Clint Eastwood: Western Icon Collection [WS] [2 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Three of Clint's early-'70s classics! He teams with a prostitute posing as a nun to capture a French fort in Two Mules for Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine. 1970/114 min/PG). He's caught in the battle between a rich landowner and the leader of a peasant revolt in Joe Kidd (Robert Duvall. 1972/87 min/PG). (1973/105 min/R). And he stars in and directs High Plains Drifter (1973/105 min/R), in which a drifter is asked to defend a small town from three vicious outlaws. 2 DVDs. Color/widescreen.

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 2
• Audio: DDM2.0
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Cinemascope)
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Clint Eastwood - Joe Kidd
       Clint Eastwood - Hogan
       John Saxon - Luis Chama
       Alberto Morin - Gen. LeClaire
       Armando Silvestre - 1st American
       James Wainwright - Mingo
       David Estuardo - Juan
       Ada Carrasco - Juan's Mother
       Pancho Cordoba - Juan's father
       Anthony James - Cole Carlin

• Director:

  Clint Eastwood, John Sturges, Don Siegel

• Producer:

  Robert Daley, Sidney Beckerman, Carroll Case, Martin Rackin

• Screenwriter:

  Ernest Tidyman, Elmore Leonard

• Book Author:

  Louis L'Amour

• Screenwriter:

  Budd Boetticher, Albert Maltz

• Cinematographer:

  Bruce Surtees, Gabriel Figueroa

• Composer (Music Score):

  Dee Barton, Lalo Schifrin, Ennio Morricone

• Editor:

  Ferris Webster, Robert F. Shugrue, Juan Jose Marino

• Art Director:

  Henry Bumstead, Alexander Golitzen, Charles Thompson, Jose Rodriguez Granada

• Executive Producer:

  Jennings Lang, Robert Daley

• Set Designer:

  George Milo, Charles Thompson, Pablo Galvan

• Costume Designer:

  Helen Colvig, Carlos Chavez

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  James R. Alexander, Waldon O. Watson

• Makeup:

  Frank Westmore

• Special Effects:

  Leon Ortega, Frank Brendel

• First Assistant Director:

  Jim Fargo, Joe Cavalier

• Stunts:

  Buddy Van Horn

REVIEWS:

• High Plains Drifter, Clint Eastwood's first Western behind the camera -- and only his second effort as a director, may owe a lot to his former collaborator Sergio Leone, but it also marks the point at which he begins to come into his own as an artist. The leisurely, dialogue-heavy asides may bog this film down at times, but it's an approach that would bear fruit later in Eastwood's directorial career. But Drifter works quite well even outside the context of Eastwood's other work, thanks to a harsh, wind-swept mysticism all its own. Leone and Eastwood's Man With No Name films helped usher in an era of revisionist Westerns, but with this film Eastwood doubles back, reconnecting those films' dark humor and mysterious loner character (introduced riding ominously through the entire length of a small town) to the realm of folk tale and myth. The script by Shaft author Ernest Tidyman is as unforgiving as its protagonist -- it might be argued that an early rape scene goes too far -- but there's no denying this film's unique appeal. It's a revisionist Western extreme even by the standards of the time. Like the Machiavellian hero who defends it, the film looks upon a superficially idyllic Western setting and finds virtually nothing to like.
  ~ Keith Phipps, Rovi
• Two Mules for Sister Sara belongs to the "opposites attract" genre of film, in which two mismatched individuals are thrown together and over the course of the film develop a far deeper relationship than could be guessed from examining their surface characteristics (see The African Queen). Often over the course of these kind of films, the audience learns that deep down, one or both of these characters is quite different from the persona they present to the outer world, but this "revelation" is more extreme in Sara, which is a plus. That plus is needed, as it gives Sara an interesting aspect that it otherwise lacks. Not that Sara isn't entertaining, for it is; it's just that it's not as interesting or as entertaining as one keeps wishing it would be. Part of the problem lies with its stars. Clint Eastwood and Shirley Maclaine are opposites, but they don't attract as naturally as one wants them to, and their acting styles don't mesh. Each turns in a fine performance on its own, but paired together they grate against each other. The screenplay is too episodic and though individual sequences are very good, it's not quite cohesive enough. Director Don Siegel works efficiently, but he can't mesh his stars' styles and the violence gets a bit jarring in places; nevertheless, some segments, such as the rattlesnake and the arrow removal, are hard to beat. And throughout, the film is beautifully shot by Gabriel Figueroa. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi