Square Eyes; Showing Very Soon… June 13, 2008
Posted by John Hodson in : Television, Square Eyes , trackbackFor digitally equipped UK based telly viewers, there’s a feast of westerns on BBC 4 this weekend that you might like to take note of.
As well as two-thirds of the ‘Cavalry Trilogy’ and two of the very finest John Ford / John Wayne collaborations (as I write that, I’m mindful that Ford would bristle at the suggestion…) - Fort Apache, essentially Ford’s coruscating take on Custer and featuring some breathtaking monochrome cinematography courtesy of Archie Stout, plus the Technicolor splendour (the Beeb print allowing) of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon - BBC 4 is showing Ford’s brilliantly realised Wagon Master, just released by Universal in the UK, with a fair to middling transfer, but unavailable in R1.
Kicking off the short season, at 7.30pm on Saturday June 14 is Sam Fuller’s superb Run of The Arrow, as yet sadly unavailable on DVD either side of The Pond, with Rod Steiger somehow managing to spellbind despite another of his ’Oirish’ accents that are as authentic as Guinness brewed in Cleveland. Alex Cox’s 2007 comedy drama Searchers 2.0 gets its first terrestrial telly outing on Monday, June 16, and you’ll also find a smattering of documentaries - a repeat for Reputations: John Wayne, a look at the life and times of The Duke, but I quake a little at the prospect of the newly minted How the West Was Lost in which: “…Comedian Rich Hall looks at classic westerns from Buffalo Bill to Unforgiven, and sees their influence on films such as Reservoir Dogs and Taxi Driver.”
Hey; western fandom is a serious business…full details of the Westerns Weekend on the BBC 4 website here.
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