7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
An ex-lawman is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn't realize is that his partner and old friend is plotting to double-cross him.
Starring: Randolph Scott (I), Joel McCrea, Mariette Hartley, Ron Starr, Edgar BuchananWestern | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Writer/director Sam Peckinpah was making revisionist Westerns before anyone coined the term.
An early example is Ride the High Country ("RtHC"), the director's second feature film, which
teamed aging stars Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott, two of the screen's most durable and
beloved cowboys. Under Peckinpah's direction, and with his uncredited rewrite of an already
retooled script by alcoholic screenwriter N.B. Stone Jr. (Man
with the Gun), the film morphed
into something other than the throwaway bottom half of a double bill that MGM trickled into
theaters in the summer of 1962. As critics and film festivals realized, Peckinpah had created an
enduring classic of the genre, an elegy for an Old West that may never have existed outside the
hearts of idealists like McCrea's Steve Judd, the former lawman who accepts a hazardous job
because he's down on his luck, and Scott's Gil Westrum, Judd's former comrade who joins him
with ulterior motives.
With stylish cinematography by Lucien Ballard, who would go on to shoot four more films with
Peckinpah, including The Wild Bunch,
RtHC is the latest catalog gem to be remastered by the
Warner Archive Collection, which is bringing this essential Western to Blu-ray in a fresh
presentation that allows contemporary viewers to experience Peckinpah's evocation of a dying
era with new immediacy.
For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of Ride the High Country, the Warner Archive Collection
commissioned a new scan, which was performed at 2K by Warner's Motion Picture Imaging
facility using a recently manufactured interpositive. Color-correction was performed by one of
MPIs senior colorists, followed by the usual cleanup and repair. The result is an exceptional
reproduction of cinematographer Lucien Ballard's (The Wild
Bunch) subtly realistic lighting,
which effectively masks any visible difference between the Mammoth Lake locations where
filming began and the MGM back lot where the production had to relocate after being routed by a
freak snowstorm. Detail, sharpness, black levels and densities are all excellent, and even the
dissolves at scene changes have been rendered with consistency. The film's palette is dominated
by classic wilderness earth tones, but these are offset by the white snows of the Sierras and
flashes of brightly saturated hues, especially in Kate's whorehouse (not to mention her
ostentatious wardrobe). Peckinpah was noted for his attention to detail, and the image on WAC's
Blu-ray does justice to his care with small but revealing minutia. Note, for example, the worn and
uneven textures of Gil Westrum's leather jacket, which serve as an outer expression of his
irregular moral landscape. With a high average bitrate of 34.97 Mbps and a capable encode,
RtHC joins WAC's growing roster of ravishing Blu-ray images deserving of highest marks.
(Note that the opening credits have been windowboxed. The image expands to its full width as soon as they end. See screenshots 35-37. Some people
may consider this a flaw, but I do not.)
RtHC's original mono soundtrack has been taken from the original magnetic recording, cleaned of any interference or distortion and encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. The film had a limited budget, and no restoration can add dynamic range that wasn't there to begin with. Gunshots are frequently thin, with minimal sonic impact, but the dialogue is always clearly rendered—and despite its Old West setting, RtHC is primarily a dialogue-driven film. The score by George Bassman (The Postman Always Rings Twice) is sometimes thin and strained at the top end, but it sounds true to the source and effectively supplies the action, adventure and emotional beats that the story requires.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2006 DVD release of Ride the High Country.
The trailer has been remastered in 1080p.
By the time Peckinpah made RtHC, he had received thorough on-the-job training as an assistant
to various experienced directors, including Don Siegel, and as writer and director of episodic TV,
but it was on RtHC that he mastered the art of editing that he would soon revolutionize. When
MGM's editorial chief pronounced the dailies uneditable, Peckinpah, with the backing of studio
production head Sol Siegel, hunkered down in the cutting room to work directly with editor
Frank Santillo in what turned out to be a fruitful collaboration. (They would reunite for The Ballad of Cable Hogue and Junior
Bonner.) If Sol Siegel hadn't been ousted before the film's completion, RtHC might have enjoyed a wider release and greater
box
office success, but Siegel's successor slept through a rough cut of the film, declared it the worst picture he'd ever
seen and barred Peckinpah from the studio. Today, no one remembers that studio executive, but
Peckinpah is justly revered as a major talent, of which RtHC is the first full expression. WAC's
Blu-ray treatment is superb and highly recommended.
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Limited Edition to 3000
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Paramount Presents #18
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