Western

• Deadwood : Complete HBO Seasons 1-3 (12 Disc Box Set) | DVD | (29/10/2007) from £28.24  |  Saving you £16.52 (36.70%)  |  RRP £44.99

  1876 the Black Hills of South Dakota. In an age of plunder and greed the richest gold strike in American History draws out a throng of restless misfits to an outlaw settlement where everything-and everyone-has a price. Welcome to Deadwood...a hell of a place to make your fortune. Episodes comprise: 1. Deadwood 2. Deep Water 3. Reconnoitering The Rim 4. Here Was A Man 5. The Trial Of Jack McCall 6. Plague 7. Bullock Returns To The Camp 8. Suffer The Little Children 9. No Other Sons Or Daughters 10. Mister Wu 11. Jewel's Boot Is Made For Walking 12. Sold Under Sin 13. A Lie Agreed Upon (Part1) 14. A Lie Agreed Upon (Part2) 15. New Money 16. Requiem For A Gleet 17. Complications 18. Something Very Expensive 19. E.B. Was Left Out 20. Childish Things 21. Amalgamation And Capital 22. Advances None Miraculous 23. The Whores Can Come 24. Boy The Earth Talks To 25. Tell Your God to Ready for Blood 26. I Am Not The Fine Man You Take Me For 27. True Colors 28. Full Faith And Credit 29. A Two-Headed Beast 30. A Rich Find 31. Unauthorized Cinnamon 32. Leviathan Smiles 33. Amateur Night 34. A Constant Throb 35. The Catbird Seat 36. Tell Him Something Pretty

• Clint Eastwood Collection - For A Few Dollars More/The Good, The Bad And The Ugly/A Fistful Of Dollars/Hang 'Em High | DVD | (13/08/2007) from £7.85  |  Saving you £22.14 (73.80%)  |  RRP £29.99

  Title Comprise: For A Few Dollars More: the tale of a ruthless quest to track down the notorious bandit El Indio played by Gian Maria Volonte. The film is also noted for its array of weaponry a veritable arsenal of rifles that became so operatic and Ennio Morricone's atmospheric score keeps the tension taut as the action moves from Jail breaks and hold-ups to spectacular gun battles. The Good The Bad And The Ugly:written by Age Scarpelli Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Leone is the third and last western in Clint Eastwood's spaghetti trilogy. Director Sergio Leone substitutes for the upright puritan Protestant ethos so familiar in Hollywood westerns a seedy cynical standpoint towards death and mortality as a team of brutal bandits battle to unearth a fortune buried beneath an unmarked grave. Joining Clint clearly ""The Good"" is the irredeemably ""Bad"" Lee and the resolutely ""Ugly"" Eli Wallach. The complete plot of bloodshed and betrayal winds its way through the American Civil War filmed to resemble the French battlefields of World War One to end in the climatic Dance Of Death. Arguably the quintessential Italian Western this 1966 film boasts a fine Ennio Morricone score featuring a main theme that reached No. 1 in the world's pop charts. A Fistful Of Dollars:The first of the ""spaghetti westerns"" A Fistful Of Dollars became an instant cult hit. It also launched the film careers of Italian Writer-Director Sergio Leone and a little known American television actor named Clint Eastwood. As the lean cold-eye cobra-quick gunfighter - Clint became the first of the ""anti-heroes"". The cynical enigmatic loner with a clouded past is the same character Eastwood fans have been savouring ever since. A Fistful Of Dollars is the western taken to the extreme - with unremitting violence gritty realism and tongue-in-cheek humour. Leone's direction is taut and stylish and the visuals are striking - from the breathtaking panoramas (in Spain) to the extreme close-ups of quivering lips and darting eyes before the shoot-out begins. And all are accented by renowned film composer Ennio Morricone's quirky haunting score. Hang 'Em High:Oklahoma 1873. Jed Cooper mistaken for a rustler and killer is lynched on the spot by crooked lawman Captain Wilson and a rampaging band of vigilantes. But as Wilson and his gang flee the scene there's one very important detail they've overlooked: Cooper is still alive! Saved in the nick of time by a sheriff Cooper takes on the job of deputy marshal in order to bring hard-handed justice to the Oklahoma territory and to the nine men who ""done him wrong""...

• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £2.49  |  Saving you £17.00 (85.00%)  |  RRP £19.99

  Dating from 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has never lost its popularity or its unusual appeal as a star-driven Western that tinkers with the genre's conventions and comes up with something both terrifically entertaining and--typical of its period--a tad paranoid. Paul Newman plays the legendary outlaw Butch Cassidy as an eternal optimist and self-styled visionary, conjuring dreams of banks just ripe for the picking all over the world. Robert Redford is his more level-headed partner, the sharp-shooting Sundance Kid. The film, written by William Goldman (The Princess Bride) and directed by George Roy Hill (The Sting), basically begins as a freewheeling story about robbing trains but soon becomes a chase as a relentless posse--always seen at a great distance like some remote authority--forces Butch and Sundance into the hills and, finally, Bolivia. Weakened a little by feel-good inclinations (a scene involving bicycle tricks and the song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" is sort of Hollywood flower power), the film maintains an interesting tautness, and the chemistry between Redford and Newman is rare. (A factoid: Newman first offered the Sundance part to Jack Lemmon.) --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com On the DVD: This anamorphic widescreen print of the 2.35:1 Panavision original looks marvellously crisp, highlighting the sepia tinting and washed-out, over-exposed look of the film nicely and making the best of the deep focus cinematography. The mono soundtrack sounds clean and clear in Dolby 2.0. The commentary track is hosted by documentary-maker Robert Crawford with contributions from George Roy Hill, cinematographer Conrad Hall, and lyricist Hal David (who chips in during the "Raindrops" sequence). The 40-minute documentary dates from 1968 and is narrated by director Hill, who talks in detail about the making-of process, comments on his relationship with the three principals (Katharine Ross was the difficult one apparently), and adds little nuggets such as how they sprayed the bull's testicles to make him charge at the end of the bicycle scene. Also included are a series of absorbing 1994 interviews with all the main players: Newman, Redford, Ross, writer William Goldman, and composer Burt Bacharach. Trailers, Production Notes and an Alternate Credit Roll complete an attractive package. --Mark Walker

• Once Upon a Time in the West -- Special Collector's Edition (2 discs) | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £4.00  |  Saving you £15.14 (75.70%)  |  RRP £19.99

  Sergio Leone had to be persuaded to return to the Western for Once Upon a Time in the West after the success of his "Dollars" trilogy. The result is a masterpiece that expands the vision of the earlier movies in every way. It could as easily have been called The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Blonde as Charles Bronson steps into the No-Name role as the harmonica-playing vengeance seeker, Henry Fonda trashes his Wyatt Earp image as a dead-faced, blue-eyed killer who has sold out to the rapacious railroad; Jason Robards provides humanitarian footnotes as a life-loving but doomed bandit and the astonishingly beautiful Claudia Cardinale shows that all these grown-up little boys are less fit to make a country than one determined widow-mother-whore-angel-everywoman. The opening sequence--Woody Strode, Al Mulock and Jack Elam waiting for a train and bothered by a fly and dripping water--is masterful bravura, homing in on tiny details for a fascinating but eventless length of time before Bronson arrives for the lightning-fast shoot-out. With striking widescreen compositions and epic running time, this picture truly wins points for length and width. On the DVD: Once Upon a Time in the West on disc is the transfer fans have been waiting for: the longest available version of the film in shimmering widescreen (enhanced for 16:9 TVs) which lends full impact to Leone's long shots of Monument Valley scenery or bustling crowds of activity, but also highlights his ultra-close images as Bronson's beady eyes or Cardinale's luscious pout fill the entire screen. A commentary track is mostly by expert Sir Christopher Frayling, with input from other academics, participants and enthusiasts--it's good on the detail, and Alex Cox winningly points out that one scene bizarrely can't be reconciled with what happens before or after it. Disc 2 has four featurettes which, taken together, add up to a feature-length documentary on the film, and though overlapping the commentary slightly offer a wealth of further good stuff, plus the elegant Cardinale's undiminished smile. Also included is the trailer, notes on the cast, menu screens with generous selections from Ennio Morricone's score, stills gallery, comparison shots from the film and contemporary snapshots of the locations. --Kim Newman

• The Magnificent Seven | DVD | (25/06/2001) from £2.89  |  Saving you £16.16 (80.80%)  |  RRP £19.99

  Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum... Followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride! --Robert Horton

• Unforgiven - 10th Anniversary Edition | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £4.49  |  Saving you £9.50 (67.90%)  |  RRP £13.99

