baby Elephant walk

The Searchers

The Searchers

John Wayne

It was fun watching the Hondo blu ray tonight! James Dean was close to Geraldine Page around this time. fun to watch James Arness and Lee just passed away.

The Searchers

The Searchers

Thursday!

Getting ready to watch the BLU RAY edition of HOW THE WEST WAS WON... Beautiful book packaging on this and I love how they created a CURVED SCREEN SMILEBOX SIMULATION version of the film as well as the WIDESCREEN version and included a documentary on CINERAMA. Top notch!

Another great WIDE-SCREEN John Wayne/Dean Martin film I am watching right now!

THE SEARCHERS

I watched the John Ford classic THE SEARCHERS last night in VISTAVISION and TECHNICOLOR and what an Amazing film! John Wayne gives an Oscar Worthy performance in this one and it is THE most beautiful representation of the old West ever shot on film. I had to watch all the extras and then head off to the gym! Jeffrey Hunter should have won best supporting actor and Natalie Wood plays Debbie fresh from her Oscar nominated performance in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Lana Wood plays Debbie as a child. The story is most effective and I wish film makers of today would learn from a film like this (Some have). Most of the violence is hinted at or talked about, it is not shown and it doesn't need to be and is even more effective than showing it (Which most of today's film makers do?). Mike Nesmith got the idea for the classic MONKEE shirts from Wayne's shirt in this film and several others. A true classic!

I delved back into my JOHN WAYNE 100th ANNIVERSARY DVD box set of HOWARD HAWK's classic film RIO BRAVO last night! Absolutely one of my favorite films for many reasons. This is one of the best box sets ever issued with a beautiful reporduction of both the DELL COMIC BOOK and the WB PRESS BOOK. Magnificent performances by everyone in the cast including the wonderful Walter Brennan. John Wayne reinvents himself, Dean Martin gives an oscar worthy performance and 18 year old Ricky Nelson was perfectly cast as Colorado. Angie Dickenson was strong and beautiful!

artwork by JACK DAVIS

When Dean was ill in the hospital in 1993, I mailed him a package of my friend Jack Davis' recent western art. Dean absolutely loved westerns and was very proud of his role in RIO BRAVO. Dean responded with some signed photos to me.