Ford DVDs & 1939 Technicolor

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If I was better at persuading DVD publicists to send me freebies I might have seen some of the 24 films in the big fat Ford at Fox box set, which streets tomorrow. But I'm not (too much work) and I don't have an extra $210 to blow, so thank fortune for the The Essential John Ford Collection (The Frontier Marshall, My Darling Clementine, Drums Along the Mohawk, How Green Was My Valley, The Grapes of Wrath and Nick Redman's 93-minute doc, Becoming John Ford), which is only $35.

Although it may be the least of the five, Drums Along the Mohawk ('39) is the one I'm most eager to see. This is because it was shot in three-strip Technicolor at the dawn of the color era, and I can't get enough of the semi-surreal look of this process. The colors almost look painted on, which they were in a sense. The result is something strangely luminous and "fake", and yet strangely agreeable. Obviously produced from a crude technology, but that's the fun of it.

To me, Henry Fonda has always been the monochrome middle-aged architect in Twelve Angry Men, mild-mannered and balding, but here he is with unlined, light-peach skin and thick jet-black hair and a young man's anxiety. I know, I know...but I eat this stuff up. It's so much fun to watch I can overlook the blustery cornball acting styles that are a hallmark of almost all Ford films. (Fonda and costar Claudette Colbert aren't guilty of this in Mohawk, but almost everyone else is.)

The difference this time, apparently, is that the new Mohawk has toned down the poster-paint colors so it looks, to judge by the stills on DVD Beaver, a little less forced.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on December 3, 2007 at 3:01 PM

comment #1

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Allow me to put in a word for the unknown masterpiece (well, near-masterpiece) in the set: Pilgrimage. (Those who don't want to plunk $210 for that can also get it in a double bill set for $19.99.) It's a powerful, if admittedly contrived in spots, tale about the guilt of a domineering mother who sends her son off to World War I, featuring one of the greatest performances by someone you've never heard of, Henrietta Crosman, a top stage star of the turn of the century who played imperious old biddies in 30s movies.

The silent set is also well worth a look: The Iron Horse is by far the best of the 20s big western epics, and made Ford's name, while even better is Three Bad Men, which deserves to rank among his great westerns. Four Sons was shot in part on Sunrise's sets and shows Ford absorbing a German art film influence (alas, the set doesn't include Flesh, which is pure UFA), and Hangman's House is a nicely atmospheric sort of Quiet Man-goes-Gothic.

Posted by Mgmax, le Corbeau at December 3, 2007 8:00 PM

comment #2

Dirty Harry says ...

Admittedly I haven't seen more than half of these and can't afford the box to remedy that either, but from what I have seen this is a great way to watch America's greatest director (IMHO) become America's greatest director.

Once Zanuck steps in the picture his influence on Ford -- both of whom were two of the biggest and most complicated personalities you'll ever read about -- is quite striking and however contentious their relationship, I think the great producer deserves a lot of credit for pushing Ford as a director.

My somewhat obscure recomendation from the set is is THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND based on the true story of the doctor imprisoned after innocently treating John Wilkes Booth broken leg after Booth assassinated Lincoln. It's a politically incorrect POV sympathetic to the South, but you lefties might like the civil liberties theme of a country in hysteria suspending individual rights, and *gasp* the military tribunals that put the innocent in prison for life.

Posted by Dirty Harry at December 4, 2007 9:45 AM

comment #3