Posts by Paula

Ready for John Wayne and friends in 4K?

Coming to 4K UHD 7/18 from Warner Brothers
Rio Bravo (1959) 4K UHD
https://amzn.to/4249JZ0

This classic western directed by Howard Hawks features an all-star cast, including the legendary John Wayne. There's a showdown at Rio Bravo when courageous Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne) throws the brother of evil cattle baron Nathan Burdette in jail for murder (the Burdette brothers played by John Russell and Claude Akins). When Burdette's men lay seige to his jailhouse, Chance holds on until the arrival of a U.S. Marshal with the help of his drunken deputy, Dude (Dean Martin), cranky old man Stumpy (Walter Brennan), a young gunfighter (Ricky Nelson) and the beautiful long-legged Feathers (Angie Dickinson).

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Heroes-8M.jpgHeroes-9M.jpgHeroes-7M.jpgYo!

It's been five years since there was a post in the Ben Johnson thread, so the bulletin board recommended starting a new thread. Which has now been done.

Mainly wanted to say hello everyone and that my Ben Johnson Fan Page website was forced to move to a new locale, thanks (or better yet, NO THANKS) to Shutterfly, which decided to discontinue its webhosting service. 12 1/2 years of work on that site disappeared overnight. *sigh*

Anyway, the new site is benjohnsonfanspage.com. Everything was saved from the old site, and I'm now working on re-posting everything, though it probably will be a few months more before it's all back.

Meanwhile, enjoy these three pictures of Ben taken by photographer Jerry Click (that was really his name!) for The Houston Post. Ben was in Houston promoting his new picture, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.

From Blu-ray.com: Rio Grande Signature Edition Blu-ray

Rio Grande Signature Edition Blu-ray

Independent distributors Olive Films have officially announced and
detailed their upcoming Signature Edition of John Ford's classic western
Rio Grande
(1950), starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson, Claude
Jarman, Jr., and Harry Carey Jr. The release will be available for
purchase on November 17.

Description: Rio Grande, the third and final installment in John Ford's
loosely-conceived Cavalry Trilogy(preceded by Fort Apache and She Wore A
Yellow Ribbon) stars John Wayne as Lt. Col. John Kirby Yorke (the role
he inhabited in Fort Apache) alongside Maureen O'Hara (in the first of
five films she'd co-star in alongside Wayne) as his estranged wife,
Kathleen, a woman set on keeping their son, Jefferson (Claude Jarman
Jr., The Yearling), now under Yorke's command, out of harm's way.

Filmed throughout Moab, Utah and the majestic Professor Valley --
photographed in exquisite gradations of black and white by Stagecoach
cinematographer Bert Glennon -- Rio Grande offers nuanced observations
on love, family, and honor, while firmly adhering to the western genre,
showing Ford at his most measured and mature as a storyteller.Written
by James Kevin McGuinness (Men of Boys Town) based on the Saturday
Evening Post story by James Warner Bellah, Rio Grande features J. Carrol
Naish and a supporting cast of familiar faces, many of them from the
Ford stock company of actorsincluding Harry Carey, Jr., Ben Johnson,
Victor McLaglen, Chill Wills, and Grant Withers.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• NEW HIGH-DEFINITION DIGITAL RESTORATION OF THE FILM
• Audio commentary by Nancy Schoenberger
• "Telling Real Histories" – Raoul Trujillo on representations of Indigenous Americans in film
• "Songs of the Rio Grande" – Marc Wanamaker on the Sons of the Pioneers
• "Strength and Courage" – Patrick Wayne on his father
• "Bigger Than Life" – with Claude Jarman, Jr.
• Visual essay by Tag Gallagher
• "The Making of Rio Grande" – with Leonard Maltin
• Theatrical trailer
• Illustrated booklet with an essay by Paul Andrew Hutton
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

Cherry Red Records in the U.K. is releasing a 3 CD- box set of Music from the Westerns of John Wayne & John Ford.

