Adventure Theater - Double Feature: Indian Paint/African Safari (1965) Review

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(More customer reviews)I had seen it when i was VERY young. Most of the scenes I remember as vividly as things i have seen an hour ago. DO not miss it!!!

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Jonah Hex (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)To begin, please understand two things about me:
1: I Love Westerns.
2: I`ve been a fan of the character 'Jonah Hex' for over 30 years.
In the comics, Jonah Hex caught my interest because of the gritty, hard-edged stories that featured a tough ex-Confederate soldier turned hard-case Bounty Hunter roaming the old West. I won`t belabor the details, but if you want a good idea of the tone of Jonah Hex; most fans liken Clint Eastwood`s "The Outlaw Josie Wales" to practically be a Jonah Hex movie. Jonah Hex would indeed ask the immortal question "You Gonna Pull Those Pistols, Or Whistle Dixie?"
The movie "Jonah Hex", while somewhat capturing the charaacter`s 'Attitude', unfortunately sees fit to muck it up with supernatural underpinnings and the sort of gimmickry that James West would laugh at ( ...I mean...c`mon...twin Gatling Guns mounted on a saddle? ...a gun that shoots lit sticks of dynamite ?? )
Jonah Hex --the character -- was NEVER about gadgets and gimmicks, or Bringing The Dead Back To Life for Q&A sessions.
It`s painfully obvious that the makers of this movie were too timid to risk a straight, hard-edged WESTERN, so they basically threw in everything they could think of to please a teen-age audience ...and created A MESS.
Now, I do enjoy so-called 'Steampunk' --The afformentioned 'The Wild Wild West' tv series is a good example--but the storyline of Jonah Hex The Character just was never about Steampunk.
Neither does the character require supernatural powers to be interesting.
This film has been compared to Sonnenfeld`s 1999 "Wild Wild West", which managed to take a successful tv series and ruin virtually every aspect that made it a hit. It`s a common trend in Hollywood: "Let`s make a movie of a fan-favorite tv series and change things"....The changes of course are "To make it more appealing to a broader audience" ... So the logic is that you want to cash in on a pop classic and yet alter it so that the very people who enjoyed it enough to make it a pop classic will be disgusted ?
Hey--Hollywood knows best what people will like...right?
The real tragedy here is that, like James West; Jonah Hex has now been ruined for The Big Screen and likely will never get another shot at that venue.
Of course, film-makers in Hollywood these days have long since lost all faith in the Western genre. It`s too bad...Great characters create fans by being appealing, by being...great. The movie "Jonah Hex" was a twisted take on a great character; twisted to suit the perceived tastes of teenagers who supposedly would not like a solid Western character.
Well....I was a teenager when I became a Jonah Hex fan.

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Out of the pages of the legendary comics and graphic novels steps Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin), a scarred drifter and bounty hunter of last resort who can track anyone... and anything. Having survived death, Jonah's violent history is steeped in myth and legend and has left him with one foot in the natural world and one on the "other side." His one human connection is with Lilah (Megan Fox), whose life in a brothel has left her with scars of her own. But Jonah's past catches up with him when the U.S. military makes him an offer he can't refuse: to wipe out the warrants on his head, he must hunt and stop dangerous terrorist Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich). But Turnbull, now gathering an army and preparing to unleash Hell, is also Jonah's oldest enemy and will stop at nothing until Jonah is dead.

