Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

The Law and Jake Wade Blu-ray Movie Review

Strong Silent Type

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 12, 2017

Director John Sturges made two classic Westerns, The Magnificent Seven (original version) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and I would argue that he made a third in Bad Day at Black Rock, which has all the earmarks of a traditional American frontier tale despite being set in 1945. Sturges also made some well-crafted genre exercises that may not rank with this exalted company but are nevertheless satisfying entertainments. One of them is The Law and Jake Wade, a 1958 MGM release elevated by strong lead performances from Rod Taylor and Richard Widmark. The efficient script was written by William Hawks (brother of Howard) from a novel of the same name by prolific author Marvin H. Albert, who would go on to create the character of Tony Rome memorably portrayed by Frank Sinatra in Tony Rome and Lady in Cement.

The premise of Jake Wade is so simple as to be archetypal. Formerly a soldier in the Civil War, Jake Wade (Taylor) adapted his military skills to bank holdups when the war was over. But after a tragic incident, Jake abandoned his life of crime and reinvented himself as a frontier lawman, settling down in the small town of Cold Stream and acquiring a sweetly innocent fiancée named Peggy (Patricia Owens). A year later, Jake is confronted by his past in the person of Clint Hollister (Widmark), who used to be Jake's compatriot in both war and larceny. Now Clint would very much like to know what Jake did with the $20,000 taken during their last job. Seizing Peggy as leverage, Clint forces Jake to lead him to the abandoned town where the repentant robber buried the money, along with his former life. The entire affair is preceded by a prologue in which Jake repays a wartime debt of honor by busting Clint out of jail, thereby providing yet another demonstration of the adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

Clint is accompanied by a fractious band of bad guys, some of whom were part of his and Jake's original gang, including Wexler, who is played by the late DeForest Kelley in perpetually irritated tones that anticipate the actor's future portrayal of Star Trek's Dr. McCoy. The younger generation is represented by Rennie, an early entry in the impressive gallery of rogues and rascals that actor Henry Silva has assembled over a long career. (Four years later, he would play the duplicitous Korean operative who betrays Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate.) As the group endures its arduous trek across rough country framed by mountain peaks, Sturges engineers several interesting diversions that include a tense encounter with a U.S. Cavalry unit and a daring but fruitless escape attempt by Jake and Peggy.

By the time they reach their destination, the group has been targeted by a Comanche war party, whose attack is the film's most elaborate set piece. All the while, Clint gloats over Jake's predicament, gleefully assuring his former partner that he'll kill Jake as soon as he has the loot and refusing Jake's entreaties to release Peggy unharmed. It's hardly a spoiler to relate that the two former comrades, now sworn enemies, eventually face off in classic Western style.

Widmark played many memorable killers in a long career that began with his grinning Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death, and he brings the same nasty relish to Grant's sadism. Taylor labors under the disadvantage of having his hands tied (literally) for much of the picture, but he makes the handicap work in his favor, using it to reinforce his portrayal of a man for whom the tug of conscience binds him to a dark past from which he cannot escape without a painful reckoning

The Law and Jake Wade Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Law and Jake Wade was shot in Cinemascope by three-time Oscar winner Robert Surtees (Ben-Hur, The Sting and The Graduate, among many others). The film appeared in the same year as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and it was photographed on the same problematic Eastmancolor stock subject to the deterioration known as "yellow layer collapse" (discussed in the review of Silk Stockings, another film from the same period). The Warner Archive Collection's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray reflects the progress that WAC and Warner's Motion Picture Imaging facility have made in taming the effects of yellow layer collapse since those two discs were released.

To bring Jake Wade to Blu-ray, MPI scanned a recent interpositive at 2K, followed by color correction using various archival sources as a reference and, of course, extensive cleanup to remove dust, scratches and age-related wear. Although MPI can't add back more detail than was there (and, thankfully, they haven't tried), it has achieved an impressively stable image, resolving the grain as tightly as the source will permit. Sharpness is good enough that one can easily spot the difference between the scenic location photography (much of it shot in California's Death Valley National Park) and the soundstages where painted backdrops provide the scenery. Blacks are solidly rendered (although the day-for-night photography remains obvious). While the colors may not have the vibrancy of classic Technicolor, they're sufficiently rich to bring the landscape alive and convey the appropriate sense of scale.

The Cinemascope lenses used in Jake Wade were notorious for visual distortions, including instability at the far left and right of the frame during camera pans. This issue was previously noted in The Sea Chase, and it appears here as well, but once again the transfer is simply rendering an accurate presentation of what was originally captured on film.

As with their recent release of The Man with Two Brains, WAC has mastered the 89-minute film on a BD-25, but the short running time combined with the lack of extras permits an average bitrate of 30.49 Mbps, with a capable encode.

The Law and Jake Wade Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jake Wade's original mono soundtrack has been encoded on Blu-ray in DTS-HD MA 2.0, and it's something of a letdown because of source issues. The film's original magnetic tracks have deteriorated past the point of salvaging, so that WAC had to search Warner's library to find the best available optical track. Several options were tried, and the strongest among them was chosen and cleaned of any age-related distortion, but its dynamic range is limited, with little in the way of bass extension and a top end that sounds thin and compressed. Still, the dialogue is always intelligible, and the essential sound effects are clearly heard. There's no scoring credit, because a musicians' strike forced MGM to use a canned soundtrack that, according to IMDb, included cues from over a dozen film composers.

The Law and Jake Wade Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only supplement is a trailer (1080p; 2.35:1; 2:04). Warner's 2008 DVD was similarly bare.

The Law and Jake Wade Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Law and Jake Wade isn't a great Western, but it's a very good one, with first-rate direction and two memorable lead performances. WAC has brought it to Blu-ray with a greater degree of polish than I would have thought possible, given the source limitations. Recommended.