Just received some press information on the upcoming Hondo (1953) Blu-ray. It’ll be presented in anamorphic widescreen, a significant upgrade over the old DVD (there’s also those extra lines and pixels and stuff).
3-D pictures back then typically gave projectionists the option of a standard (1.33) or cropped (1.85) presentation. If you’ve ever studied the Hondo DVD, or played around with the zoom on your 16×9 TV, you know what a difference the cropping will make.
Of course, there’s no need to tell you much about the film itself. It’s a terrific 50s Western, and if it wasn’t stuck in the same decade as The Searchers (1956) and Rio Bravo (1959), it would be more widely hailed as one of Wayne’s best. It’s one of his most well-developed characters — much like the typical Randolph Scott hero of the late 50s, we learn more and more about his past and demons as the film plays out — and Wayne’s underplaying accomplishes so much.
I posted on this release about three minutes after hearing about it back in March. Its release date is June 5. To say I’m stoked is an understatement.
Thanks to Henry Cabot Beck for the scoop.
Very cool. I agree with your appraisal of Wayne’s work in this. I’ll be picking it up, for sure.
This is one of the titles that would make me buy a Blu-ray machine if I didn’t already have one.
Glad to hear you’re stoked about this one. It’s a picture that seems simple on the surface but has so much going for it. The fact that Wayne produced it shows what a feel he had for how movies work. Ford taught him well.
I just finished reading Louis L’Amour’s novel the other day, and apart from the rather rushed conclusion I thought it fleshed out the characters very well, giving a lot of insight into the thought processes. Having said that, the movie captures more or less the same nuances on screen. Am I right in thinking that L’Amour expanded this into a novel after the film was made? Or did I just imagine that?
I believe that’s how it went. A short story (“The Gift Of Cochise”) was expanded for the film and the novel came from that. I read the book years ago and liked it. Have you seen the fairly recent paperback edition with cover art by Robert McGinnis? It’s beautiful.
By the way, I recommend the blog Buddies In The Saddle (http://buddiesinthesaddle.blogspot.com ) for things related to Western fiction. He hasn’t posted on Hondo (yet).
Thanks for clearing that up. My edition of the book is the ’97 one with a cover by Lou Glanzman.
Thanks for the link too.