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Roy Rogers - King of the Cowboys - 20 Feature Films and more on 6 DVD Set (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)Love Roy & Dale and all their films, but I just can't stand it when my favorite cowboy films get all butchered up!... For some reason the song SUSANNA PASS went buzzing through my head the other day so I reached for this newly bought set to enjoy the movie. Now, the dvd states the running time as 67 minutes which is the correct running time for this movie. However, during the first 10 minutes I noticed that things just didn't seem quite right. Too many quick splice/cuts. And then when Roy arrives at the jailhouse early on after chasing an escaped convict I remembered that a song seemed to be missing. So when I pulled out my old REPUBLIC PICTURES vhs double bill of this film along with SONS OF THE PIONEERS I not only noticed that the video tape print was clearer with better color contrast, but also that there were no early splice cuts, snipping a couple seconds here and there. And best of all, as Roy arrives at the jailhouse, Estrelita Rodriguez is singing the song TWO GUN RITA which is not on this dvd version!!!
Now I know that those in charge of marketing for the Roy Rogers estate claim that the songs were cut for tv release way back when and are now lost on the cutting room floor... So how come my old vhs tape from REPUBLIC PICTURES has the same movie intact running also at 67 minutes?
It seems to me that the missing time ( cut songs ) were done so that Roy & Dale could host their HAPPY TRAILS THEATER on tv and talk to guest stars, in this case Gene Autry & Pat Buttram. I have nothing against yackin' about old times and kindda like seeing it as a bonus feature...but when it means cutting the songs out of a singing cowboy movie, it grates me somewhat!
After all, according to the promo blurb for Roy & Dale's 4-disc cd collection of their movie songs "...It was always the music."!!!
Then, if so, why cut the music?
This film,and others, THE BELLS OF ROSARITA, UNDER CALIFORNIA STARS, etc are available uncut with all songs intact on cheap public domain lables, many of which offer better looking prints.
Shop wisely and avoid any release that is tied into the ROY ROGERS HAPPY TRAILS tv product. They're all cut versions! They're all missing the songs!
I love the songs and I love my movies uncut and I'm sorry to see such wonderful packaging wasted on such an inferior product.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!

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Zane Grey Theatre Complete Season One Review

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(More customer reviews)I remember seeing this show in syndication years ago as a child and teenager, and I had no idea Mr. Powell had had such a diverse career. Starting out as a crooner in Busby Berkeley musicals in the 1930's, evolving into a star in film noir, and then transitioning to television in a number of shows including this one from the golden age of TV westerns in the 1950's. He was in good company with other stars such as Robert Montgomery, who hosted his own first-rate TV show in the 1950's.
This show is not really a series. Instead it was in the mold of the weekly playhouse kind of show that was so popular in the 1950's. Each episode stood alone and featured different stars each week, some being quite popular figures from the silver screen. The show first used material from Zane Grey, but as time passed material had to come from elsewhere as well. The following is a listing of the episodes of that first season as well as the stars that were featured.
1.01 - You Only Run Once- Robert Ryan, Cloris Leachman
1.02 - Fearful Courage- James Whitmore, Ida Lupino
1.03 - The Long Road Home - Mr. Powell, Ray Collins
1.04 - The Unrelenting Sky - Lew Ayres, Phyllis Avery
1.05 - The Lariat - Jack Palance, Constance Ford
1.06 - Death Watch - Lee J. Cobb, Bobby Driscoll
1.07 - Stage for Tucson - Eddie Albert, Mona Freeman
1.08 - Quiet Sunday in San Ardo - Wendell Corey, Gerald Mohr
1.09 - Vengeance Canyon - Walter Brennan, Ben Cooper
1.10 - Return to Nowhere- John Ireland, Steven McNally
1.11 - Courage is a Gun - Mr. Powell, Beverly Garland
1.12 - Muletown Gold Strike - Rory Calhoun, Barbara Eiler
1.13 - Stars over Texas - Ralph Bellamy, Gloria Talbott, James Garner
1.14 - Three Graves - Jack Lemmon, Nan Leslie
1.15 - No Man Living- Frank Lovejoy, Margaret Hayes
1.16 - Time of Decision - Lloyd Bridges, Diane Brewster
1.17 - Until the Man Dies - Stuart Whitman, John Payne
1.18 - Backtrail- Mr. Powell, Catherine McLeod
1.19 - Dangerous Orders - Jack Elam, Mark Stevens
1.20 - The Necessary Breed - Sterling Hayden, Jean Willes
1.21 - The Hanging Tree - Robert Ryan, Cloris Leachman
1.22 - Village of Fear- David Niven, George D. Wallace
1.23 - Black Creek Encounter- Ernest Borgnine, Jan Merlin
1.24 - There Were Four- John Derek, Dean Jagger
1.25 - Fugitive - Eddie Albert, Celeste Holm
1.26 - A Time To Live - Ralph Meeker, Julie London
1.27 - Black is for Grief - Mary Astor, Beulah Bondi, Chester Morris
1.28 - Badge of Honor - Gary Merrill, Tom Tully, Robert Culp
1.29 - Decision at Wilson's Creek - John Forsythe, John Dehner
1.30 - Man on the Run - Scott Brady, Nancy Hale
Each episode is 30 minutes in length and features such diverse talent as James Garner at the beginning of his career and Chester Morris near the end of his career. Mr. Powell stars in three of the thirty episodes. VCI, though not widely known, has taken part in some quality restorations before, so I am hoping these great western dramas will be carefully restored.

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