The first Randolph Scott Roundup was a great thing. And now Mill Creek’s bringing us a second batch of Scott Columbias. There are six good ones here.
The Desperadoes (1943)
Directed by Charles Vidor
Starring Randolph Scott, Glenn Ford, Claire Trevor, Evelyn Keyes, Edgar Buchanan, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams
The Nevadan (1950)
Directed by Gordon Douglas
Starring Randolph Scott, Dorothy Malone, Forrest Tucker, Frank Faylen, George Macready, Charles Kemper
Santa Fe (1951)
Directed by Irving Pichel
Starring Randolph Scott, Janis Carter, Jerome Courtland, Peter Thompson
Man In The Saddle
Directed by Andre de Toth
Starring Randolph Scott, Joan Leslie, Ellen Drew, Alexander Knox, Richard Rober, John Russell
Hangman’s Knot (1952)
Directed by Roy Huggins
Starring Randolph Scott, Donna Reed, Claude Jarman Jr., Lee Marvin, Guinn “Big Boy’ Williams
The Stranger Wore A Gun (1953)
Directed by Andre de Toth
Starring Randolph Scott, Claire Trevor, Joan Weldon, George Macready, Alfonso Bedoya, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine
50 Westerns From The 50s. 
Do any of you guys have the first set? I ask because they are put out by Mill Creek at a very low price. How is the print quality? If good, then this is a VERY good deal.
Six good Columbias and three are very good IMHO – ‘THE NEVADAN’, ‘HANGMAN’S KNOT’ & a special favourite, ‘MAN IN THE SADDLE’.
All very nice but these movies have been out on DVD for years now…..
And I suspect the quality of these releases to be underwhelming,
all these movies on just 2 discs…….
Sony should put them on Blu-rays!
As zetmoon implies, the days of being excited by seeing six movies compressed onto two discs, with all the usual implications for reducing the picture quality, are long gone. And yes, we need Blu-rays of these titles.
I understand that Mill Creek have upped their game recently but IMHO they still
inhabit the cheap n’cheerful end of the market.
Amen!
I’ve seen a number of these Mill Creek multi-title releases, and I’ve been really impressed by the quality. It helps that the movies themselves are so short and the transfers are so well-done.
My dad recently got a Mill Creek multi-film set of Columbia romantic comedies and said the picture quality was excellent.
Very excited about this Scott release, I’m still using VHS on some of these titles. 🙂
Best wishes,
Laura
That may well be but the quality must suffer…..
Besides, true western/Randolph Scott fans have bought these movies a long time ago and they don’t have mass-appeal….
So people that didn’t buy them then will not buy them now.
In these times when Ultra HD is around the corner these movies should at least be released on Blu-ray
These were some of the first DVDs I ever bought. And I’m sure that goes for a lot of the folks who poke around this blog.
And while I’d eat a bug to have Hangman’s Knot on Blu-ray, I’m all for anything that puts these movies in the hands of the people who want to see them. Plus, we never know when Columbia might let their DVDs go out of print, making these sets a real Godsend.
The Boetticher/Scott films are already out of print as regular, pressed discs
and available as MOD discs……
While I love the whole Warner Archive model, I’d rather have a set like this than hand over $20 per title for a DVD-R.
Same here!
But if you don’t have these films you better track down the original dvd’s,
not that difficult these days…..
I’m in the same boat, bought these when they were more expensive. BUT not all of us are old vets in collecting, the newcomers now have an excellent opportunity of seeing a lot of quality Randoph Scott that they might not otherwise have been willing to shell out for. So for the next generation this is a goldmine chance. I’ve also bought Mill Creek DVDs before and the quality is generally very high, depending on the original source material. Some TV series and I believe some Roy Rogers and or Hopalong Cassidy movies were put out by Mill Creek and they looked fine to me. So HIP HIP HOORAY for a nice release, just wish I had held out buying back in the day. I’d save a lot of space on my shelves with these newer compact releases.
I’ll pass. I already bought these on individual DVD’s for about $22 each when they were newly issued. Just think, newcomers can buy six of Randolph Scott’s Columbia western for less money than I spent on just one of them. Humph! If Mill Creek offered them on blu-ray, I’d upgrade in a heartbeat.
