competition for Cooper whatsoever. Actually, although there's nothing wrong with his acting, Massey seems out of place just being in a western. He's the brother of Steve Cochran ... ? The story bounces between chases, kidnappings and dirty-trick gundowns, all energetically directed by Stuart Heisler and 2nd unit pro B. Reeves Eason. Cooper is front and center at least 80% of the time. He'd co-star with Ruth Roman again (in Blowin' Wild, 1953) but she really doesn't add much to the show beyond window dressing. In fact, Roman's character never seems to leave the hacienda set. Leif Erickson has the thankless role of the Easterner who has to stand back while He-moose Cooper moves in and claims her for his own. There's no real conflict in this ... Roman knows who has the Right Stuff West of the Pecos as soon as she kisses Cooper, while Cooper is given his signature 'aw shucks' innocence that makes it seem that stealing the girl wasn't his idea. In an almost parodic finale, Erickson exits to go back East and do something he knows how to do, build that railroad to Dallas. The ill-fated Barbara Payton has a thankless role as Cochran's double-dealing gun moll. She's given no big scenes and really only gets to complain: "You'd get your pockets picked in a graveyard!" Interestingly, this is one western where the bad girl is a blonde Anglo, and the good girl is a dark Mexican, although Ruth Roman shows no Latin qualities whatsoever. The DVD of Dallas has excellent color with only one or two shots showing anything like mis-registration. Steiner's score comes across strongly on the sharp Warners soundtrack. This disc has no extras. Springfield Rifle 1952 / 93 min. / Not available separately Starring Gary Cooper, Phyllis Thaxter, David Brian, Paul Kelly, Lon Chaney Jr., Philip Carey, James Millican, Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, Alan Hale Jr., Martin Milner Cinematography Edwin B. DuPar Art Direction John Beckman Film Editor Robert L. Swanson Original Music Max Steiner Written by Frank Davis, Sloan Nibley, Charles Marquis Warren Produced by Louis F. Edelman Directed by André De Toth Springfield Rifle is a more ambitious and much more exciting movie than Dallas, yet is not a front-rank Cooper western. The old-fashioned undercover agent story is given a Cold War twist in Charles Marquis Warren's sharp script. Capable director André De Toth puts this Technicolor production together with professional ease. Synopsis: Southern spies and jayhawkers out in Colorado territory are successfully stealing Union horses needed for a spring offensive in the War Between the States. Because Washington doesn't believe in counter-espionage, Major Lex Kearney (Cooper) volunteers to be drummed out of the Army in disgrace, in order to facilitate his catching the Confederate spy ring. This means that he cannot even tell his wife Erin (Phyllis Thaxter); his son back East is so shamed that he quits school and joins the Army. Lex is able to make himself the #2 man in the horse-raiding outfit run by Austin McCool (David Brian). But he must stick it out to the end to find the source of McCool's inside information. Charles Marquis Warren is noted for excellent scripts with a strong political undercurrent. His Arrowhead was tabbed by liberal English genre critics as a strong anti-Communist tract: The late Jack Palance plays a Ho Chi Minh-like native American who returns from an Eastern college, lets his hair down and sets out to be a determined terrorist against the peace-loving white occupiers of his homeland. Springfield Rifle rationalizes the need for the new CIA. Gary Cooper's loyal Union major is point man for a secret counter-intelligence program that Washington would forbid -- if they knew it existed. Spies are needed to fight the war because the "other side" is using them like crazy. Cooper must alienate himself from society -- he's known as a dirty traitor -- and cannot even tell his wife Erin what he is doing. The unknowing (and rather untrusting) Erin condemns him. Coop keeps telling her to stop asking questions and go home to take care of the kids ... the ultimate 50s message to all 'good' American women. By extension, all good 50s Americans are advised to stop worrying, shut up and fund our new secret police entities. Placing that rather obvious subtext aside, Springfield Rifle is a rousing action saga that's half White Heat and half John Ford-style cavalry western. Ford would never go for a cavalry rife with OSS-style intrigues, plots within plots and commanding officers who happen to be spies for the other side. Just keeping up with who knows what about whom sustains the story, and good casting gives Cooper interesting company whether shooting up the range or brawling at the gates of the fort. Phyllis Thaxter plays the June Allyson role, at least until it comes time to accuse and desert her husband. On the Warners downslide, David Brian is a renegade rancher and Paul Kelly the concerned C.O.. The always-loyal Phillip Carey is an officer who thinks Cooper is a coward and enjoys watching him branded with a yellow streak upon being ejected from the Army post. Guinn Williams, Martin Milner and Alan Hale Jr. have visible bits but favorite Lon Chaney Jr. gets a solid role as a cantankerous horse thief. In one rather sexually interpretable scene, Cooper slashes both of Chaney's buttocks (honest) so that he'll have to walk rather than ride his horse for a few days. Warren's screenplay is dotted with a number of other savage and/or weird violent touches. For a capper, the new guns that turn 'one man into five, and fifty into an army,' are brought in to give the Army an edge over the horse thieves. I'll be surprised if Springfield Rifle wasn't quietly shaped by the government -- as its notion that America will prevail superior firepower was the Cold War's main battle cry for more military funding. You wouldn't want Coop to go up against a Guatemalan Commie without a bigger gun, would you? The DVD of Springfield Rifle looks terrific, if a bit more grainy than Dallas -- the photography is much more ambitious. There are no extras. The Wreck of the Mary Deare 1959 / 105 min. / Not available separately Starring Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Virginia McKenna, Richard Harris, Michael Redgrave, Emlyn Williams, Cecil Parker, Alexander Knox Cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg Art Direction Paul Groesse, Hans Peters Film Editor Eda Warren Original Music George Duning Written by Eric Ambler from the novel by Hammond Innes Produced by Julian Blaustein Directed by Michael Anderson Adapted from a popular novel, this maritime thriller is more famous for being turned down by Alfred Hitchcock than it is on its own merits. Hitchcock and Ernest Lehman were supposedly working on it at MGM for months, until they simply told the production office that they were going off in an original direction with what became North By NorthWest. Producer Julian Blaustein and director Michael Anderson came up with a by-the-numbers mystery that's short on real interest and long on waiting around for Gary Cooper's character to give us information he's been withholding. When all's said and done, there's little reason why he didn't speak up with the truth right at the start.  