The Bravados [HD]

Grim, compelling Western with excellent perfomances
THE BRAVADOS is a moody, brutal piece of work that in many ways predates the cynical moods of later Westerns of the 60s and 70s. Gregory Peck stars a man bent on revenge against the four men who raped and murdered his wife. The outlaws (Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi, Henry Silva and Lee Van Cleef) are in jail in Rio Arriba waiting to be hung, and Peck is there to witness the deed. The prisoners escape, however, and Peck becomes an obssessed member of the posse sent to hunt them down. This is another fruitful collaboration between Peck and director Henry King, who also made THE GUNFIGHTER and TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH together. This is NOT the Gregory Peck we know and love! He is moody, sullen, full of anger and relentless in his pursuit of the villains. The brutality of the film may come as a shock to viewers even now, but its harshness makes it a precursor to the Sergio Leone/CLint Eastwood films nearly a decade later. (The fact that Lee Van Cleef has a major supporting role makes...

Great film if intact
An excellent film with an unusual and dramatic canyon background, which requires widescreen. Yet again, we have a great film listed without any data on aspect ratio. I don't know whether Amazon is becoming negligent or the studios are remaining devious, but there seems to be a recent epidemic of this and I would defer purchase until the disc details are made public.

A big story with a big impact
There's going to be a hanging in Rio Arriba, and Jim Douglass (Gregory Peck) has ridden a hundred miles to see it. You see, the four men - Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi, Henry Silva and Lee van Cleef - about to be hanged committed a great crime that changed Douglass's life forever, and he's there to see justice carried out. When the condemned men escape, Douglass makes it his personal mission to deliver justice to the bad guys.
I love revenge movies, and the premise of Henry King's THE BRAVADOS holds great promise. One avenging angel - Gregory Peck - versus four scurvy killers. The best revenge movies go to the chase as soon as possible, and reveal character and motivation through the chase. Unfortunately THE BRAVADOS takes forever to kick into gear. The movie spends a good half hour in Rio Arriba, an eternity in movie time, introducing characters and establishing motives. Some of the characters don't really belong in the movie, either. It's in Rio Arriba that we meet...

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