Broken Lance

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Broken Lance is a noble entry in the trend of adult Westerns of the early 1950s, scoring on a couple of fronts: (1) as a multigenerational saga, with Shakespearian overtones, of a family bickering over a giant ranch, and (2) as a grown-up look at the dilemma of the Native American... its title perhaps inspired by the Indian-friendly Broken Arrow? Spencer Tracy stars as the blustery patriarch of a cattle spread, threatened by pollution from a nearby copper mine as well as the shiftiness of his older sons (Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brian, and Earl Holliman). Tracy's bluff characterization--as ever, he seems to be yanking at the script like a cat unraveling a ball of yarn--carries the film effortlessly along. The central character is actually his youngest and wisest son, played by Robert Wagner, who's not especially convincing as the mixed-race issue of Tracy's second marriage, to an Indian woman (Oscar nominee Katy Jurado). Edward Dmytryk directs in a style that could be called "intelligent," which is another way of saying "not very exciting." The early CinemaScope probably accounts for some of the static set-ups, although there are exteriors that are breathtaking (watching this film in its full-screen version would be crazy). The cast is certainly tops; Widmark is overqualified to play a third lead, but who's complaining? Most memorable is the loving relationship between Tracy's cattleman and his Indian wife, although the subject of Native Americans is secondary here (check out The Devil's Doorway and Apache for more overt Fifties looks at the topic). Veteran screenwriter Philip Yordan won an Oscar for his "original story," a curious and long-defunct Academy Award category. --Robert Horton

Description

The feisty, domineering cattle baron Matt Devereaux (Tracy) rules his vast empire with a ruthless hand. Because Matt's greatest love id for his Indian wife, Princess (Jurado) and their son Joe, Matt's three sons from a previous marriage deeply resent them. After Joe agrees to go to jail for a crime his father commits, he returns three years later to a different world-his father has died and his vengeful brothers control the land.

Customer Reviews:

CINEMASCOPE AT ITS BEST !!!!.......2007-05-19

This is the way movies used to be photographed in Cinemascope ! Unfortunately all too often todays films seem to forget they are made for the wide screen and seem to be shot for the square tv screen with everything happening in the middle. This film has broad scope and wonderful scenery! Spencer tracey is great as usual and Robert Wagner looks like he does now except for a few wrinkles , some gray hair and a few more pounds! I enjoyed this movie and its grand spectacle greatly!!!

Excellent All-Star Western.......2006-11-14

Broken Lance is a magnificently performed and directed Western that is truly King Lear on the prairie, but also has well-developed characters, excellent writing, excellent acting, and first rate location filming.

Spencer Tracy is the head of the Devereaux clan, a family that includes a Native American wife (played by Katy Jurado), a half-breed son with Jurado (played by Robert Wagner), and three sons from Tracy's first marriage (Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brian, and Earl Holliman). Devereaux is very hard on the first three sons, but dotes on his other son and his wife. When a copper mine is found to be contaminating Devereaux's water supply, things come to a head.

The interaction between the family members seems genuine and rings true, unlike many other films. Tracy gives him usual brillant performance, and everyone else is great. Edward Dmytryk's direction sets the proper tone and mood for every scene. This is an extraordinarily good film, and one that's worth watching many, many times.

A first-rate adult Western..........2006-11-09

Tracy is a believable cowboy, nicely balanced for handling a bull whip, riding dangerously the hills...

Tracy plays a despot, absolute ruler cattle baron "making the wrong move with the wrong people," using his force to restrain the pollution of his cattle's stream: "The river is on my land. You are on my land. You close this operation down."

His first three sons (Widmark, O'Brien and Holliman) were unanimously disappointing to him... He considered them cattle thieves, treating them harshly, without mercy... Only the fourth son and the youngest one (Robert Wagner) by his present wife, a Comanche woman played by the clever, quick-witted Katy Jurado has his affection and care... The other sons looks only forward to his demise so they may take control over his cattle empire...

Tracy -- irritated and frustrated as a father -- expends excessive reasons that arouses the sensation of hate provoking avaricious rebellion, and nearly destroys his younger kid Joe...