Get an upscaling DVD player if you don’t already have one. My Randolp Scott DVDs look almost HD with the Sony upscaler I recently purchased on ebay for $32.
… but I’m glad they’re being kept in print. They’re westerns, after all.
The fact that DVD’s with 2 or three movies crammed on them look good
doesn’t mean they can’t look better with one film per disc like they were released years ago.
These films should get BETTER releases namely on Blu-ray instead of LESSER releases on DVD.
Some of these films were released on DVD 10 years ago, TEN!!!!!!!
That’s ages in these times of faster and faster technological advances.
Only very good DVD’s look OK/good when upscaled to 1080p but when they have to be upscaled to 2160p (4K or UHD TV) the results will be horrible.
The image has to be enlarged 20 times!!!
Of course you can still watch DVD’s on a regular crt TV for the best results….
I also think it’s silly to say things like: “I wish I didn’t buy them then, I would have saved a lot of money buying them now for less money and saved shelve space”
So when a movie is released on DVD or Blu-ray you say: “ok, that’s fine,
now I’ll just wait 10 years until some cheapo company releases this movie
in an inferior version”……
With 1080p TV’s everywhere and UHD just around the corner, companies should stop releasing DVD’s.
The ones we’ve got can be watched as long as we like and there will always be movies that won’t be released on newer formats.
A lot of films have not been released on Blu-ray yet and probably never will and they certainly won’t be released in 4K.
Besides, physical media are on their way out, streaming and downloading is the way forward.
To get young(er) people to watch these “old” movies they should be released on streaming services in HD (2K or 4K).
I think many, many people don’t see all that much difference between DVD and Blu-ray.
There are some Blu-rays which knock my socks off and I think “Wow, that’s amazing!” but there are others I’ve watched which frankly I feel are on an equal par with my DVDs.
I value good-looking prints — indeed, that’s one reason I spend so many, many hours each year on the freeway driving to L.A. to see 35mm films projected on a big screen! — but for me in many cases DVD is plenty “good enough.” Which, as discussed below, is one reason Blu-rays haven’t caught on to the same extent. Lack of versatility is another (speaking as a parent whose kids watched movies on a van DVD player and whose husband watches them on laptop on business trips). And being done with buying new editions of films after having gone through RCA video discs (horrid things!), Beta, VHS, and DVD. After all those, DVD was the “Eureka, this is finally *it*!” format for me.
I think I may lack some of the visual sensitivity others have, not “seeing” more nuanced Blu-ray improvements, and I’ve also always thought that DVDs look so amazing compared to the hacked-up prints I watched on TV as a child (or some of the poorer theater experiences I had) that I still appreciate the wonder of that.
I’ve double or triple dipped a handful of favorite titles where I was convinced the Blu-ray upgrade would give me a real “wow” (LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, EXPERIMENT IN TERROR) or because I wanted Blu-ray-only extras for a favorite movie, but I feel no need to do it for most of my (huge) collection.
So anyway, I’m one of those people “good enough” people! LOL. Thought I’d share my experience. (But I *am* overdue for an optometrist check, John…LOL)
Best wishes,
Laura
Sorry Toby, I love this forum and this discussion but now it’s getting silly…..
Yeah, that makes total sense. Don’t buy anything now because in 10 or 20 years it will be cheaper in some other format. Now all you need is a guarantee you’re #1 still going to be alive and #2 that the film will definitely be re-released in another 10 or 20 years. Of course no DVD ever stops production. All DVDs released 10 years ago are still being made today. Everybody knows that. No such thing as movie or TV series no longer available for sale. Nah.
Now, if you don’t mind I’ll step out of fantasy land. I just hope your wonderful vision of the future and the present for that matter, never comes true. I don’t want to ever rely on some “streaming service” for me to be able to watch anything I want anytime I want. First of all, what’s streaming today will be no doubt gone tomorrow. So much for “owning” a movie that you can get to anytime you like. Nothing beats a product that’s held in your hands today and 50 years from today. Even if you’re not here 50 years from today. At least it’s nice to know you could hold it if you were still breathing.
Four your information, a lot of DVD’s are out of print and sometimes only available as a MOD disc like a lot of Warner and Columbia discs.
In a few years time DVD’s will not be made anymore.
How many films do you know that are still released on VHS?…..
