Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Sierra Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov September 1, 2023

Alfred E. Green's "Sierra" (1950) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new audio commentary by critic Toby Roan and vintage trailer for the film. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

If you recently acquired The Ranown Westerns: Five Films Directed by Budd Boetticher box set and had a great time with the films that are included in it, consider picking up Alfred E. Green’s Sierra. You will find the style and tone of Sierra to be very similar to those of the films in the box set. More importantly, you will discover plenty of very interesting similarities between its characters and the ones that Boetticher and Burt Kennedy crafted.

Somewhere in the mountains, the handsome loner Ring Hassard (Audie Murphy) encounters the beautiful lawyer Riley Martin (Wanda Hendrix), who has lost her way. Ring decides to help Riley, blindfolds her, and together they ride back to a tiny cabin the former shares with his father, Jeff (Dean Jagger). But while Riley rests and the men agree to take her back to her home, Jeff is badly hurt by a wild stallion. Shortly after, because the men are fugitives from the law, a decision is made to seek help from Lonesome (Burl Ives), a trusted neighbor who spends most of his time singing but knows how to fix wounds and broken bones. However, when Lonesome appears and examines his friend, everyone realizes that Jeff’s condition is very serious and he urgently needs to be seen by a real doctor.

Ring takes several horses to trade for money and together with Riley rides to the nearest town. But somewhere along the way, Riley is bitten by a rattlesnake, and even though Ring intentionally fires his gun and injures her to neutralize the poison, the horses are temporarily abandoned so that they can reach the town faster. When the Ring and Riley reach their destination, the former suddenly becomes a big target because it looks like he has injured an innocent woman, he is recognized as the son of a man whom everyone believes is a killer who has evaded justice, and several horse thieves pretending to be hardworking cowboys accuse of him of being a liar.

A couple of things separate Alfred E. Green’s Sierra from the other ‘small westerns’ Universal made with Audie Murphy in the early 1950s. Lensed by Russell Metty, unquestionably one of the greatest post-war American cinematographers, Sierra produces superior Technicolor visuals but without emphasizing scope and glamor. Much like Boetticher’s westerns, Sierra very effectively blends cinematic minimalism and poetic beauty, producing visuals whose deceiving simplicity is frequently remarkably attractive. Also, like Boetticher’s westerns, Sierra values straightforwardness and strength while revealing various common threads between its good and bad characters. As a result, in Sierra there is quite a bit more of that gray material where the classic contrasts westerns loved to produce are missing. (This happens to be the reason there is substantially less action material in it as well).

Murphy looks good but is in the company of several excellent actors. Ives plays the most interesting character, the trusted neighbor who loves to sing, who seems like someone that Nicholas Ray would have loved to have in his cult film Johnny Guitar.

The obvious but perhaps entirely predictable weakness of Sierra is its editing. Quite a few transitions look uneven and make it easy to conclude that Sierra was in fact deliberately conceived to be a ‘small western’ with very practical goals, which technically it was. In the early 1950s, Universal produced several such films to help Murphy and a few other young stars who were under contract with it grow.

Sierra Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.36:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Sierra arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The film looks dated and it is very easy to tell that it needs to be properly restored so that it looks as good as it should. For example, a lot of the panoramic footage does not convey proper delineation and depth. Clarity is inconsistent as well. Select close-ups can look decent, even good, but they can and should look a lot better. Color reproduction is not great either. There are basic registration issues that need to be addressed. However, I think that in several small areas some Technicolor qualities are easy to recognize. Image stability is good. I did notice small blemishes and marks popping up here and there, but there are no large cuts, warped or torn frames to report. My score is 3.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Sierra Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The dialog is always easy to follow. However, in a couple of areas, I was able to hear extremely light background hiss trying to sneak in. Admittedly, I did have the volume of my system turned up slightly more than I usually like, but I suspect that some viewers will notice what I did without a similar adjustment. However, I would still describe the audio as very healthy. I just think that there is a bit of room for minor cosmetic improvements.

Sierra Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - presented here is a vintage trailer for Sierra. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critic Toby Roan. I enjoyed Mr. Roan's commentaries a lot and thought that his contribution to this release was predictably excellent. Mr. Roan provides a wealth of interesting factual information about the production of Sierra, the careers of its director and stars, some important trends at Universal at the time, etc.

Sierra Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You should book a night with Alfred E. Green's Sierra if you had a good time with the five Budd Boetticher westerns that were recently released on 4K Blu-ray because there are several very interesting similarities between these films. Sierra was lensed by Russell Metty, one of the greatest post-war American cinematographers, who will soon after be invited to work on Touch of Evil and Spartacus. Sierra is included in Audie Murphy Collection II, a three-disc box set. RECOMMENDED.