Eureka released a lavish edition of Rio Grande, the 1950 cavalry western that saw Ford working alongside John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in a sort of precursor of The Quiet Man. It’s a film of surprising feeling, without ever being sentimental or irksome, and looks fantastic.
On a similar tonal note is The Long Gray Line, a biographical picture from Ford, telling a heightened version of the story of Marty Maher, a decorated member of faculty at the famous West Point military academy. Ford takes a “print the legend” approach to storytelling, and the film is all the better for it. I approached the picture with a degree of caution going in to the film, which forms part of the Indicator Series’ new John Ford At Columbia collection, due to its subject matter and reputation, but my fears couldn’t have been more greatly misplaced. It’s a wonderful movie.
From the same collection I also took in The Whole Town’s Talking. Reputed for its status as Ford’s “screwball” picture, I was quite surprised to find that it was quite a dark movie, with an unexpected sense of escalation. It plays really nicely with star Edward G. Robinson’s standing as one of Hollywood’s great anti-heroes.
The Glass Family 