• The Fountainhead (11/21/06)
• Springfield Rifle (11/28/06)
• The Wreck of the Mary Deare (12/05/06)
• Dallas (12/12/06)
• Sergeant York (12/19/06)

York (Gary Cooper) was of course famous for capturing 133 German soldiers more or less single-handedly, but as the film opens, you're thinking of anyone but that guy. Initially a hellraiser and a layabout, York appears to be more interested in drink and random shooting than anything of importance or permanence. This of course tears at the heart of his mother (Margaret Wycherly) and earns him stern words from local pastor Rosier Pile (Walter Brennan). But after York is pushed away by his crush, Gracie (Joan Leslie), he becomes determined to stake out a piece of land--and when he doesn't get it, he nearly falls back into his old ways. What's important is that this isn't all treated as a fait accomplis: it's an ongoing process of learning and accepting what York eventually comes to see as the word of God.

Even a cynical atheist like me can appreciate York's subsequent attempts to do good and live by some personal and moral bedrock--and for about two-thirds of the running time, Sergeant York is an admirable piece of filmmaking. To be sure, it's soft-pedaled when he's asked, against his newfound belief, to serve in WWI: once the fight for freedom is intoned by random commanding officers, everything we've seen gets wiped away for a prelude to the coming war. And as well-crafted as those scenes are, I'd be lying if I didn't say they don't hold a candle to the earlier home-and-hearth passages. York's disappointment at his inability to secure highly-coveted "low land" is far more disturbing than anything in the combat sequences, which are the kind of no-sweat affairs that generally mar flag-wavers.

It speaks to the skill of Hawks and the writers (John Huston among them) that this doesn't erase the achievement of the bifurcated film's first half. Although Sergeant York stops dead the moment York goes to war, it also leaves the lingering memory of a lost boy moving in the direction of his salvation--and it's that movie for which I will treasure the whole. Cooper, of course, lends his befuddled manhood to York, keeping him humble and poignant; one can't imagine the role with any other actor (and indeed, York hand-picked Cooper). I may be reading it wildly against the grain, but the parts on offer are greater than the sum, and I recommend them wholeheartedly.

Debuting on DVD in a Two-Disc Special Edition from Warner, Sergeant York ever-so-slightly misses the mark considering the studio's impressive track record. The b&w full-frame transfer is handsome but a bit too soft and given to strobing, though the Dolby 1.0 mono sound is exceptionally clear and free of defect. As for extras, Disc One begins with a commentary by Jeanine Basinger, who proves to be thuddingly obvious in her observations, from the "authenticity" of the design (she can't stop flogging that horse) to the many "perfect" character actors on board. In short, she has no real insight into the picture beyond the basic and the self-evident. Meanwhile, Lions for Sale (9 mins.) is a 1941 documentary short about the training of circus lions and the annoying narrators who speak of them; and Porky's Preview (6 mins.), from the same year, finds the inestimable pig previewing simple, stick-figure animation of his own creation. (The earlier, fully-animated sequences of animals pouring into a theatre are the most amusing thing about it.) A Cooper trailer gallery featuring Sergeant York, The Fountainhead, Springfield Rifle, Friendly Persuasion, Love in the Afternoon, and The Wreck of the Mary Deare round out the platter.

Disc Two features two documentaries. "Sergeant York: Of God and Country" (38 mins.) is a fairly comprehensive retrospective making-of narrated by Liam Neeson. Special care is taken to vividly lay out the nuts-and-bolts of the production (including the glacial pace of production and Coop's close bond with Hawks) in addition to the tortuous road to a screenplay, with an initially recalcitrant York having to be incrementally convinced first that films weren't immoral, then that he should be able to profit off his war past, then to support an anti-isolationist stance in the days before Pearl Harbor. It's a solid, if workmanlike, piece. Finally, "Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend" (46 mins.) is a '90s-vintage hagiography that's almost totally reliant on movie clips and hosted by Clint Eastwood, who fawns over his mythological status with a credulity that makes one blush with embarrassment.-Travis Mackenzie Hoover

1.33:1; English Mono, French Mono; English, French, Spanish subtitles; 2 DVD-9s; 134 minutes; NR

If you're asking how a wanted Southern guerrilla can somehow become a U.S. Marshal without raising eyebrows, you haven't bartered on the fancypants nature of Weatherby. He shows up in another town in order to relieve Wild Bill Hickock (Reed Hadley), but he's a complete greenhorn who can't shoot and is only in the game to impress his Texan fiancée Tonia Robles (Ruth Roman). Fortunately, Wild Bill has an entente cordiale with Hollister during which he tells him to help out poor Weatherby in his hunt for some Dallas no-goodniks. They manifest themselves in the form of the Marlow brothers (civilized face William (Raymond Massey), savage killer Brant (Steve Cochran)), moneylenders who've been foreclosing on properties with force when leveraging isn't an option. Hollister poses as Weatherby so as not to be arrested--though a chance encounter might unmask him.