  Set in Wyoming in 1881 during the sunset years of the Wild West, 1992's Unforgiven was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood, and is generally considered to be the towering achievement of his twilight years. Eastwood plays William Munny, once a vicious, whisky-swilling bounty hunter, brought to heel by his marriage to a good woman. When she dies, he must raise two children and run a hog farm alone, something which we see him make a comically poor fist of doing. Then, in a twist of fate, a young outlaw called the Schofield Kid trots up to his farm and invites him to collect on a $1,000 reward raised by a group of prostitutes. However, Clint must not only face up to his own somewhat rusty skills as a gunslinger, but also to genial-but-psychopathic lawman Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman in superb form). Unforgiven ultimately conforms to the expectations of the genre, while subverting quite a few of them on the way. There's brooding on the consequences of violence ("It's a hell of a thing to kill a man"), as Munny's ineptitude with a rifle is matched by his feelings of penitence for his younger wrongdoings. Finally, however, Eastwood casts aside age and inhibition in a chillingly ruthless shootout, his powers miraculously (improbably?) restored, in what could also be seen as an assertion on the part of the ageing Eastwood of his own potency as a major player in Hollywood. On the DVD: Unforgiven is presented in this Special Edition release in a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer that gives due emphasis to what critic David Thomson described as the "drained, wintry" feel of the movie. There are numerous bonus features in addition to the original trailer. Eastwood official biographer Richard Schickel offers a particularly copious and detailed audio commentary which touches on all aspects of the film. The 64-minute 1997 documentary Clint on Clint offers a detailed if inevitably worshipful account of Eastwood's career. Finally, there's a 47-minute 1959 episode of Maverick, the old James Garner TV series, guest-starring a 29-year-old Clint, several years away from his big Hollywood break. --David Stubbs

• Young Guns 2 - Blaze Of Glory | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £2.99  |  Saving you £16.00 (84.30%)  |  RRP £18.99

  Billy Doc and Chavez find themselves jailed in the same place and plan an escape. Together with new recruits they head for the Mexican border not knowing that Billy The Kid's one-time friend now wears a badge and is leading the posse to get them...

• Cat Ballou | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £3.97  |  Saving you £9.02 (69.40%)  |  RRP £12.99

  A woman seeking revenge for her murdered father hires a formerly famous gunman but he's very different from what she was expecting!

• The Searchers | DVD | (19/06/2006) from £3.49  |  Saving you £12.50 (78.20%)  |  RRP £15.99

  With The Searchers John Wayne and director John Ford forged an indelible saga of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards an ex-Confederate who sets out to find his niece captured by Comanches who massacred his family. He won't surrender to hunger thirst the elements or loneliness. And in his obsessive quest Ethan finds something unexpected: his own humanity. One of the most influential movies ever made.

• True Grit/The Sons Of Katie Elder/The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £3.97  |  Saving you £8.52 (65.60%)  |  RRP £12.99

  True Grit: In 1970 John Wayne earned an Academy Award for his larger-than-life performance as the drunken uncouth and totally fearless one-eyed U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn. The cantankerous Rooster is hired by a headstrong young girl (Kim Darby) to find the man who murdered her father and fled with the family savings. When Cogburn's employer insists on accompanying the old gunfighter sparks fly. And the situation goes from troubled to disastrous when the inexperienced but enthusiastic Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell) joins the party. Laughter and tears punctuate the wild action in this extraordinary Western which features performances by Robert Duvall and Strother Martin. The Sons Of Katie Elder: Katie Elder bore four sons. The day she is buried they all return home to Clearwater Texas to pay their last respects. John Wayne is the eldest and toughest son the gunslinger. Tom (Dean Martin) is good with a deck of cards and good with a gun when he has to be. Matt (Earl Holliman) is the quiet one - nobody ever called him yellow... twice. Bud (Michael Anderson Jr.) is the youngest. Any hope for respectability lies with him. Directed by Henry Hathaway (True Grit) an acknowledged master of the western the story has a dual theme; not only is this a he-mans story but it is also a drama of the maternal influence of Katie Elder movingly portrayed from beginning to conclusion. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: Ranking with Stagecoach as one of the greatest of its genre 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' is the modern-day Western to beat all Westerns. John Ford whose very name is synonymous with Westerns directed the ideal cast. Jimmy Stewart plays the bungling but charming big-city lawyer determined to rid the fair village of Shinbone of its number one nuisance and Bad Man: Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). And as if all that weren't enough the biggest star that ever aimed a six-shooter plays the Man of the title: John Wayne. Super-sincere Stewart and rugged rancher Wayne also share the same love interest (Vera Miles). One gets the gunman but the other gets the gal...

