Family Home Theater

Grade: B+
Entire family: No
1954, 110 min., Color
Olive Films
Unrated (would be PG for adult themes and some violence)
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1 (full widescreen)
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Bonus features: A-
Trailer
Amazon link

In 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee interrogated members of Hollywood about alleged Communists in the film industry, and the “Hollywood Ten” refused to cooperate—which resulted in their being blacklisted and unable to work again in their profession. Even into the early 1950s, those “Red Menace” flames were fanned by Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose unsubstantiated claims that there were huge numbers of Soviet spies and sympathizers living among us sparked additional modern-day witchhunts.

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible—his dramatization of the Salem witch trials—as an allegory criticizing McCarthyism, and anyone who knows history and watches the 1954 Western Johnny Guitar will recognize it as another allegory, one that references not only the idea of the McCarthy-style witch hunt but also Miller’s play. It’s hard not see in the “funeral attire” of a posse and the firebrand reformer of a woman who leads them a pretty exact match with the stark black-and-white dress of the Puritans who tried women as witches simply because another woman—jealous, perhaps—“accused” her of witchcraft. Accusation was enough to justify burning at the stake, and that same lack of tolerance and lack of due process drives this intelligent Western, which also features a “burning.”

So what does that mean for family TV night? Well, Johnny Guitar isn’t a guilty pleasure, that’s for sure. It’s not the kind of movie you pop in for mindless entertainment. It’s not a typical formulaic Western with a strong male hero rescuing a damsel in distress. This revisionist Western features a strong female protagonist and big fight at the end that pits one strong woman against another. There’s gunplay, certainly, but as in High Noon—another intellectual Western—it’s measured, and a direct result of character. Compared to other Westerns, Johnny Guitar is high art—richly atmospheric and with noir elements that will remind viewers of such dramatic films as Key Largo. It’s directed by is directed by Nicholas Ray, who also gave us Rebel without a Cause, and fans of James Dean will see similarities here as well. All of which make this Western—which French critics collectively pronounced one of the best of all time—family viewing only if you have teenagers who can appreciate thoughtful and well-constructed films that aren’t made for the masses.

Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a former saloon “girl”—a woman who survived by giving pleasure to men, though nothing so blunt is ever specifically stated. Through a series of events that also are left to our imaginations, Vienna has raised herself up. She once worked in a saloon, but now she owns a saloon isolated in the foothills apart from a small cattle town. She’s at odds with the townspeople, not only because of morality—Emma Small (as in small-minded?) wants to drive her away—but because she’s working with the railroad to run tracks through her property and build a depot right there by her saloon.

In a nod to TV Westerns and B movies, a stagecoach is held up by a gang, and the town accuses Vienna of being in cahoots with The Dancin’ Kid and his boys, which memorably include young Turkey (Ben Cooper) and crusty Bart (Ernest Borgnine). But this is an “iceberg” Western, with most of it lurking beneath the surface. Every character has a back story that viewers are invited to figure out, and to speculate about the relationship between Vienna and Emma, between The Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady) and both women, among the “gang” members, and between Vienna and the unarmed stranger (Sterling Hayden) who rides into town with a guitar slung on his back. For that matter, Johnny Guitar invites you to speculate on the notion of power and who has it in this town—the head of the cattlemen (Ward Bond), the marshal (Frank Ferguson), or Emma as the voice of all things “proper.” And why does Vienna really want that railroad to go right past her saloon?

Johnny Guitar was added to the National Film Registry in 2008, and it truly is “culturally, historically” and “aesthetically” significant. Aside from the allegorical elements there’s much to appreciate and discuss about the film’s structure and the ways in which it plays with Western clichés, or the way it offers a feminist, revisionist take on the West. It’s the kind of movie that you discuss with your kids, rather than crack jokes during the film—though it might be hard not to joke briefly about Mercedes McCambridge’s performance as Emma, a fanatic who acts wild-eyed crazy, or even the harsh-featured Crawford, who plays her character like a strong-and-silent male Western hero. Yet, while the style of acting borders on the melodramatic, as was common at the time, the heady elements keep it from being unintentionally funny. Director Ray uses atmosphere and sparse dialogue to create and sustain a tension that holds you until the end credits. And for a 1954 film aimed at making a statement about politics run amuck, that’s a pretty good feat.

Olive Films has been quietly building a catalog of old films, but with this release they launch Olive Signature—“the next generation of fan-centered entertainment.” It’s their version of the Criterion Collection, with a handsome slipcase and a barrel of bonus features that draws upon the knowledge of film historians and admirers like Martin Scorsese. A full-color booklet includes a terrific essay on “Johnny Guitar: The First Existentialist Western,” and the print itself looks and sounds great in HD. It’s a wonderful release that’s aimed at intelligent people who can appreciate intelligent films. Especially if your teens are reading The Crucible in high school they might appreciate watching this one.

Language: Nothing much; “tramp” is as bad as it gets
Sex: None, though everything simmers below the surface and is so subtle that children won’t get it
Violence: Several people are shot and killed, but old-school style, no blood; there’s also one lynching with the camera turning away during the crucial moment
Adult situations: Pretty much the entire film; it takes place in a saloon, so there you go
Takeaway: The more you watch this Western, the more you see, and its allegoric message is still sadly appropriate today

Grade: C- at best
Entire family: No
2016, 98 min., Color
Not Rated: Would be PG for violence and adult situations
Cinedigm
Aspect ration: 16×9 widescreen (letterboxed)
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: C-
Trailer
Amazon link

Even though Westerns aren’t as popular as they once were, especially with young viewers, you’d think a Western version of Taken might win a few new converts. And Traded might have, if the writing and acting were better.