To be sure, there are no big surprises in this bit of narrative. In fact, the whole thing rests on a foregone conclusion: that Hollister will redeem himself and enter the Marshals. There's a lot of talk about the new life being built in the place whose name means "friend" and putting old grudges behind us--and while the film plays both sides of the street in its baiting of blue-bellied Yankees like Weatherby, it's pretty sure that history written by the winners is the way it ought to be. Still, I haven't seen a movie with this many sneaky subterfuges in some time: not only are the lead and his sidekick playing parts, but every encounter with Marlow's enforcers involves a deception of sorts as well. Nobody can tell the truth about who they are until the end, which keeps Dallas lively and watchable.

There are other pleasures, to be sure. It's fun to watch Massey in a villainous, moustache-twirling role: though he's billed under marquee name Cochran, he's the mean-spirited brains of the operation and gets his due in a memorable final shootout with Cooper. Cochran doesn't leave much of an impression as Massey, but it's likewise pretty funny to watch poor Erickson have the wind knocked out of him by both the job and the fact that Cooper is making eyes with his wife-to-be. If there's absolutely nothing to be learned that doesn't come out of a million join-America-see-the-world epics, the film is so unconcerned with the substance of that message that it gets in and gets out before you can become annoyed.

Warner's DVD release of Dallas is more or less up to the studio's usual standards. The full-frame image boasts extremely rich colours and surprisingly sharp definition; top marks are missed only by occasional blue flickering that I suspect is irreparable negative damage. The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio is equally fine, full and round and clear as a bell. Once again, there are no extras.-Travis Mackenzie Hoover

1.33:1; English Mono, French Mono; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 94 minutes; NR

Those odds have to do with the freighter ship the Mary Deare, on which salvage operator John Sands (Heston) stumbles hoping to score big, only to find lone holdout Captain Gideon Patch (Cooper) inside the damaged vessel. Bad weather precludes Sands from returning to his tugboat, meaning he'll have to make the trip home with Patch. Without a radio and headed straight for a reef, they run aground and boat out to safety, and Patch begs Sands not to divulge the location of the Mary Deare so that he might prove in the ensuing inquest that the cargo of plane engines was switched and funnelled to the Red Chinese. Will Patch's bad past and inability to explain bring both men down to ignominy?

The film's structure, once common, is today very rare to come by. Patch is the prime mover of the narrative, but he's viewed through a glass darkly by audience surrogate Sands--and it's thanks to Sands that the audience feels ennobled by association with the older man's lost cause. This telescopic protagonist has been thrown by the wayside for Joseph Campbell/Syd Field ideas about central heroes and their journeys; and though one can't really say that the movie is avant-garde by comparison, it sure would be less interesting without that conceit. Minus the surrogate hero, The Wreck of the Mary Deare would ask you to identify with a doggedly unpleasant person who's largely thwarted until the climax--and would exhibit less of the warmth created by the Sands-Patch association.

But this is to weigh down the film with significance. For the most part, The Wreck of the Mary Deare moves at a leisurely clip and lets you revel in the central relationship--which is not the same as exploring that relationship. The movie simply wants to be a yarn about two guys and a ship, so much so that it downplays the Communist intrigue angle to become a story of outcasts retaining dignity. There's a nice supporting turn by up-and-coming Richard Harris (who'd go on to take another doomed voyage out to sea for director Anderson in Orca) as Higgins, the lead slimeball amongst Patch's treacherous crew, and it's just as nice to see Michael Redgrave appear as a lawyer during the inquest. The whole thing is light to the touch and fairly forgettable, yet never dull. It's not a must-see, but seeing it is pleasurable enough.

Another great catalogue reissue from Warner: the 2.35:1, 16x9-enhanced image is well-handled, with some deep, saturated colours that resist bleedthrough and do not detract from the fine detail; it's remarkably sharp under the murky circumstances. The Dolby 1.0 mono sound is almost as good, perhaps a little faint and with slightly less definition than is ideal. There are no extras.-Travis Mackenzie Hoover

2.35:1; English Mono, French Mono; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; 105 minutes; NR

A bashful Coop assays the role of Major Lex Kearney, whom we first encounter refusing to order his outnumbered troops to attack a gang of horse thieves. As the thieves have been rustling Union horses at an alarming rate, this immediately sets a court-martial in motion where the major is dishonourably discharged. But it's all a ruse: the Major is merely pioneering counter-intelligence by joining the rustlers' gang to suss out the person tipping them off to the movement of shipments. He soon finds himself rubbing shoulders with the indelibly-named Austin McCool (David Brian), who runs the operation with Confederate guidance but is not the mole within Union forces. It spoils nothing to say that the traitor is no one you'll suspect and the most trustworthy member of the Union cadre--and how 'bout that climax?