A unique presentation. A mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic music from the westerns John Wayne and his mentor, the great film director John Ford made together – from Stagecoach in 1939 through to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in 1962, where songs and music from the original scores are blended with recordings made by popular artists (mostly of 1950s vintage, or older) of songs heard in the films. In all, music from eight eternal westerns, a genre which Ford and Wayne both defined and long-dominated

Additional description and track listing are here:

Music From The Westerns Of John Wayne & John Ford: Various Artists, 3CD Boxset - Cherry Red Records

Just posted by Kino Lorber Studio Classics:

Coming Soon on Blu-ray!
Legend of the Lost (1957) Starring John Wayne, Sophia Loren, Rossano Brazzi & Kurt Kasznar - Shot by Jack Cardiff (The Vikings) - Screenplay by Ben Hecht (The Indian Fighter), Robert Presnell, Jr. (Man in the Attic) - Directed by Henry Hathaway (23 Paces to Baker Street)

No artwork or disc details yet.

The Warner Archive will release Blood Alley and The Sea Chase on Blu-ray later this summer (specific date not yet announced):

Blood Alley

Blood Alley Blu-ray

The Sea Chase

The Sea Chase Blu-ray

Hi, all, Kino Lorber's Blu-ray of Dakota is really excellent, and has a terrific commentary about the film by Westerns film historian Toby Roan. Highly recommended!

By the way, I like Vera Hruba Ralston quite a bit.

Dakota Blu-ray

Today is Ben's 99th birthday. Here's a still from Rio Grande.

Recent addition to my collection.

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Chisum and McQ recently came out on Blu-ray and look good, especially Chisum, which was scanned from an interpositive at 2K, with extensive color-correction to bring the film as close as possible to its original appearance. Here are two Chisum screencaps.

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The Blu-ray of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is really gorgeous! I knew it would be because the new restoration I saw at the TCM festival in April was splendid. All the movie buffs I know are thrilled with this Blu-ray. Here are some screencaps from the SWAYR Blu-ray.

WAC has announced the Blu-ray of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. No release date but it shouldn't be too far off.

SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (1949)
WARNER BROS.’ NEW 2016 MASTER - DIRECT FROM ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT THE TCM FILM FESTIVAL
103:00
DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English
ORIGINAL ASPECT RATIO - 1.37:1, 16 X 9 LETTERBOX
COLOR
BD 50
Special Features: John Ford Home Movies and Theatrical trailer (1080p)
A masterpiece of mood and heroics, this second film in director John Ford's renowned cavalry trilogy (Fort Apache and Rio Grande are the others) features one of John Wayne's most moving performances, as a cavalry officer in his final week of service on the frontier. Under makeup aging him some 20 years, he inhabits the role of a wily veteran who knows the sting of war and vows to make his last mission one of peace. The ritual of outpost life, the sweep of battle, the advance of the patrol beneath ominous skies: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, an Academy Award winner for its color cinematography, paints a memorable portrait of the honor, duty and courage in the finest tradition of the cavalry.

Quote from Hondo Apache

A print-on-demand Blu-ray? Man, that sucks. Duke deserves so much more.

Er, I see you are not familiar with the Warner Archive Collection's Blu-rays. They are regular Blu-rays, manufactured like any other Blu-ray, and WAC restores every film and creates a new state of the art master before putting it onto Blu-ray. WAC's Blu-rays have received consistently rave reviews and they maintain the highest standards. George Feltenstein, a revered figure in the restoration and home video field, oversees all WAC Blu-rays.

As stated above, I have seen this new restoration of SWAYR at the Turner Classic Movies festival, it looks beautiful, and that is what you will get with the Blu-ray. John Wayne fans have every reason to be excited about this upcoming (though not yet officially announced) release.

I just got back from the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in Hollywood, where I saw Warner Bros.' new restoration of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. It was a brand new digital projection and it looks GORGEOUS. The Warner Archive Collection will be releasing SWAYR on Blu-ray soon but they haven't actually made the official announcement yet we don't know the exact release date. The announcement will be made soon.

Ben Johnson and Ann-Margret on the set of The Train Robbers.

I'm not sure if this has been posted before or not so apologies if it has been. An interesting detail about this photo is that you can definitely see that Ben Johnson is the galloping cavalryman in the lower left of the photo!

Ben
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The entire still
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Here's a new one for my collection -- it's got some damage on the picture but it's still a nice one.

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This photo feature is from the December 1950 issue of Movies magazine. Great pics! I wish this bulletin board would post a bigger size -- this is smaller than the actual scan. If you'd like a bigger version, send me an e-mail. pvitaris@gmail.com

Vintage still.

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A tinted lobby card for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

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Just added this one to my collection.