There will always be a niche market for very obscure films released on VHS, 16mm, 8mm, DVD, Blu-ray etc….
There will always be people that say: “enough is enough I’m happy with the current quality and I’m not hopping on the bandwagon of new technology.
I have this film on DVD and it’s god enough for me”.
DVD was a mass product that sold by the millions, Blu-ray sold a lot less and UHD will sell even fewer copies.
The advancements in technology are getting smaller and smaller until we hardly see any difference.
The step from VHS to DVD was huge, especially because we finally got to see most films in their original aspect ratio.
There were widscreen VHS tapes but not a lot and they certainly were not anamorphically enhanced for 16:9 TV’s.
The resolution was higher and the audio was noticeably better.
The step from DVD to Blu-ray was smaller, there was mainly an advancement in resolution.
The step-up audiowise was much smaller.
But a lot of people are still happy with DVD upscaled on a big 16:9 TV and don’t see much difference when compared to Blu-ray.
That’s why Blu-ray never went mainstream.
No one I know personally has more than a couple of Blu-rays.
The step from Blu-ray to UHD is even smaller and a lot of people will think:
“what’s the point in upgrading?”
But technology goes forward, there’s no stopping it.
Most people I know watch movies on TV broadcasts or streaming services.
After 4K comes 8K and hen 16K etc……
4K fits on a triple layer disc the size of a DVD and Blu-ray but 8K and larger simply won’t fit.
Streaming and downloading is the future, for movies and music.
As the internetspeeds get faster the image quality can grow with it.
But disc size can’t grow.
No one wants movies on Laserdisc-size discs anymore……
DVD will turn out to be the last truly mass-market physical medium for movies
with Blu-ray doing merely OK.
There will be movies released on UHD but far less than on DVD or Blu-ray.
Alas, sarcasm always seems to be lost on the technically advanced. Yes, Mr. Obvious, that’s why I jokingly said DVDs are forever available, knowing full well many of them will disappear within 6 months of their release. You are welcome to stake your viewing future on streaming internet and I’ll stick to DVDs, they’ll never disappear. Now back to our program…
“I think many,many people don’t see all that much difference
between DVD and Blu Ray”
I suggest those folks see an optician as soon as possible 🙂
Nice one John!
I worked in video stores all through college and got to see how a great many people are not concerned about picture quality. I was shocked at what people would accept on their TVs.
I’m shocked and dismayed at the poor quality image people accept on theater screens. It astounds me that the situation could get this bad. It alarms me that no one in the industry does anything to correct it. The SMPTE standards for illumination and luminosity aren’t high enough in the digital age, and ignored anyhow. Used to be that every theater owner and projectionist held himself accountable to the standards. I was taught that even if the audience doesn’t know something’s wrong is no excuse not to put it right.
It depends on the quality of the high def masters that
the company is working with.
If the master material is in poor shape (e.g. the recent Olive Blu Ray
of CHRISTMAS EVE) then the Blu Ray is always going to be less than stellar.
When working from a quality master the results are stunning.
Regarding the Scott titles Explosive Media Germany are releasing
THE STRANGER WORE A GUN on Blu Ray soon and also COMANCHE
STATION. Koch,Germany will release RIDE LONESOME on Blu later
this year.
Richard W….GUNFIGHTERS mentioned on a previous thread
has been released by Sidonis,France on DVD. It’s the best transfer that
I have ever seen of a Cinecolor movie.
Sidonis DVD’s normally have “forced” subtitles on their DVD’s.
Regarding THE SHOOTIST..this was a Paramount title not Universal
and Paramount have no interest in vintage films.
I recently got the Koch version of GUN FOR A COWARD on Blu Ray
and it totally smokes the DVD.
I too crave CHISUM on Blu Ray (and also McQ as it happens)
and hopefully Warners will get on the case sooner rather than later.
It’s also high time Warners gave us RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY and
TOM HORN on Blu Ray.
“If the master material is in poor shape (e.g. the recent
Olive Blu Ray of CHRISTMAS EVE) then the Blu Ray
is always going to be less than stellar.
When working from a quality master the results are stunning.
Regarding the Scott titles Explosive Media Germany are
releasing THE STRANGER WORE A GUN on Blu Ray soon
and also COMANCHE STATION. Koch,Germany will release
RIDE LONESOME on Blu later this year.”
