Product description
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A cattle baron has trouble controlling his wife and daughter.
Genre: Westerns
Rating: NR
Release Date: 11-OCT-2005
Media Type: DVD
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John Wayne's most popular vehicle of the 1960s is a broad,
boisterous comedy-Western and a family movie in every sense--in
subject matter, casting, personnel, and the audience it s to
bear-hug. Wayne and his Quiet Man partner Maureen O'Hara reprise
their large-d lovers' quarrel in a Wild West variation on The
Taming of the Shrew, while a cast of familiar supporting players
do their best to avoid becoming collateral damage.
The picture is fascinating as an attempt to adjust and update
the Duke as all-American icon. Rancher George Washington
McLintock owns most of the town that bears his name, but James
Edward Grant's screenplay is at didactic pains to establish the
benevolence and socio-political enlightenment of his reign.
G.W.'s former Indian foes have become his pals, he enjoys nothing
so much as playing chess with his Jewish merchant buddy (Jack
Kruschen), and he's tolerant--as his fellow landowners are
not--of the homesteaders crowding into the territory. In what now
seems like prescience about where things were headed in the
1960s, he even does his best to achieve rapport with (p!)
impatient youth.
McLintock! was the first movie produced by eldest son Michael
Wayne, and the first major assignment for director Andrew V.
McLaglen (son of Quiet Man costar Victor). It steals like a
bandit from a host of much better movies, but the Duke's great
good humor and professionalism redoubtably anchor the
proceedings. --Richard T. Jameson
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Set Contains:
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McLintock! has long been available only in coarse, pan-and-scan
public-domain videos, but the Authentic Collector's Edition from
Para restores its original Panavision format and proper
Technicolor luster. But after the banquet of informative extras
accompanying the previously released The High and the Mighty and
Island in the Sky, the side dishes on McLintock! seem a mite
skimpy.
"The Batjac Story" on H&M recounted the founding and operating
style of producer-star John Wayne's company; "The Batjac Story,
Pt. 2" on this DVD is focused on elevating the memory and
standing of the late Michael Wayne, Duke's eldest son, a
production assistant on earlier Batjac endeavors and the duly
credited producer of the later ones, starting with McLintock!.
Even at 15 minutes this hagiography outstays its welcome, thanks
to a plethora of cliche testimonials and a shortage of
Michael-with-dad stills to throw onscreen.
Leading lady Maureen O'Hara and screen daughter Stefanie Powers
contribute reminiscences of the making of McLintock!, with O'Hara
remarkably forthright in asserting her irresistibility as a
costar, and Powers setting a land record for show-business
bromides collected in one place and number of times she says the
cast and crew were "like a family." More satisfying is "A Good
Ol' Fashioned Fight," a colloquy of stuntmen and stunt directors
blustering about the staging of fistfight scenes. Host Leonard
Maltin's introductions are more satisfying than those on H&M;
here he's greatly helped by not having to pretend that this is
one great motion picture we got here, folks. He and the
marvelously droll film historian Frank Thompson supply running
commentary, supplemented occasionally by excerpts from O'Hara,
Michael Pate (who played the old Indian chief in the movie),
Michael Wayne, and others. Maltin and Thompson know their stuff,
and are especially gratifying in their loving attention to unsung
character actors and atmosphere people. --Richard T. Jameson
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