It was interesting to follow Dmytryk's study of racial prejudice against the Indian wife of a domineering white father... Interesting to compare the rough resilience of Tracy with his character--isolated by mortal danger in "Bad Day at Black Rock," a character enlightened with real feelings specially in guessing the conclusion... Somehow this is missing in Dmytryk's "Broken Lance" where the autocratic father seems so artificial, an unfavorable comment that can be aimed against the movie itself...

Widmark offers a fine performance as the unlikable eldest son, while Robert Wagner and Jean Peters manage the romantic interlude...

The screenplay, based on 1949s "Home of Strangers" wins an Oscar and the fiery-eyed Mexican star Katy Jurado was nominated for best supporting actress...

Filmed in CinemaScope and Technicolor and with great sceneries of the state of Arizona, "Broken Lance" remains a first-rate adult Western...

"Tracy...Widmark...Wagner...Jurado...Dmytryk ~ Broken Lance (1954)".......2006-08-16

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment present "BROKEN LANCE" (1954) (96 mins Color), under director Edward Dmytryk, producer Sol C. Siegel, screenplay by Richard Murphy and Philip Yordan., musical direction by Alfred Newman, music score by Leigh Harline . . . . .cast includes Spencer Tracy (Matt Devereaux), Robert Wagner (Joe Devereaux), Jean Peters (Barbara), Richard Widmark (Ben), Katy Jurado (Senora Devereaux), Hugh O'Brian (Mike Devereaux), Eduard Franz (Two Moons), Earl Holliman (Danny Devereaux), E.G. Marshall (The Governor), Carl Benton Reid (Clem Lawton), Philip Ober (Van Cleve), Robert Burton (Mac Andrews), Robert Adler (O'Reilly), Harry Carter (Prison Guard), Nacho Galindo (Cook), Julian Rivero (Manuel), Edmund Cobb (Court Clerk), Russell Simpson (Judge), King Donovan (Clerk). . . . . . . our story features Spencer Tracy as a cattle baron with four sons , three (Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brien and Earl Holliman) by a wife who died two years after Tracy settled in the west and started building his cattle empire...Tracy remarries, this time to an Indian princess (Katy Jurado) and has another son (Robert Wagner)...Tracy favors Wagner and treats theother three sons with disgust, thus making it very difficult for all concerned...a copper smelter is polluting the water and killing the cattle on his ranch, he raids the smelter and when things go wrong Wagner takes responsibility and is given three years at hard labor...Tracy dies of a stroke and Wagner plans to seek revenge when he gets out of prison... screenwriter Philip Yordan won an Academy Award for his work on "Broken Lance", while Katy Jurado received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance as Senora...this wonderful cast keeps the film together as director Edward Dmytryk, best known films from the pre-McCarthy period of his career were "Crossfire" (1947), for which he received a Best Director Oscar nomination and "Murder, My Sweet" (1944), as the latter an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's "Farewell My Lovely" (1975)....these films were made with expensive stars of the calibre of Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando, but apart from the memorable Western "Warlock" (1959), which he also produced, his work had lost much of the emotional urgency and psychological thrust represented by his early film noir "Crossfire" (1947)...after his film career tapered off in the 70s, he entered academia and taught at the University of Texas at Austin, and at the University of Southern California. He wrote several books on the art of film-making, Dmytryk died in 1999, aged 90.