I’m hopeful the two Boettichers will find their way onto blu-ray stateside this year. But if the reviews indicate excellent hi-def transfers in Germany I may not wait.
“Richard W….GUNFIGHTERS mentioned on a previous
thread has been released by Sidonis,France on DVD. It’s
the best transfer that I have ever seen of a Cinecolor movie.”
Thanks for that, I just bought it. amazon.fr gouged me $28.29. The reason I didn’t find it before, I was looking for a blu-ray. I quit buying region 2 DVD’s because of the 4% PAL speed-up in our NTSC players. The high-pitched voices and whirred-up motion can get unnerving. But I’ve waited a long time for a decent release so I made an exception in this case.
Regarding the discussion about eyesight, one thing I’ve learned in recent years, one person’s 20-20 vision will not be the same eyesight as the next person’s 20-20 vision. There can be a vast difference. Metaphorically, an 18mm lens by Angenieux will manifest a different picture than an 18mm lens by Zeiss. Both are razor-sharp, but not the same.
Richard,
I also commented regarding GUNFIGHTERS that Sidonis
DVD’s have forced-non removable- French subtitles.
Gcwe1 a regular on this blog seems to have obtained a
copy with no forced subtitles.
If Sidonis stopped this practice of “forced” subtitles I’d
buy all the Columbia Westerns they are releasing that I
don’t have.
Hopefully,Richard you have the technology to remove
these subs.
I’m very interested in the forthcoming Sidonis release of George
Sherman’s excellent REPRISAL!
This is the sort of title Mill Creek should release.
I’d happily pay $15 for one film (unreleased) rather than
six which have been out for ages.
Sometimes whether or not subtitles are removable is simply a matter of which player being used. All players will start with the default settings, but some players will allow you to manually change the default or bypass it. Ask Gcwe1 which make and model number he’s watching on. If he can remove subtitles so can you. I own a lot of French films on DVD and blu-ray. The French are a culture of cineastes. They are sophisticated dramatists, in a down-to-earth way. The 1930s were an especially exciting time in French cinema. So I’ve learned to put up with all the subtitle problems if I want to watch the films.
I agree Reprisal! is an excellent western and one I’d buy in a heartbeat if Sidonis releases it.
Richard,
My friend who says the subs are non-removable on his
copy of GUNFIGHTERS was using a top of the range Oppo-
you really cannot do better than that.
He is far more technical than me (not a stretch) and can
produce a de-subtitled copy by burning another disc.
I would imagine watching the film with subs would be a pain as
the film is very dialog driven.
I mentioned on a previous thread that the film has a deeply
romantic,sensual quality-it’s almost what a Western would have
been like if Powell/Pressburger had made one.
REPRISAL! is coming from Sidonis in March I believe.
To keep track lof all things French I recommend the French
Western Fansite http://www.westernmovies.fr
Sidonis have entered into a deal with Sony and have
a whole raft of great Columbia Westerns for release 2016/7
Koch in Germany are also going to release several Columbis
titles but at the moment I don’t know if they are going to be Blu-Ray
upgrades of previously released films.
The only confirmed title I know of at the moment is RIDE LONESOME
on Blu Ray.
Hi Folks ,I am still on the holiday trail and am at my brother’s place so thought I would catch up on any news ,and I see a lot of interesting comments going on .
Richard W, sorry for not answering your questions about GUNFIGHTERS ,THE SPOILERS and my DVD player .My DVD player is only a cheap one but can’t remember the brand, so when I get home in about a week I will let you know .Glad you got a copy of THE SPOILERS .I got mine from Amazon Fr. ,the same with GUNFIGHTERS ,and I just checked them and they still have copies left.I mentioned the subject of forced subs to my Sidonis contact and he didn’t mention it in his last reply but I still have a feeling that forced subs will still be used because when I told him about THE SPOILERS ,he said that this was still the case .I’d be interested to hear if you receive copies with no subs .
Cheers everyone . I may need a holiday after this holiday.Off to Sydney next week.
As far as DVD and Blu Ray releases of Westerns go…..
Thank God for France and Germany.
Fans in those countries want to OWN the films in their collections,
hence the huge number of Westerns being released there.
