John Wayne's Tribute to America

There are 46 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 25,192 times. The latest Post () was by Hondo Duke Lane.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!



  • This is the announcement of John Wayne's Tribute to America coming out July 31. You can get this at your local video (or at least you could at mine), or on line. Generally it is around $18.00USD. Here is a review on this DVD that I think all of us need to get. It is also reported for all regions.

    Quote


    As an amazing time capsule of all-star entertainment, John Wayne's Tribute to America provides a perfect snapshot of American television in the year 1970. Under its original title Swing Out, Sweet Land, this Emmy-winning variety show was originally broadcast on NBC on November 29, 1970, and was intended, in part, as John Wayne's personal response to growing protest against the war in Vietnam. Three years after the hippie movement's "Summer of Love," the country was politically divided like never before, and this 80-minute special was Wayne's attempt to counteract the "anti-American" war protests with a rousing, patriotic, and unifying reminder of America's greatness. In his introduction, Wayne (whose controversial conservatism ran against the rising tide of liberal politics) promises that the show will be apolitical and "short on preaching," focusing instead on America as "one of those yarn-spinnin' places"--a proud land of immigrants where people didn't take themselves too seriously, and where courage and nobility were mixed with song, dance, and humor as the country expanded westward. Swing Out, Sweet Land then kicks into high gear, with Glenn Campbell singing "This Is a Great Country" (from Irving Berlin's final musical, Mr. President), followed by a veritable who's who of veteran entertainers, singing songs, telling jokes and appearing in historical sketches that unabashedly express Wayne's pro-American sentiments. As a tuneful history lesson, the program won an Emmy award for Dominic Frontiere's outstanding achievement in musical direction.

    For some viewers this will be a welcome trip down memory lane, or a nostalgic reminder of a kind of patriotic spirit that had grown increasingly old-fashioned even in 1970. Others will see it as a perfect target for the kind of variety-show spoofs that were later perfected on SCTV. No matter how you perceive it now, Swing Out, Sweet Land offers an abundance of one-of-a-kind highlights, like Bing Crosby playing Mark Twain; Roscoe Lee Browne as Frederick Douglass; Ann-Margaret dancing up a patriotic storm; William Shatner doing some "serious acting" as John Adams; Lucille Ball as the voice of the Statue of Liberty; George Burns poking fun at Jack Benny in a hilarious walk-on cameo; Ricky and David Nelson as Confederate and Union enemies; Johnny Cash billed as a "locomotive troubadour," singing a flawless rendition of "Ribbon of Steel"; and Bob Hope doing his war-time comedy act... at Valley Forge! That's just a sampling of the stars on hand for Wayne's salute to America, along with a ghost-town sketch that qualifies as a kind of early farewell to Wayne's established Western persona. And while most of Swing Out, Sweet Land now looks impossibly quaint and dated, it's more than worthy of DVD revival as a memorable TV footnote to Wayne's big-screen career. The original 1970 broadcast was sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, and as a bonus feature the DVD includes the show's original commercials for Budweiser beer, one featuring Wayne and Ed McMahon. Also included is an archival clip of Wayne promoting his then-new film The Alamo while appearing as the "mystery guest" on a 1960 episode of the popular TV game show What's My Line? --Jeff Shannon; Amazon.com



    Cheers :cool:



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote



  • This is the announcement of John Wayne's Tribute to America coming out July 31. You can get this at your local video (or at least you could at mine), or on line. Generally it is around $18.00USD. Here is a review on this DVD that I think all of us need to get. It is also reported for all regions.

    Quote


    As an amazing time capsule of all-star entertainment, John Wayne's Tribute to America provides a perfect snapshot of American television in the year 1970. Under its original title Swing Out, Sweet Land, this Emmy-winning variety show was originally broadcast on NBC on November 29, 1970, and was intended, in part, as John Wayne's personal response to growing protest against the war in Vietnam. Three years after the hippie movement's "Summer of Love," the country was politically divided like never before, and this 80-minute special was Wayne's attempt to counteract the "anti-American" war protests with a rousing, patriotic, and unifying reminder of America's greatness. In his introduction, Wayne (whose controversial conservatism ran against the rising tide of liberal politics) promises that the show will be apolitical and "short on preaching," focusing instead on America as "one of those yarn-spinnin' places"--a proud land of immigrants where people didn't take themselves too seriously, and where courage and nobility were mixed with song, dance, and humor as the country expanded westward. Swing Out, Sweet Land then kicks into high gear, with Glenn Campbell singing "This Is a Great Country" (from Irving Berlin's final musical, Mr. President), followed by a veritable who's who of veteran entertainers, singing songs, telling jokes and appearing in historical sketches that unabashedly express Wayne's pro-American sentiments. As a tuneful history lesson, the program won an Emmy award for Dominic Frontiere's outstanding achievement in musical direction.

