Amazon.com: Besides being a terrific movie in its own right--and the second entry in a remarkable eight-film series teaming director Anthony Mann and star James Stewart--Bend of the River is also fascinating as a variation on one of the greatest Westerns. With or without anyone else's knowledge, screenwriter Borden Chase reworked scenes, character configurations, and much of the structure of Red River, the screenplay of which he had cowritten (from his own novel) for director Howard Hawks six years earlier. Seeing what Hawks and Mann did with some of the same scenes--a spooky night skirmish with Indians, for instance--makes for a compelling lesson in the transformative power of directorial style.
Instead of Texas and the Chisholm Trail, Bend of the River is set in the Oregon river country, with a wagon train substituting for an epic cattle drive. Wagonmaster Stewart, a man with a secret past he's determined to redeem, rescues another, not-so-ex-renegade (Arthur Kennedy) from a lynching. Stewart finds Kennedy a powerful ally in a fight but ultimately has to face him as a mortal enemy--and to revert to his old savage ways in order to save his adopted community. Along the trail, they are variously companioned and/or menaced by the likes of slick gambler Rock Hudson (compare the Cherry Valance part in Red River) and hard cases Harry (then Henry) Morgan, Royal Dano, and Jack Lambert. There's knockout scenery, as usual with Mann, and fight-to-the-death action as bracing as a plunge into an icy river. --Richard T. Jameson
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Rating: - One of the better Westerns of Jimmy...
Another classic Western offering starring Jimmy Stewart.
There is not much to be said about this DVD transfer, just that as MGM/UA, even Universal Studios don't do too much with their classics, except transferring their Films in digital format.
One must also add, that so far, since the copies transferred, where almost pristine looking, save some minor scratches and dust speckles, their DVDs, and those of MGM/UA, still look at least decent if not good on a 16:9 Television.
Yet one wonders why they never bother to restore them digitally to a cleaner copy and perhaps adding some depth to their soundtracks.
But it is a James Stewart Western, and like those of the Duke, they cannot be missed and on DVD they really look at their best.
They are just Classics and as such, they should be part of any serious movie collector's movie vault.
Rating: - clairty
Clairty not as good as my old VHS tape for sure..a bit on the dark side.
However, I will make do! BB
Rating: - Average James Stewart/Anthony Mann western
This is a decent western but it doesn't pack any surprises.
There is lots of nice location scenery spoilt by all-too-obvious studio work - but I guess this was the 50's.
The best Mann/Stewart western by far is The Man from Laramie.
Rating: - Best of enemies
Bend of the River is in many ways Anthony Mann's `nicest' Western, but underneath the gorgeous Technicolor location work there's a darker side to Stewart's border raider desperate to reform and his relationship with friendly enemy Arthur Kennedy that threatens fireworks to come - and when they do, in the last 20 minutes, there's no problem in believing the depth of Stewart's rage or the relentlessness of his pursuit. Shot on many of the same locations as the even darker The Far Country, it's still terrific entertainment. Stepinfetchit's role is a little uncomfortable, but compared to the humiliation inflicted upon him in other pictures he's allowed a bit more dignity here than usual, closer to Hank Worden's Old Mose Harper in The Searchers than the racial stereotypes other directors expected.
As with Universal's DVD of Winchester '73, the print quality isn't always quite as good as it could be, but it's mostly ... Read More
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- One of the better Westerns of Jimmy...
- clairty
- Average James Stewart/Anthony Mann western