• The Good, The Bad and The Ugly -- 2-disc Special Edition | DVD | (26/04/2004) from £3.29  |  Saving you £16.00 (80.00%)  |  RRP £19.99

  This two-disc Special Edition presents the restored, extended English-language version of Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, now clocking in at almost three hours (actually 171 minutes on this Region 2 DVD as a result of the faster frames-per-second ratio of the PAL format). It includes some 14 minutes of previously cut scenes, with both Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach returning to the editing suite in 2003 to add their voices to scenes that had never before been dubbed into English (Wallach's voice is noticeably that of a much older man in these additional sequences). The extra material contains nothing of vital importance, but it's good to have the movie returned to pretty much the way Leone originally wanted it. The anamorphic widescreen picture is now also accompanied by a handsome Dolby 5.1 soundtrack, making this the most complete and satisfactory version so far released. Film historian Richard Schickel provides an authoritative and engaging commentary on Disc 1. On the second disc there are featurettes on Leone's West (20 mins), The Leone Style (24 mins), Reconstructing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (11 mins) and a documentary about the historical background of the Sibley campaign, The Man Who Lost the Civil War (15 mins). In addition, there's a two-part appreciation of composer Ennio Morricone, Il Maestro, by film-music expert John Burlinghame. Tuco's extended torture scene can be found here, along with a reconstruction of the fragmentary "Socorro Sequence". In short, exemplary bonus features that will satisfy every Leone aficionado. --Mark Walker

• Deadwood Season 3 | DVD | (06/08/2007) from £9.02  |  Saving you £40.97 (82.00%)  |  RRP £49.99

  Fortune comes with a price. 1876 the Black Hills of South Dakota. In an age of plunder and greed the richest gold strike in American History draws out a throng of restless misfits to an outlaw settlement where everything-and everyone-has a price. Welcome to Deadwood...a hell of a place to make your fortune.

• The Big Country | DVD | (11/06/2001) from £1.97  |  Saving you £9.14 (70.40%)  |  RRP £12.99

  William Wyler directed this epic Western, about the clash of East and West, intellect and action. Gregory Peck stars as a sea captain who moves way out West to marry Carroll Baker and become part of the ranch owned by her father (Charles Bickford). But he discovers that daddy's top hand (Charlton Heston) carries a torch for Baker and doesn't particularly like Peck stepping into his place. Peck also finds himself caught in the midst of a power struggle between Bickford and his surly neighbour, Burl Ives (and his reprehensibly bullying son, Chuck Connors). The Big Country is a long, sprawling tale that works because its characters are played by movie stars who know how to command the big screen in a big story. --Marshall Fine

• The Outlaw Josey Wales | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £4.47  |  Saving you £9.52 (68.00%)  |  RRP £13.99

  The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Clint Eastwood's 31st film as an actor, 20th as international star and fifth as director, was the first to win him widespread respect. Critics had grumbled when the producer-star replaced Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) in the director's chair a week into shooting. They ended up cheering when Eastwood delivered both his most sympathetic performance to date and--with the heroic collaboration of cinematographer Bruce Surtees--an impressive Panavision epic that stresses the scruffiness, rather than the scenic splendours, of frontier life. During the Civil War, Union "Redlegs" attack Southerner Josey Wales's dirt farm and wipe out his family. Seeking vengeance, Wales throws in with a company of Reb guerrillas. Tagged as a renegade after the surrender, he flees west into the vastness of the Indian Territories, where, quite unintentionally, he finds himself cast as the straight-shooting paterfamilias of an ever-growing, spectacularly motley community of misfits and castaways. This is to say, Josey's personal quest for survival and something like peace of mind evolves into a funky, multicultural allegory of the healing of America. Josey Wales is good, not great, Eastwood. The big-gun fetishism can get tiresome, and too many characters exist only to serve as six-gun (and at one point Gatling gun) fodder. But mostly the film is agreeably eccentric, and almost furtively sweet in spirit--a key transitional title in the Eastwood filmography, and one of his most entertaining. --Richard T Jameson

• Jeremiah Johnson | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £2.99  |  Saving you £11.00 (78.60%)  |  RRP £13.99

  After they first worked together on the 1966 film This Property Is Condemned, director Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford continued their long-lasting collaboration with this 1972 drama set during the mid-1800s, about one man's rugged effort to shed the burden of civilisation and learn to survive in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. Will Geer is perfectly cast as the seasoned trapper who teaches Jeremiah Johnson (Redford) how to survive against harsh winters, close encounters with grizzly bears, and hostile Crow Indians. In the course of his adventure, Johnson marries the daughter of a Flathead Indian chief, forms a makeshift family, and ultimately assumes a mythic place in Rocky Mountain folklore. Shot entirely on location in Utah, Jeremiah Johnson boasts an abundance of breathtaking widescreen scenery, and the story (despite a PG rating) doesn't flinch from the brutality of the wilderness. --Jeff Shannon