Sidonis France have just announced a DVD release of De Toth’s very
fine LAST OF THE COMANCHES…this is the sort of thing Mill Creek
SHOULD be releasing!
Horror fans are a different matter.
Just look at the huge amount of Horror/Sci Fi releases forthcoming on
Blu Ray from Kino Lorber.
Horror Fans have totally embraced the Blu Ray format…they just
cannot get enough.
Kino Lorber have just announced on Blu ASTRO ZOMBIES a reputedly
abysmal film and the nadir of the career of the once great Wendell Corey.
ASTRO ZOMBIES has already got 75 “likes” on Kino’s Facebook page,
as opposed to 16 for CANADIAN PACIFIC.
To the delight of my many non-fans I’m finished on this thread-I’m off
now to The Hannibal 8 to continue my rant but as I’m the only contributor
over there it’s kinda like talking to myself.
I, for one, have no interest whatever in only streaming the movies I want to watch. Zetmoon certainly paints a rather bleak (though undoubtedly true at some stage) picture.
Well, I’m a slower collector than others and must have this as my VHS tapes of a couple of these titles recently failed me.
Does anyone know if the Sidonis blu-ray of CHINO (John Sturgis, 1973) is widescreen anamorphic or full-screen? I recommend this Eurowestern drama and the original novel The Valdez Horses by Lee Huffman on which it’s based.
http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00U34EUEA/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=
According to Blu-ray.com it’s 1.33:1 and the original AR is 1.37:1
so no problems there.
But a bit weird for a movie from 1973.
But as an extra comment: Widescreen Blu-rays are never anamorphic
like DVD’s.
John Sturges was noted for his mastery of widescreen composition. He didn’t make 1:37 movies. Sometimes IMDB is wrong. This is one of those times. It follows that blu-ray.com is also wrong. The correct aspect ratio will be anywhere from 1:66 to 1:85. Awful-looking public domain DVD’s proliferate, all in full-frame. A U.K. DVD from Optimum / StudioCanal is cleaner and sharper but also full-frame, which I think is really open-matte, judging by the big empty space above the heads. If Anolis has struck a new hi-def transfer, and it would have to be for a blu-ray, it should be in a widescreen ratio. Guess I’ll find out when it gets here.
I’d love to go back to the novel and film a new version of this story.
I couldn’t be more disappointed in the Sidonis blu-ray of CHINO (1973). It has both the American version CHINO and the French-language version VALDEZ, IL MEZZODANQUE, respectively. But it is really a standard definition transfer at PAL speed on the disc, and the aspect ratio is all screwed up. There are a couple of on-camera interviews with commentators that look like they might be saying interesting things if Sidonis had the sense to subtitle them. Wasted my money on this one. U.K. consumers will want to stick with their StudioCanal / Optimum DVD. Such a fine film, it deserves better than it has received on home video.
John K writes:
“My friend who says the subs are non-removable
on his copy of GUNFIGHTERS was using a top
of the range Oppo- you really cannot do better
than that.
He is far more technical than me (not a stretch)
and can produce a de-subtitled copy by burning
another disc.”
Oh. I thought you meant he played the Sidonis without subtitles. Well, I’ll just have to live with what arrives, now that I’ve bought it.
“I would imagine watching the film with subs
would be a pain as the film is very dialog driven.”
Yeah. This is the last region 2 DVD with forced subs that I’ll buy. I’ve said that before but this time I really mean it.
“I mentioned on a previous thread that the film
has a deeply romantic, sensual quality – it’s
almost what a Western would have been like if
Powell/Pressburger had made one.”
That would certainly set it apart. I haven’t watched my broadcast recording in awhile because the picture is muck.
“REPRISAL! is coming from Sidonis in March
I believe. To keep track lof all things French I
recommend the French Western Fansite
http://www.westernmovies.fr ”
Useful link, thanks.
“Sidonis have entered into a deal with Sony
and have a whole raft of great Columbia
Westerns for release 2016/7
Koch in Germany are also going to release
several Columbia titles but at the moment I
don’t know if they are going to be Blu-Ray
upgrades of previously released films. The
only confirmed title I know of at the moment
is RIDE LONESOME on Blu Ray.”
A release to look forward to.