1 Synopsis: Seagoing salvage sailor John Sands (Charlton Heston) boards what he thinks is an abandoned freighter, but finds its first mate Gideon Patch trying to manage the entire ship by himself. Patch refuses to tell Sands what happened and hides the fact that no distress signal has been sent. Patch begs Sands to trust him and Sands agrees, although it will cost him salvage rights to the boat. Together they crash the ship onto some rocks and then return to England to face an inquiry. Back in London the ship's owners are furious and the insurance agents equally upset; Patch has a bad reputation as a 'ship wrecker.' With the surviving crew refuting his version of events, it looks like Patch is being made the fall guy. He prevails on Sand one more time to help him prove his theory -- that the ship's owners colluded with another mate, Higgins (Richard Harris) to sell the ship's cargo, sink it, and then blame it all on Gideon Patch. The Wreck of the Mary Deare gets bogged down in a literal telling of a story that eventually collapses under the weight of logic. There's a certain interest in the realistic scenes aboard the ship in a storm but the only suspense generated comes from the main character's refusal to share information, with both Charlton Heston and with us. The film bounces through a series of big-star cameos that adds little to the film. Alexander Knox has one scene as an angry lawyer, Michael Redgrave says a few words at a trial, and the always-interesting Virginia McKenna is completely wasted as the daughter of the Mary Deare's dead captain. Also not helping are at least twenty-five minutes of sharply filmed ocean miniatures that forever remind us that what we're seeing is completely artificial. The models look good, but we'd rather see Cooper and Heston on the deck of a real ship to give the story some gravity. Eventually they go on a far-fetched frogman scuba foray, which makes little sense when one considers the age of Gary Cooper's Gideon Patch character. It's never in doubt that Gideon Patch will be vindicated in the end. Then we find out that the reason he risked both his and John Sands' lives, and dragged the plot out to the violent extremes, is that he didn't know who to trust, he was afraid. That un-heroic stance reveals Cooper's limitations as an actor: Cooper's screen characters can be flawed, but he's almost never convincing as a loser ... we always expect Coop to prevail by some natural inner force. The identical problem damages his other late-career picture, the western near-masterpiece Man of the West. Charlton Heston gives excellent support, just as he did for Gregory Peck in The Big Country. Somewhere among those films Heston put a lot of hours into work in Italy on Ben-Hur. For a few years he must have been the busiest actor alive. He gets a chance to work with Richard Harris, six years before Major Dundee, but nothing interesting transpires. Harris plays a one-note bad-guy creep and still had a couple more years of glorified bit parts ahead of him in other actors' starring vehicles, such as The Guns of Navarone. Warners' disc of The Wreck of the Mary Deare looks great in a colorful enhanced transfer. Savant loves elaborate film miniatures but after a while the leisurely views of these boats turns into a dull episode of the Thunderbirds: Too much bathtub water splashing around. This disc also has no bonus material, but the packaging assures us that said bonus material is not rated or closed-captioned. Gary Cooper - The Signature Collection is a bargain for his fans and an excellent example of Warner Home Video's continued determination to release its immense MGM, Warners and RKO libraries. Some viewers might only want to get the individual releases of Sergeant Yorkor The Fountainhead, but it is true that the fans that go nuts for Springfield Riflebut hate the other titles are going to be out of luck. Confirmed DVD addicts like Savant see an instant benefit to the new slim cases and wishes they'd be adopted as a standard, just to keep the disc population from overflowing one's available storage. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Sergeant York rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent Supplements: Commentary by Jeannine Basinger, Cartoon Porky's Preview, Short Lions for Sale, Cooper Trailer Gallery; Featurette Sergeant York: Of God and Country, TNT Docu Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend The Fountainhead rates: Movie: Excellent Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent Supplements: Featurette The Making of The Fountainhead, Trailer
	Dallas rates: Movie: Good - Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent Supplements: None Springfield Rifle rates: Movie: Very Good Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent Supplements: None
	The Wreck of the Mary Deare rates: Movie: Good - Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent Supplements: None **** Packaging: Reviewed: , 2006
	Footnote: 1. It appears that Hitchcock and Lehman passed the The Wreck of the Mary Deare project on to writer Eric Ambler ... who in 1958 married Hitchcock's long-time assistant (and writer-producer in her own right) Joan Harrison. Return [Savant Main Page] [Savant Links] [Article Index] [Review Index] [Savant 5 Year Report] DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson Advertise With Us Review Staff | About DVD Talk | Newsletter Subscribe | Join DVD Talk Forum Copyright © MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use