Specal footnote, actor Spencer Tracy (April 5, 1900 - June 10, 1967) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American film actor who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967, was often described as one of the finest actors in motion picture history...in 1935 Tracy signed with MGM, won the Academy Award for Best Actor two years in a row, for "Captains Courageous" (1937) and "Boys Town" (1938)....Tracy was also nominated for "San Francisco" (1936), "Father of the Bride" (1950), "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955), "The Old Man and the Sea" (1958), "Inherit the Wind" (1960), "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961), and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967)...Tracy and Laurence Olivier share the record for the most best actor Oscar nominations (9)...Tracy was one of Hollywood's earliest "realistic" actors; his performances have stood the test of time, other actors have noted that Tracy's work in 1930s films sometimes looks like a modern actor interacting with the more stylized and dated performances of everyone around him...In 1941, Tracy began a relationship with Katharine Hepburn, whose agile mind and New England brogue complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo very well, though estranged from his wife Louise, he was a devout Roman Catholic and never divorced, Tracy and Hepburn made nine films together.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
BIOS:
1. Spencer Tracy (aka: Spencer Bonaventure Tracy)
Date of birth: 5 April 1900 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
Date of death: 10 June 1967 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
2. Richard Widmark
Date of birth: 26 December 1914 - Sunrise, Minnesota
Date of death: Still Living
3. Robert Wagner (aka: Robert John Wagner)
Date of birth: 10 February 1930 - Detroit, Michigan
Date of death: Still Living
4. Katy Jurado (aka: Maria Cristina Estella Marcella Jurado de Garcia)
Date of birth: 16 January 1924 - Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
Date of death: 5 July 2002 - Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico
5. Edward Dmytryk (Director)
Date of birth: 4 September 1908 - Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada
Date of death: 1 July 1999 - Encino, California

Want to thank 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment for releasing "Broken Lance" (1954), the digital transfere with a clean, clear and crisp print...looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage era of the '40s & '50s...order your copy now from Amazon or 20th Century Fox Entertainment where there are plenty of copies available, stay tuned once again for top notch wonderful character actors of the cinema brought back so many wonderful memories of the times when film makers cared about you who purchased a ticket and came back for more...just the way we like 'em.

Total Time: 96 mins on DVD ~ 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment #2227276 ~ (5/24/2005)

a tad of lear on the open range.......2006-08-03

an early cinemascope western and thus great to watch, even on a small screen. spencer tracy stars as the cattle baron father of 3 unloved sons (richard widmark most notable) and 1 loved (robert wagner), a half-breed with his second wife, the brilliant katy jurado (you might recall her as gary coopers mistress in "high noon"). the movie required a stronger script to jump into the realm of the top westerns, but theres enough to give you an idea of what mightve been.

Classic Western Collection - The Outlaws (The Proud Ones, Forty Guns, Broken Lance, The Culpepper Cattle Co.)

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Classic Western Collection

Classic Western Collection - The Outlaws (The Proud Ones, Forty Guns, Broken Lance, The Culpepper Cattle Co.)
Starring: Robert Ryan , Virginia Mayo , Jeffrey Hunter , Robert Middleton , and Walter Brennan
Director: Robert D. Webb , Samuel Fuller , and Edward Dmytryk
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B000EMGJC2
Release Date: 2006-05-23

Amazon.com

The Proud Ones: The main draw (and quick draw) of this 1956 Western is the marvelous presence of Robert Ryan in the lead role. This underappreciated actor plays a Kansas marshal with a history of perceived cowardice in his past. Everything comes to a head in a single week: a cattle drive ends in town, bringing shootin' and hollerin'; Ryan's nemesis, a casino-runner played by veteran bad guy Robert Middleton, arrives to soak the suckers; and young hotshot Jeffrey Hunter, whose father was killed by Ryan, arrives with revenge on his mind. Oh, and Ryan himself begins to suffer from blinding headaches. Despite the crowded plot, the results are Fifties Western boilerplate, with few distinguishing features beyond the cast. But the supporting ranks are crowded with essential horse-saga actors: Walter Brennan, Arthur O'Connell, Rodolfo Acosta, and of course the bearded, lizard-eyed Middleton. Virginia Mayo plays Ryan's hotel-keeper ladyfriend. Ace cinematographer Lucien Ballard gets a few good outdoor CinemaScope set-ups into the generally backlot feel of the thing. But the reason to see the film is lanky Robert Ryan, whose compelling mix of neurosis, gentleness, and fury is on full display here. --Robert Horton