Just a final note on playing R2 Sidonis titles on Oppo players. Although the subtitles are not removable on these discs, the Oppo has a facility where subtltles can be moved down so as not to display on playback.Yet another reason for investing in one of these superb machines.
I’ll pay the extra money for any BluRay Randolph Scott title or other western I like that is released in BluRay, but I do agree with Zetmoon that 99% of public are happy with good quality DVD in SD and will never buy BluRay.
I just noticed that Turner Classic Movies has withdrawn The Randolph Scott Collection from it’s shop, the one with The Walking Hills, Coroner Creek, The Doolins of Oklahoma and 7th Cavalry. It’s no longer listed. I couldn’t buy it. I looked for it on ebay and found one copy for $150. What gives?
Just the latest example of how you can’t just rely on buying a DVD anytime you want. These things disappear as fast as they show up. Years ago I used to shop around in used record and used book stores, I would see something and think I’ll get it next time I come in. Sure enough next time it’d be gone forevermore. I learned long ago Buy it When You See It or else. I haven’t always paid attention to that lesson, but it’s a good one to remember.
I didn’t realize I’d waited so long. Maybe this means TCM or Columbia have immediate / future plans to release one or more of the films on blu-ray?
Two quick comments:
(1) I am one of those who doesn’t see that much difference between a good quality DVD and a Blu-Ray version. Given the cost differential, I will settle for the quality DVD version.
(2) When will they finally release “The Bounty Hunter” on DVD or Blue-Ray?
Peace be with you!
Bounty Hunter is a great Scott Western. One of my favorites, not sure why. It’s available from Amazon as an instant video download in excellent quality color. I’m not sure how to convert it to DVD. Maybe one of the tech-savvy guys here will enlighten us.
The better 1080i flat screen tvs will show a big difference between SD-DVDs (480p) and BluRay (720p). Our old Samsung didn’t show much difference, but our new Sony Bravia shows a big difference!!
A modern flat screen tv is 1080p not 1080i.
Dvd’s are often 480p but sometimes 480i.
Blu-rays are often 1080p (not 720p!) and sometimes 1080i.
You’re right. Blurays are default at 1080 but can be set down to 720p on most players. My old Samsung tv was 720p and I had set it for that.
Blu-ray is over 600% sharper, cleaner, more present and detailed, with richer texture and colors. That’s if the transfer is any good, and if you’re watching it on a hi-def TV. Many blu-rays are even better than that. Older films need a little more push than newer ones, but to my eyes, the older films, when scanned at 2K or 4K, look infinitely better than newer films. DVD’s generally look fine but will look better when played on a blu-ray player and watched on a hi-def monitor than if played on a standard DVD player or watched on a regular CRT (tube) TV.
What is unfortunately true is that not everyone can see the difference. Some people either don’t have the eyesight or don’t have the perception.
I buy what blu-rays I can. Wish I could afford more. But just trying to keep up with Warner Archives DVD-R’s is killing me.
Who can stomach to watch the new movies anyway? Most of the new movies use filtering that look blue & chrome and are very dark. I think the ‘Matrix’ movies started this and now all of them copy it and it looks horrible.
Glad to see someone finally mention something that has bothered me since I first saw these Matrix movies. It looks like they were shot with a green pair of sunglasses over the lens. I remember saying at the time, whatever happened to color film? Color film in the ’40’s looked better than the “new” faded color of today and worse it all seems to be filmed with either a green or blue lens. Give me a color Meet Me In St.. Louis or even a 1939 color Gone With the Wind over the lousy color of today.
The last good natural color movie I saw in theater was Incredible Burt Wonderstone with Steve Carell. It was like watching a movie from the 1970s, with the exception of Jim Carrey’s role.
I concur. The ‘Adventures of Robin Hood’ was a great movie that had everything: great color clarity, a wonderful script, terrific action sequences, and a phenomenal cast. The last entertaining, well-made Western that I have seen was ‘Open Range’ with Kevin Costner. Excellent script, good cast, realistic action sequences, and a movie that could have been made during the Golden Age of Westerns, the 1950’s. Why, oh why, can’t they make more quality Westerns like that anymore?
Peace be with you!
Robin Hood – Errol Flynn has phenomenal Technicolor clarity, even by today’s standards.