    For some viewers this will be a welcome trip down memory lane, or a nostalgic reminder of a kind of patriotic spirit that had grown increasingly old-fashioned even in 1970. Others will see it as a perfect target for the kind of variety-show spoofs that were later perfected on SCTV. No matter how you perceive it now, Swing Out, Sweet Land offers an abundance of one-of-a-kind highlights, like Bing Crosby playing Mark Twain; Roscoe Lee Browne as Frederick Douglass; Ann-Margaret dancing up a patriotic storm; William Shatner doing some "serious acting" as John Adams; Lucille Ball as the voice of the Statue of Liberty; George Burns poking fun at Jack Benny in a hilarious walk-on cameo; Ricky and David Nelson as Confederate and Union enemies; Johnny Cash billed as a "locomotive troubadour," singing a flawless rendition of "Ribbon of Steel"; and Bob Hope doing his war-time comedy act... at Valley Forge! That's just a sampling of the stars on hand for Wayne's salute to America, along with a ghost-town sketch that qualifies as a kind of early farewell to Wayne's established Western persona. And while most of Swing Out, Sweet Land now looks impossibly quaint and dated, it's more than worthy of DVD revival as a memorable TV footnote to Wayne's big-screen career. The original 1970 broadcast was sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, and as a bonus feature the DVD includes the show's original commercials for Budweiser beer, one featuring Wayne and Ed McMahon. Also included is an archival clip of Wayne promoting his then-new film The Alamo while appearing as the "mystery guest" on a 1960 episode of the popular TV game show What's My Line? --Jeff Shannon; Amazon.com



    Cheers :cool:



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • Here is some more infromation about this product.



    Cheers :cool:



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • Here is some more infromation about this product.



    Cheers :cool:



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • It's been on Amazon as a Pre-Release order item for some time now. My price is $17.99 with free 2nd day shipping. It should be a great DVD release. The only problem I have with it is it's being released by MPI Video. They don't always do a good job at re-releasing things. Plus the fact they didn't do anything to enhance the audio, it's still Dolby Digital 2.0 (Mono) instead of the better Dolby 5.1 Stereo.

  • It's been on Amazon as a Pre-Release order item for some time now. My price is $17.99 with free 2nd day shipping. It should be a great DVD release. The only problem I have with it is it's being released by MPI Video. They don't always do a good job at re-releasing things. Plus the fact they didn't do anything to enhance the audio, it's still Dolby Digital 2.0 (Mono) instead of the better Dolby 5.1 Stereo.

  • It's been on Amazon as a Pre-Release order item for some time now. My price is $17.99 with free 2nd day shipping. It should be a great DVD release. The only problem I have with it is it's being released by MPI Video. They don't always do a good job at re-releasing things. Plus the fact they didn't do anything to enhance the audio, it's still Dolby Digital 2.0 (Mono) instead of the better Dolby 5.1 Stereo.



    DS that's a good point, but maybe you can answer this. This special was originally shown in 1970 or 71. The program and the show was in mono format because television was not into that capacity at that time. So, what difference would it make if a show that was done mono back then could benefit today in Dolby 5.1 Stereo? I am just wondering because it seems to me that it would sound the same.

    Cheers :cool: Hondo



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • It's been on Amazon as a Pre-Release order item for some time now. My price is $17.99 with free 2nd day shipping. It should be a great DVD release. The only problem I have with it is it's being released by MPI Video. They don't always do a good job at re-releasing things. Plus the fact they didn't do anything to enhance the audio, it's still Dolby Digital 2.0 (Mono) instead of the better Dolby 5.1 Stereo.



    DS that's a good point, but maybe you can answer this. This special was originally shown in 1970 or 71. The program and the show was in mono format because television was not into that capacity at that time. So, what difference would it make if a show that was done mono back then could benefit today in Dolby 5.1 Stereo? I am just wondering because it seems to me that it would sound the same.

    Cheers :cool: Hondo



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • DS that's a good point, but maybe you can answer this. This special was originally shown in 1970 or 71. The program and the show was in mono format because television was not into that capacity at that time. So, what difference would it make if a show that was done mono back then could benefit today in Dolby 5.1 Stereo? I am just wondering because it seems to me that it would sound the same.

    Cheers :cool: Hondo



    These days they can digitally enhance the audio. Bring out sounds that before would sound flat or mono and enhance them to have the appearance of stereo output. Some use a stereo synthesizer to enhance the sound quality. Or to convert a mono recording to a stereo recording you need two copies of the mono audio. You then select which channels or frequencies will come out of which speaker. It all has to do with frequencies and by using the two mono copies you select those different frequencies to come out of the left or right speaker instead of everything being jammed into one speaker output. Confused yet? :wink_smile:

    Here's another example... take the movie The High and The Mighty. It was done in 1954, before stereo of course. Dolby Digital never came out until 1992 in theaters. If you look at the two disc set of The High and The Mighty you will see that they digitally enhanced the movie to not only play in 5.1 Surround but they also have the widescreen enhanced version for 16:9 TV's. It's a simple matter of technology. If you remember many many years ago when we went to the movies the screen was always wider than it was high. But when movies came out for home viewing they had to shrink to fit your TV screen. All they did was go back to the original film and use the entire width of the film instead of chopping it down to fit a 4:3 TV screen. In other words the filming industry was way ahead of the home viewing industry, once it caught up they can re-do movies for our new home technology. That's why the faster you switch over to HDTV widescreen you'll be able to enjoy the original filming of a movie that we were meant to see.