Forty Guns: Forty Guns is the most rampantly sexualized Western ever made, and the most outrageous of Samuel Fuller's late-'50s B movies. Fuller's original title was "Woman with a Whip," referring to the hard-riding range baroness--Barbara Stanwyck, sporting silver hair and (most of the time) black, skintight man togs--who's "the boss of Cochise County" and a law unto herself. The forty guns are an army of pistoleros who accompany her just about everywhere, and Fuller misses no opportunity to exaggerate their macho assertiveness in black-and-white CinemaScope, whether thundering along the horizon or formed up on either side of a preposterously long dinner table with Stanwyck at its head. Barry Sullivan costars as a Wyatt Earp-like gunfighter who both threatens Stanwyck's empire and awakens her lust for something besides power. As one of his brothers, Gene Barry (soon to star in Fuller's mind-blowing Vietnam movie China Gate) enjoys a passionate liaison with a gunsmith's busty blond daughter (Eve Brent) whom he romances down the bore of a rifle--an image Jean-Luc Godard would memorialize in Breathless. In the relentlessly double-entendre dialogue and the blocking of scenes, everything takes on sexual overtones: power and impotence, political advantage and exclusion. Fuller and cameraman Joseph Biroc capture many sequences in single, minutes-long takes that often end in a death--and in one perverse instance, the revelation of a death that has occurred midway through without our knowing it. (It's a T.S. Eliot moment, though we won't insist on it.) Style is all in this movie, which will leave you either astonished or aghast. More likely, both. --Richard T. Jameson

Broken Lance: Broken Lance is a noble entry in the trend of adult Westerns of the early 1950s, scoring on a couple of fronts: (1) as a multigenerational saga, with Shakespearian overtones, of a family bickering over a giant ranch, and (2) as a grown-up look at the dilemma of the Native American... its title perhaps inspired by the Indian-friendly Broken Arrow? Spencer Tracy stars as the blustery patriarch of a cattle spread, threatened by pollution from a nearby copper mine as well as the shiftiness of his older sons (Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brian, and Earl Holliman). Tracy's bluff characterization--as ever, he seems to be yanking at the script like a cat unraveling a ball of yarn--carries the film effortlessly along. The central character is actually his youngest and wisest son, played by Robert Wagner, who's not especially convincing as the mixed-race issue of Tracy's second marriage, to an Indian woman (Oscar nominee Katy Jurado). Edward Dmytryk directs in a style that could be called "intelligent," which is another way of saying "not very exciting." The early CinemaScope probably accounts for some of the static set-ups, although there are exteriors that are breathtaking (watching this film in its full-screen version would be crazy). The cast is certainly tops; Widmark is overqualified to play a third lead, but who's complaining? Most memorable is the loving relationship between Tracy's cattleman and his Indian wife, although the subject of Native Americans is secondary here (check out The Devil's Doorway and Apache for more overt Fifties looks at the topic). Veteran screenwriter Philip Yordan won an Oscar for his "original story," a curious and long-defunct Academy Award category. --Robert Horton

The Culpepper Cattle Co.: The Culpepper Cattle Company is a worthy example of a certain kind of early-1970s Western: deglamorized, unromantic, and frankly violent. This one begins in familiar terms, as a greenhorn lad (Gary Grimes, recently deflowered in Summer of '42) joins a cattle drive, surrendering himself to the extremely focused leadership of boss Frank Culpepper (the authentically Western Billy "Green" Bush). The episodes that follow are engrossing and colorful, and the drive gets more interesting when a quartet of lethal hombres (among them Bo Hopkins, Luke Askew, and wild-eyed Geoffrey Lewis) join the ride. The business of frontier justice--which here usually means shooting strangers just to be on the safe side--is worked out in refreshingly unheroic ways. Clearly director Dick Richards (making his debut in a relatively brief directing career) is responding to the revisionist era, and specifically to the films of the great Sam Peckinpah; this movie's climax is a scaled-down nod to The Wild Bunch. Probably too scaled-down, given the somewhat abrupt ending. The music uses themes from Jerry Goldsmith's terrific score for The Flim-Flam Man, released five years earlier. Culpepper got lost in the flurry of revisionist westerns that sounded similar themes: The Cowboys, The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid, and by far the best of this group, Robert Benton's Bad Company. All were released in 1972, a high-water mark for re-thinking the genre. --Robert Horton

Description

Episode Description: GiftSet Includes the Following Titles:

**Culpepper Cattle Co. **The Proud Ones **Broken Lance **Forty Guns

Customer Reviews:

Classic Western Collection.......2007-01-10

This was a xmas present for my fater-in-law. He loved it.

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