Burbank, Calif. April 20, 2015 – On June 2, Warner Bros. Home
Entertainment (WBHE) will release The John Wayne Westerns Film Collection –
featuring five classic films on Digital
HD and Blu-ray™ from the larger-than-life American hero – just in time for
Father’s Day. The Collection
features two new-to-Blu-ray titles, The
Train Robbers and Cahill U.S. Marshal plus fan favorites Fort Apache, The Searchers and a
long-awaited re-release of Rio Bravo. The pocketbook box set
will sell for $54.96 SRP; individual films $14.98 SRP; Digital HD
$39.99
ARP and Digital $27.99 ARP.
Born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset,
Iowa, John Wayne first worked in the film business
as a laborer on the Fox lot during summer vacations from University of Southern California, which he attended on a
football scholarship. He met and was befriended by John Ford, a young director who was beginning to
make a name for himself in action films, comedies and dramas. It was Ford who recommended Wayne to director
Raoul Walsh for the male lead in the
1930 epic Western, The Big Trail,
and, although it was a box-office failure, the movie showed Wayne's potential.
For
the next nine years, Wayne worked in a multitude of B-Westerns and serials in
between bit parts in larger
features. Wayne’s big break came in 1939, when Ford cast him as Ringo Kid in the adventure Stagecoach.
Wayne nearly stole the picture from his more seasoned co-stars, and his career as a box-office superstar began.
During his 50-year film career, Wayne played
the lead in 142 movies, an as yet unsurpassed record, and was nominated for
three Academy Awards®1, winning
the Best Actor Oscar® in 1970 for his performance in True Grit.
Details of The John Wayne Westerns Film Collection
The
Train Robbers (1973)
NEW TO BLU-RAY!
The action never stops in this western
starring Wayne, Ann-Margret and Ricardo Montalban.
Three Civil War veterans team up with a train robber’s attractive widow to
recover a cool half- million in
hidden gold. The widow (Ann-Margaret) wants to clear her husband’s name and the three friends (John Wayne, Rod
Taylor, Ben Johnson) want to aid her and collect a $50,000 reward. But the dead man’s ex-partners just want the
gold…and will kill to get it. The Train Robbers is a rollicking
caper from writer/director Burt Kennedy, a specialist in Westerns with a comic touch (The Rounders, Support Your Local Sheriff). Here he sets a mood of amiable adventure among
colorful characters, not stinting on the two-fisted action that’s part of all the best Wayne Westerns.
Special features include:
·
Featurette:
John Wayne: Working with a Western Legend
·
Featurette:
The Wayne Train
·
Theatrical Trailer
Cahill
U.S. Marshal (1973)
NEW TO BLU-RAY!
Lawman J.D. Cahill can stand alone against
a bad-guy army. But as a widower father, he’s on insecure footing raising two sons,
particularly when he suspects his boys are involved in a bank robbery… and two killings.
Filmed on location in the high desert of
Durango, New Mexico, this suspenseful saga offers a hearty helping of the stoic charisma that made John Wayne a
long-time box-office champion. Summer of ’42 discovery Gary Grimes – as Cahill’s
rebellious older son – joins a cast of
tough-guy favorites (Neville Brand, Denver Pyle, Harry Carey Jr. and George Kennedy) and such other Hollywood greats as Marie
Windsor and Jackie Coogan in a deft blend of trigger- fast action and heroic sentiment.
Special features include:
·
Commentary
by Andrew V. McLaglen
·
Featurette:
The Man Behind the Star
·
Theatrical Trailer
Fort Apache (1948)
The soldiers at Fort Apache may disagree
with the tactics of their glory-seeking new
commander. But to a man, they’re duty-bound to obey – even when it means almost certain disaster.
John Wayne, Henry Fonda and many familiar
supporting players from master director John
Ford’s “stock company: saddle up for the first film in the director’s famed
cavalry trilogy (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande are the others).
Roughhouse camaraderie, sentimental vignettes
of frontier life, massive action sequences staged in Monument Valley – all are
part of Fort Apache. So is Ford’s exploration of the
West’s darker side. Themes of justice, heroism
and honor that Ford would revisit in later Westerns are given rein in this
moving, thought- provoking film
that, even as it salutes a legend, gives reasons to question it.
Previously released special features include:
·
Commentary
by F.X. Feeney
·
Featurette:
Monument Valley: John Ford Country
·
Theatrical Trailer
The Searchers (1956)
Working together for the 12th
time, John Wayne and director John Ford forged The Searchers into a landmark Western offering an
indelible image of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays an ex-Confederate soldier
seeking his niece, captured by Comanches
who massacred his family. He won't surrender to hunger, thirst, the elements or loneliness. And in his
five-year search, he encounters something unexpected: his own humanity. Beautifully shot by Winton
C. Hoch, thrillingly scored by Max Steiner and memorably acted by a wonderful ensemble including Jeffrey Hunter, Vera
Miles, Natalie Wood and Ward Bond, The
Searchers endures as "a great film of enormous scope and
breathtaking physical beauty"
(Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic).
Previously released
special features include:
·
The Searchers: An
Appreciation -
2006 Documentary
·
A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne
and The Searchers – 1998 documentary narrated by John Milius
·
Introduction by John
Wayne’s son and The Searchers co-star
Patrick Wayne
·
Commentary
by director/John Ford biographer Peter Bogdanovich
·
Vintage
Behind the cameras segments from the Warner Bros. Presents TV Series
·
Theatrical Trailer
Rio
Bravo (1959)
On one side is an
army of gunmen dead-set on springing a murderous cohort from jail. On the other is Sheriff John T. Chance (John
Wayne) and two deputies: a recovering drunkard (Dean Martin) and a crippled codger (Walter Brennan). Also in their
ragtag ranks are a trigger-happy youth
(Ricky Nelson) and a woman with a past (Angie Dickinson) – and her eye on Chance.
Director Howard Hawks lifted the Western to
new heights with Red River. Capturing the legendary West with a stellar cast
in peak form, he does it again here.
Previously released
special features include:
·
Commentary
by John Carpenter and Richard Schickel
·
Documentary: Commemoration: Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo
·
Featurette:
Old Tucson: Where the Legends Walked
·
Theatrical Trailer
Also available on Digital HD June 2, 2015
-- the JOHN WAYNE 10 FILM COLLECTION. This digital bundle
of 10 titles will include the following films:
1.
Back to Bataan (1945)
2.
Fort Apache (1948)
3.
The Searchers (1956)
4.
Rio Bravo (1959)
5.
How The West Was
Won (1962)
6.
The Green Berets (1968)
7.
Chisum (1970)
8.
The Cowboys (1972)
9.
The Train Robbers
(1973)
10.
Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973)
CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE BLU-RAY SET FROM AMAZON