As I say, there's no point in searching for larger significance in the midst of this movie. It's strictly western adventure fodder, with Coop in constant peril and very little to distract from that throughline. True, he has a bit more agony in considering his in-the-dark wife Erin (Phyllis Thaxter), and she in turn has to bite her nails over the humiliation of Kearney's dismissal and the stress it puts on their son. Even that, however, is largely done to up the danger ante--there's no statement on work and family, or male/female roles, or anything else that would make this interesting to a cultural studies class. Instead, we get a lot of hullabaloo in the name of the Union and the occasional thug like Pete Elm (Lon Chaney, dropping the "Jr." that once distinguished him from his legendary father), whose chief purpose is to provide comic relief.

Still, I was never bored throughout the brisk 92-minute running time; Springfield Rifle doesn't let you stop and think long enough to ponder what it might be missing. The film doggedly pursues its narrative throughline without looking back, taking care to fulfill the requirements of the story and make a quick exit. I suppose this means that it's giving the bare minimum, but it's still more than one would expect from a routine oater. By the time the fabled Springfield "[makes] one man the equal of five," we've been sufficiently entertained. It ain't Shakespeare, but it keeps you hooked.

Excavated for Warner's five-title Gary Cooper Signature Collection, Springfield Rifle features a slightly-oversaturated fullscreen transfer--reds especially pop off the screen, intruding on otherwise fine detail. The Dolby 1.0 mono audio is a tad faint but largely defect-free. There are no extras.-Travis Mackenzie Hoover

1.33:1; English Mono, French Mono; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; 93 minutes; NR

That rugged individualist Gary Cooper is inevitably assigned to the role of Howard Roark, the ultra-Modernist architect who insists on his way or no way; resentful of his greatness, almost everybody else conspires against him. They hate him in school, they hate him in the world of architecture, and the one firm that shows faith in him winds up going broke on the gamble. He's enough of a threat (regardless of the fact that nobody wants to take notice of him) that once he finally lands a gig designing some luxury apartments, he's attacked by THE NEW YORK BANNER, "the newspaper of the people" run by thoroughly evil Gail Wynand (Raymond Massey). Roark does have a champion in Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal), however, the second-string BANNER columnist who worships at his shrine--they even have an encounter (that is to say, rape) while he's slumming as a quarryman near her wealthy parents' home. But at the same time she feels threatened by him, and runs to the arms of hateful Gail for reasons only Rand can know for sure.

There's a lot of bizarre self-abnegating behaviour in The Fountainhead. Rand refuses to accept the idea that people don't like avant-garde work because they don't understand it or just don't like it--no, it threatens them and their place in blah, blah, blah. I casually know enough "mediocre" film critics to understand that they're not hateful connivers; indeed, they're mostly blissfully ignorant of what they might be missing. But the idea of being ignored is completely unthinkable in the Rand universe. There has to be a conspiracy against the genius--and, in effect, against those radical individuals who think for themselves and without any sort of purpose. This, naturally, has great appeal to teenagers going through the motions of defining their identity, but it simply doesn't line up with reality.

Now, just because you're ridiculous doesn't mean you're unwatchable. The Fountainhead is directed by that most credulous of auteurs, King Vidor, who places such faith in the material that it fairly explodes with outrageousness. Much has been made of the phallocentricism of the piece--it's all skyscrapers and drills in slate quarries, the latter of which is the ideal occasion for confused Dominique to lose it to manly Howard. But for the most part it's the straight-up translation of Rand's dialogue and situations that pops, the rather non-melodramatic rendering of insane melodrama that is a pretty accurate representation of Rand as both writer and thinker. She's all about seeming a rock in a river of contempt when she's actually as calm and collected as Fay Wray in the grip of Kong.

In fact, The Fountainhead would get a full three stars for camp were it not for some of the nastier consequences of the woman's thought. Rand's individualism often turns into sadism--the imposition of one will on a large number of people and thus their subjugation. This bullyboy aspect makes the later passages of the film a bit unpleasant while revealing the author's fascist underpinnings. When Roark spits on the idea of designing public housing for the sake of its disadvantaged residents, he transforms what was ludicrous adolescent fantasizing into something genuinely hateful--sort of like Rand opposing desegregation on the grounds that it violated property rights. No amount of camp can compensate for the disgust Rand had for other people, something that casts a pall the proceedings never completely shake.

Warner's DVD release of The Fountainhead once again demonstrates the studio's commitment to its back catalogue. The full-frame image is crisp and free of defect, with excellent shadow detail during its darker scenes and a sharp rendering of the many architectural drawings. The Dolby 1.0 mono audio is equally fine, boasting a full round sound that does not compromise clarity. Extras include a retrospective featurette, "The Making of The Fountainhead" (19 mins.), that was no doubt made by Rand acolytes: not only do they roll over for all of her main ideas (her novel is possessed of a "piercing intellect"), but they also manage to fumble an account of the production--which, aside from Cooper and Neal's scandalous romance, apparently went off without a hitch. It's one of the laziest makings-of I've ever seen and should serve as a warning of the wages of sycophancy. Also included: the film's theatrical trailer.-Travis Mackenzie Hoover

1.33:1; English Mono, French Mono; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; 112 minutes; NR