Broken Lance [HD]

Broken Lance
When it's good, BROKEN LANCE (1954) is a sprawling story about the rise and fall of cattle baron Matt Devereaux (Spencer Tracy), color by DeLuxe, in Stereophonic Sound, and, most important of all, it's filmed in CinemaScope. Borrowing feuding and greedy children from King Lear and a Native American wife, and half a title, from the influential James Stewart vehicle, Broken Arrow, it's an entertaining near-classic.

Matt Devereaux is one of those larger-than-life pioneers whose success makes him an anachronism. Parcels of his land, once simply a buffet board for his 50,000-head herd of cattle, is now being leased out to oil and mining concerns. There was a time when men like Devereaux would string up cattle rustlers on the spot and the local marshal, assuming he was within a hundred miles and sober, was probably glad to be rid of the bother. Back then whatever Devereaux pushed against yielded. But the successful pioneer plants the seed of his own extinction. The copper...

One of my favorite old movies finally in DVD format!
This has been one of my favorite movies for over twenty five years. Scene after scene, there's something to watch for. What I've always loved about this movie is the great, wrenching dialogue. And watching a young Robert Wagner isn't too difficult either.

But now, on DVD, I feel as though I am seeing the movie for the first time (or at least the second time!) The quality of this DVD is impressive. I also own a DVD version from a few years back that came from China, with Chinese subtitles. Comparing the two on my 55" tv is like comparing a digital picture taken with a 2 megapixel camera to a digital picture taken with a 12 megapixel camera. The quality of this Twentieth Century Fox DVD is outstanding for such an old movie. The picture is very clear, the color saturation is deep and rich, the sound is great. I've noticed nuances about the picture, and the background scenery, that I never noticed before.

This edition also features both a widescreen and a...

A first-rate adult Western...
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...

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