    Babble, babble, babble... :teeth_smile:

  • DS that's a good point, but maybe you can answer this. This special was originally shown in 1970 or 71. The program and the show was in mono format because television was not into that capacity at that time. So, what difference would it make if a show that was done mono back then could benefit today in Dolby 5.1 Stereo? I am just wondering because it seems to me that it would sound the same.

    Cheers :cool: Hondo



    These days they can digitally enhance the audio. Bring out sounds that before would sound flat or mono and enhance them to have the appearance of stereo output. Some use a stereo synthesizer to enhance the sound quality. Or to convert a mono recording to a stereo recording you need two copies of the mono audio. You then select which channels or frequencies will come out of which speaker. It all has to do with frequencies and by using the two mono copies you select those different frequencies to come out of the left or right speaker instead of everything being jammed into one speaker output. Confused yet? :wink_smile:

    Here's another example... take the movie The High and The Mighty. It was done in 1954, before stereo of course. Dolby Digital never came out until 1992 in theaters. If you look at the two disc set of The High and The Mighty you will see that they digitally enhanced the movie to not only play in 5.1 Surround but they also have the widescreen enhanced version for 16:9 TV's. It's a simple matter of technology. If you remember many many years ago when we went to the movies the screen was always wider than it was high. But when movies came out for home viewing they had to shrink to fit your TV screen. All they did was go back to the original film and use the entire width of the film instead of chopping it down to fit a 4:3 TV screen. In other words the filming industry was way ahead of the home viewing industry, once it caught up they can re-do movies for our new home technology. That's why the faster you switch over to HDTV widescreen you'll be able to enjoy the original filming of a movie that we were meant to see.

    Babble, babble, babble... :teeth_smile:

  • Thanks DakotaSurfer for the information.

    I find this very fascinating and do understand the technology. I wish I could spend the time to learn more of this. I have no time and it changes so fast that I can't keep up not to mention afford all that is offered.

    Back to the subject, I don't know the reputation of MPI Video but when McLintock! was released back in the early 90's on VHS, it was distributed by MPI and was much better than the other release from Goodtimes Video at the same time. I haven't been able to get the audio setup on this product that is coming out in 8 days. Where did you see this?

    Cheers :cool: Hondo



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • Thanks DakotaSurfer for the information.

    I find this very fascinating and do understand the technology. I wish I could spend the time to learn more of this. I have no time and it changes so fast that I can't keep up not to mention afford all that is offered.

    Back to the subject, I don't know the reputation of MPI Video but when McLintock! was released back in the early 90's on VHS, it was distributed by MPI and was much better than the other release from Goodtimes Video at the same time. I haven't been able to get the audio setup on this product that is coming out in 8 days. Where did you see this?

    Cheers :cool: Hondo



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • The part that I'm looking forward too ( other than Duke that is ) is the Jack Benny clip asking George Washington about that dollar he threw across the Potomac River. Any Jack Benny fan knows that part of his act was that he was stingy with his money. And as I am a huge Jack Benny fan, that clip should be hilarious.

    Stay thirsty my friends.

  • The part that I'm looking forward too ( other than Duke that is ) is the Jack Benny clip asking George Washington about that dollar he threw across the Potomac River. Any Jack Benny fan knows that part of his act was that he was stingy with his money. And as I am a huge Jack Benny fan, that clip should be hilarious.

    Stay thirsty my friends.



    • Actors:John Wayne
    • Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
    • Language: English
    • Region: All Regions
    • Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
    • Number of discs: 1
    • Rating
    • Studio: Mpi Home Video
    • DVD Release Date: July 31, 2007
    • Run Time: 80 minutes
    • DVD Features:
      • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
      • Original sponsor commercials with John Wayne and Ed McMahon
      • John Wayne on "What's My Line?"


    • Actors:John Wayne
    • Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
    • Language: English
    • Region: All Regions
    • Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
    • Number of discs: 1
    • Rating
    • Studio: Mpi Home Video
    • DVD Release Date: July 31, 2007
    • Run Time: 80 minutes
    • DVD Features:
      • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
      • Original sponsor commercials with John Wayne and Ed McMahon
      • John Wayne on "What's My Line?"
  • :hyper:It's Out,:jump: It's :hyper:Here!!!:jump:

    I'm about to go my copy, you better get your! :sport_box:I can't wait to see this special and read your comments about this DVD. So go and get it!

    Cheers :cool:



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote

  • :hyper:It's Out,:jump: It's :hyper:Here!!!:jump:

    I'm about to go my copy, you better get your! :sport_box:I can't wait to see this special and read your comments about this DVD. So go and get it!

    Cheers :cool:



    Quote

    "When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it"

    - John Wayne quote