Clichés roll like tumbleweeds in this drama starring Michael Paré as a retired gunfighter now living as a rancher with a wife, an older teenage daughter named Lily (Brittany Elizabeth Williams) and a young son named Jake (Hunter Fischer). But familiarity isn’t the problem. Every Western is built on clichés. A good one makes you forget those clichés; a bad one makes those clichés stand out like the neck hair on a rabid dog.

Kids need characters to identify with, and unlike Shane, you lose the boy just a half-hour into the film when he’s killed by a rattlesnake—which almost comes as a relief, because the over-the-top family wholesomeness will strike today’s families as being trying-too-hard hokey. The family in Act 1 of Traded is more like the Flanders family in The Simpsons than the wholesome-but-believable Ingalls family in Little House on the Prairie.

When Lily is kidnapped by white slavers working as brothel suppliers and his wife Amelia (Constance Brenneman) has a breakdown, Clay Travis chooses to go after his daughter. That’s when you hope he also leaves the hokiness in his dust, but nope, it follows him to Wichita and then Dodge City. An exchange with a saloon owner (Tom Sizemore) and a face-off with a tough brothel owner (Trace Adkins) have the same kind of hokey dialogue as the opening sequences, and even the normally charismatic Kris Kristofferson can’t get past the bad writing as he plays an older bartender who provides help.

The look of Traded is authentic enough, helped considerably by location shooting in California and New Mexico and believable interior sets, but only a few moments stand out—like the scene where Travis tells a man to take his glasses off before he punches him, or when he wails on a bad dad and in so doing earns the help of the man’s teenage daughter. But scenes like those only serve to remind you that the rest of it is all pretty tedious and riddled with poor dialogue—so surface obvious that you find yourself wondering if the problem is with the lines themselves or the acting. Either way, director Timothy Woodward Jr. seems uneasily comfortable proceeding.

There aren’t enough plot twists for me to talk about narrative thrust without revealing too much, but though the action picks up in the third act I found Traded hard going. The West would have been easier, I found myself thinking. And my kids? No one had to kidnap them. They left the room voluntarily after the first confrontation didn’t up the ante enough for them.

Language: Some mild swearwords and old-timey Western equivalents
Sex: Nothing graphic, but prostitutes and brothels are shown
Violence: The obligatory Western showdown plus other gun and fist violence scattered throughout
Adult situations: drinking, smoking, houses of ill-repute
Takeaway: With a great premise, it’s surprising a film like this didn’t fare better. I blame the writers, and feel sorry for the actors whose performances seem boxed in by bad writing and scenic construction

Grade: B-
Entire family: No
1978-79, 900 min. (14 episodes), Color
Not rated; would be PG for some violence and adult situations
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Bonus features: None

What does the star of an iconic TV Western do after the series ends its 20-year run? If that star is James Arness, he goes right from Gunsmoke to How the West Was Won, turning in his marshal’s badge to hobble around bowlegged as cagey frontier scout Zeb Macahan.

Gunsmoke left the small screen after the 1974-75 season, and the following year Arness donned fringed buckskins to play Zeb Macahan in a TV movie. That realistic, location-shot film was so popular that it led to a mini-series in 1977, and a bona fide TV series in 1978. But Westerns were on their way out. Gunsmoke was the #1 TV show in America from 1957 to 1960, but How the West Was Won only managed to place 11^th its first season, four places behind Little House on the Prairie—the only other Western to crack the Top 30 shows. After that, it dropped out of the Nielsen elite, leaving Little House on the Prairie as the only popularly watched Western. It was clearly the end of an era.

Partly, though, it was because the blend of realism and melodrama that sustained How the West Was Won its first two outings started to tip more toward melodrama by the second season. And Arness, who was so genially believable as the crusty Zeb Macahan, develops a slight case of John Wayne syndrome this season, with his performance at times resembling a caricature of his character.

That said, Season 2 is still a cut above the average TV Western.  More

Grade:  B-
Entire family:  No
1956, 89 min., Black-and-white
Unrated (would be PG)
20^th Century Fox
Aspect ratio:  2.35:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Bonus features:  B-
Trailer

In November 1956, Love Me Tender introduced Elvis Presley as an actor. By that time he had already made his TV debut as a performer on Louisiana Hayride, singles like “That’s All Right” were playing nationwide, and his live shows were causing riots. Elvis’s first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (performing “Love Me Tender”) on September 9 had exposed him to 60 million viewers, most of whom would be curious to see this rock ‘n’ roll phenomenon on the big screen.

Though Elvis didn’t get top billing, the studio featured the 21 year old on the movie poster with his guitar, and Love Me Tender did well at the box office. It’s an above-average Western, but maybe only slightly—something that’s clear if you can mentally remove Elvis from the picture.

Without The King, Love Me Tender is a decent horse opera that has more stand-and-talk moments than shoot-‘em-ups. It’s slow in spots, and that plus black-and-white will be enough to put off younger family members. But Elvis really does add interest.

The screenplay comes from Robert Buckner (Dodge City), yet there’s considerably more melodrama here than in that classic Western. What else can there be when the film’s main focus is a romantic triangle involving suppressed love?   More