Kino Lorber
This three-disc collection spotlights three of the biggest stars of 1940s movies westerns. Randolph Scott headlines When the Daltons Rode (1940) as Tod, a young lawyer who returns home to Kansas and reunites with his childhood friends, the Dalton Brothers, to fight a crooked land developer. Ostensibly based on a book by the only surviving Dalton brother, the script performs narrative gymnastics to make the real-life outlaws into victims of circumstance pushed into crime by corrupt forces and leaves Tod, the ostensible hero, in the margins for much of the film. But it also contains outstanding stunt work by the legendary Yakima Canutt and others (including, it should be noted, horse stunts later banned for animal abuse). Broderick Crawford, Brian Donlevy, and Kay Francis costar. Joel McCrea takes over the role previously played by Gary Cooper in the Technicolor remake of The Virginian (1946), a western classic about a laconic, straight-shooting Montana rancher who speaks his mind and stands by his friends but never bends his moral code. McCrea plays him as an easygoing fellow known only by the nickname Virginian and Brian Donlevy is the villain, a cattle rustler known as Trampas who hires the Virginian's old buddy (Sonny Tufts). Barbara Britton is the love interest, a schoolteacher from the East who struggles to understand the hard ways of the frontier but is ultimately won over by the steadfast Virginian. It's beautifully shot in vivid Technicolor, which was still unusual for westerns by 1946, but has a very old-fashioned sense of frontier justice and a moral simplicity that was disappearing as westerns became more adult after World War II. Alan Ladd is the title character of Whispering Smith (1948), a railroad detective on the trail of a gang of train robbers who collides with his old friend and former partner (Robert Preston), a railroad agent caught looting a train wreck he's supposed to be salvaging. Brenda Marshall plays Preston's wife, once the sweetheart of Ladd's loner hero, who becomes increasingly worried about her husband when he joins forces with an outlaw rancher sabotaging the train lines. When the Daltons Rode features a busy plot but the other two make a great match set with heroes whose actions speak louder than words and are forced to face off against old friends gone bad. All three are classic westerns (if not necessarily western classics) that feature terrific locations, plenty of action, and romantic interest complicated by love triangles, and are lively and entertaining. For fans of westerns from Hollywood's golden age. Each film comes in its own case and all three discs features strong video masters and commentary from film critics and/or historians and trailers. The films are also available individually on DVD from various labels (without supplements). A strong option purchase. Aud: J, H, C, P. (S. Axmaker)