Straight Shooting & Hell Bent: Two Films by John Ford Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Straight Shooting & Hell Bent: Two Films by John Ford Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 14, 2022

Harry Carey's film career was long enough that when he was working in the proto noir thriller Among the Living in 1941, part of Paramount's publicity push for the film was to cover what at least some of the accounts at the time listed as a 50th Anniversary in Show Business celebration for the venerable actor, where he was feted and given (wait for it) a commemorative watch. That probably questionable number would tend to indicate Carey had been toiling in the movie industry since 1891, but since Carey was born in 1878 and would have been only 13, not to mention the fact that there really wasn't a movie industry in the United States in any meaningful way in 1891 might suggest a certain PR hyperbole was at play, but even so, Carey's film career does stretch back to the earliest years of the silent era, with, according to the IMDb, his first film appearance coming in 1910. Interestingly in that regard, other "snipes" on the backs of press photos distributed by Paramount in 1941 offer a potentially somewhat more accurate description of the event as a celebration of Carey's 33rd year in movies, but that designation would take his career back to circa 1908, which may or may not suggest that there's some unknown or at least unremembered Carey film languishing in some hidden nook and/or cranny somewhere. For those only acquainted with Carey due to his later in life performances, where he could essay either generally avuncular types (as in his Academy Award nominated performance in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) or more sinister types, as in the aforementioned Among the Living, may be downright surprised to think of Carey as a Western star, of all things, but he was in fact one of his era's leading lights in that then still nascent genre. Eureka! Entertainment's Masters of Cinema imprint has aggregated two relatively early Harry Carey western films, both helmed by the legendary John Ford, into an agreeable package that offers generally secure technical merits and some very appealing supplements.

For reviews of the films in this set, please click on the following links:

Straight Shooting Blu-ray review

Hell Bent Blu-ray review

Straight Shooting & Hell Bent: Two Films by John Ford Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality of each film is assessed in the above linked reviews.

Straight Shooting & Hell Bent: Two Films by John Ford Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each film is assessed in the above linked reviews.

Straight Shooting & Hell Bent: Two Films by John Ford Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplements included on each disc are detailed in the above linked reviews.

Straight Shooting & Hell Bent: Two Films by John Ford Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you only know of Harry Carey from some of his later work, these early Westerns may be downright surprising. The fact that they're some of the earliest feature film efforts from John Ford just makes them all the more historically important. Eureka! has provided a release with generally solid technical merits and some very appealing supplements. Recommended.