If a single year in the life of Gunsmoke could be responsible for winning the show its place as the “Greatest TV Western Series of All Time” by...
Gunsmoke: The Third Season, Volume 2
read more
DVD Reviews
Paul Newman Tribute
Paul Newman, nominated for Oscars nine times, was way overdue when he finally took one home for The Color of Money in 1987. My favorites include:...
Lonely Are The Brave
Jack Burns (Kirk Douglas) is the kind of cowboy that mamas are warned not to let their babies grow up to be. He has no respect for authority, and he...
Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater
Buyers of this DVD collection, which presents the first season of TV’s Zane Grey Theater, will find an essay I wrote sharing Zane Grey’s phenomenal...
No Country For Old Men
Watching No Country For Old Men once again, this time as a DVD, only serves to remind me how thoroughly terrific Joel & Ethan Coen are at mixing...
Rawhide: Season Three, Vol. 2
Rawhide, which premiered in 1959, had several virtues that Gunsmoke lacked. More than anything else, Gunsmoke was about family and the need for...
Deadwood: The Complete Series
David Milch’s Western series, a once-in-a-generation event, ran on HBO for three seasons. Like the cable channel’s other prize-winning project, The...
The Wild Wild West: The Complete TV Series
The Wild Wild West, a TV series that ran from 1965-69, was a definite curiosity, a strange hybrid of Spy Drama, Science Fiction and traditional...
The Ultimate Westerns Collection
Available only at Costco, this remarkable box set of Westerns is for anyone wanting a fine group of classic pictures at a decent price. Included in...
Hopalong Cassidy
As Tommy Lee Jones mentions, Hopalong Cassidy meant a lot to kids of that generation. William Boyd, who started his career in the Silent Film era,...
Stranger on Horseback
Every so often a Western sneaks up on my blind side and surprises me. I’ve always respected Jacques Tourneur as a director, and his better known...
Outlaw Trail Collection
Back in the early 1970s, when a handful of Country singers and songwriters decided that they could bypass the stranglehold of the Nashville...