• Deadwood - Season 2 | DVD | (06/03/2006) from £8.99  |  Saving you £38.16 (76.30%)  |  RRP £49.99

  Fortune comes with a price. 1876 the Black Hills of South Dakota. In an age of plunder and greed the richest gold strike in American History draws out a throng of restless misfits to an outlaw settlement where everything-and everyone-has a price. Welcome to Deadwood...a hell of a place to make your fortune. Episodes Comprise: 1. A Lie Agreed Upon (Part1) 2. A Lie Agreed Upon (Part2) 3. New Money 4. Requiem For A Gleet 5. Complications 6. Something Very Expensive 7.

• Unforgiven | Blu Ray | (16/07/2007) from £6.83  |  Saving you £18.16 (72.70%)  |  RRP £24.99

  Set in Wyoming in 1881 during the sunset years of the Wild West, 1992's Unforgiven was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood, and is generally considered to be the towering achievement of his twilight years. Eastwood plays William Munny, once a vicious, whisky-swilling bounty hunter, brought to heel by his marriage to a good woman. When she dies, he must raise two children and run a hog farm alone, something which we see him make a comically poor fist of doing. Then, in a twist of fate, a young outlaw called the Schofield Kid trots up to his farm and invites him to collect on a $1,000 reward raised by a group of prostitutes. However, Clint must not only face up to his own somewhat rusty skills as a gunslinger, but also to genial-but-psychopathic lawman Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman in superb form). Unforgiven ultimately conforms to the expectations of the genre, while subverting quite a few of them on the way. There's brooding on the consequences of violence ("It's a hell of a thing to kill a man"), as Munny's ineptitude with a rifle is matched by his feelings of penitence for his younger wrongdoings. Finally, however, Eastwood casts aside age and inhibition in a chillingly ruthless shootout, his powers miraculously (improbably?) restored, in what could also be seen as an assertion on the part of the ageing Eastwood of his own potency as a major player in Hollywood. --David Stubbs

• Nevada Smith | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £3.00  |  Saving you £12.00 (75.00%)  |  RRP £15.99

  This classic Western adapted from the novel by Harold Robbins and starring STEVE MCQUEEN in the title role is an edgy and gripping story of revenge that interweaves a number of different stories together in one mans quest to track down the killers of his parents. NEVADA SMITH sees a return to form for McQueen in a genre that he excelled in and with a supporting cast including Karl Malden Martin Landau and Arthur Kennedy the film sparkles with great performances and breathtaking s

• Dances With Wolves | Blu Ray | (26/10/2009) from £6.95  |  Saving you £11.04 (61.40%)  |  RRP £17.99

  Rewarded for his heroism in the Civil War Lt. John Dunbar (Costner) wants to see the American Frontier before it is gone. He is assigned to an abandoned fort where a Sioux tribe is his only neighbour. Overcoming the language barrier and their mutual fear and distrust Dunbar and the proud Indians gradually become friends. Eventually he falls in love with the beautiful Stands With A Fist (McDonnell) a white woman raised by the tribe. He learns the culture of the Sioux lives with them and even experiences the breathtaking excitement of a buffalo hunt but his knowledge of the fate that will ultimately befall the tribe torments him. Finally he is faced with a crucial decision that will cause him to examine his heart and soul before making a heroic choice that determines his destiny.

• Little Big Man | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £3.93  |  Saving you £12.06 (75.40%)  |  RRP £15.99

  In Arthur Penn's adaptation of Thomas Berger's novel Little Big Man, Dustin Hoffman stars as Jack Crabb, the only white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Giving a bravura performance, Hoffman plays Jack from teen years into old age in this picaresque fable of the Old West. Jack's story is a fantastic one: captured by Indians as a boy, reared as an Indian, shuttling back and forth between the white and Indian worlds. In the process, he befriends everyone from Wild Bill Hickock to George Armstrong Custer and is a gunslinger, a snake-oil salesman and an Army scout. This is a solid blend of comedy and tragedy, making a strong statement about America's treatment of Native Americans without sermonising. A terrific cast includes Faye Dunaway, Martin Balsam and Richard Mulligan, but this show is all Hoffman's. --Marshall Fine