Cahill United States Marshal (1973)

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General		Extras
Category	Western	Main Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Andrew V. McLaglen ( Director) Featurette-The Man Behind The Star Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1973
Running Time	98:01
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Andrew V. McLaglen
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	John Wayne George Kennedy Gary Grimes Neville Brand Clay O'Brien Marie Windsor Morgan Paull Dan Vadis Royal Dano Scott Walker Denver Pyle Jackie Coogan Rayford Barnes
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Elmer Bernstein

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian German Spanish Arabic Romanian Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, Cigars everywhere, plus "makins".
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    When you look at films nowadays, it is noticeable that most of them are dominated by younger actors, as the market today is mostly in that age group. Even in past years not many Hollywood actors managed to maintain their career as the star attraction of major films into their sixties. Some of those who have include Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Paul Newman and of course John Wayne. One of the major stars of the last century, Wayne was a stalwart figure in many an action film, and he was best suited to the Western, where his craggy features and dominant personality generally saw him playing a lawman; as in this film where he is Cahill: United States Marshal. As an aside, I've never been too happy with the name of the film, but as the director says in his commentary, its working title was Wednesday Morning (you'll know why if you watch the film), and that's no better.

    I was quite a fan of John Wayne in my teens, and saw many of his later films in an old flea pit in the West End of Brisbane - no doubt it has long since been demolished or turned into a warehouse. A lot of these films were mediocre, but I liked their star, a few were average (this is one of those), and one or two were excellent (including True Grit and The Shootist, Wayne's final film). This was the last Western Wayne starred in up until his last film, and it is nicely directed by Andrew V. McLaglen who had directed Wayne in five earlier pictures. It is an easygoing sort of film, with less action than some of its genre, but a few issues are dealt with which still stand the test of time.

    The plot opens in a camp of seedy looking cowboys - you just know they are bad guys. Cahill rides into the camp, puts on his Marshal's badge, and looks around at the five heavily armed outlaws. He asks the incredulous group "Any of you wanna surrender?". Naturally they don't and the guns start blazing as the opening credits start to roll. The action picks up again as Cahill escorts three wounded and two dead bandits back to town. While he has been away, his two sons Daniel (aged 17) and Billy-Joe (aged 11) have taken up with some bad sorts. Daniel is in jail on a drunk and disorderly charge, and the two have plans to help Fraser (played with real menace by George Kennedy) and his gang rob the local bank.

    The rest of the story relates events after the robbery. The boys only wanted to attract the attention of their widower father, who spends too much time away from home, but they find themselves dragged into a double murder as well as the robbery - how will they get out of this mess? While Cahill struggles to cope with events, he comes to realise that he is also to blame. As he says - "There's no excuse for negligence". At times it comes close to being a little preachy, but on the whole it manages to fit the modern theme into the Western setting quite nicely.

    One of the nice things about the film is that the production values are pretty high. There is a strong supporting cast of faces you will recognize from many other Westerns (including Harry Carey Jr. who was with Wayne in The Searchers). Other excellent performances come from Neville Brand as the Indian tracker Lightfoot and Marie Windsor who does well with a poor part as the token romantic interest. A very young Clay O'Brien is also a standout as Billy-Joe. As the director notes in the commentary track, this is a "genre chock-full of great characters" and he makes good use of that fact in this film. The cinematography is also excellent and makes good use of the location shooting in Durango, New Mexico. Even McLaglen, who seems to have a poor reputation as a director, does well, with some nice flourishes. Though it is by no means a classic, if you like the star or the genre this one is well worth a look.

Video

    In general, this is an excellent transfer for a film over thirty years old. It comes up looking like a much newer film (take a look around 30:20 to get an idea of what I mean).

    The aspect ratio is 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced which is the original theatrical release ratio. As I mentioned earlier, the cinematography is very good and makes excellent use of the wide scope.

    The picture is generally very sharp, but shadow detail is mixed, which may have been for artistic reasons. The director notes in his commentary how pleased he was with the way the light and shadows played across the character's faces. At times he carries this too far (at 10:08 you can hardly see anything), but I must admit there are some very effective scenes set around campfires. There is little low level noise but occasional grain.

    The colours in this print are excellent. Flesh tones are natural and fresh, making the picture look very new. While much of the film is set in stark and arid locations, that just serves to make the green of trees in a riverbed look even more vibrant (as at 34:00).

    Another strong point of the transfer is that there is minimal damage to be seen. There is a brief vertical white line at 20:54 and a hair mark at the top of the screen at 64:58, but I mention these just so you know that I looked at the picture closely, rather than as an example of any significant damage on the print. There are occasional minor film artefacts but this is an excellent print that puts many more modern DVDs to shame.

    There are 10 subtitle tracks. I watched portions of the English and the English for the Hearing Impaired tracks. The English subtitles seem very close to the meaning of the speech, if not the actual words spoken - there is an odd word missing but nothing to worry about. The Hearing Impaired track was also very good. If you have read any of my earlier reviews of Westerns you might have wondered what I meant when I used terms such as "typical western music". I couldn't help but laugh when the subtitle track mentioned "Instrumental western music" or "Sentimental western music". This track also mentioned each change of speaker, which is very good.

    There is no layer change on this single-layered DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Unfortunately (heck, I seem to need that word a lot in these reviews - why is that?), the audio transfer is not on the same level as the video transfer, being a rather undistinguished mono presentation.

    There are four audio tracks on the disc. Three of them are Dolby Digital 1.0 mono tracks encoded at 192 Kb/s (English, French and Italian). The commentary track is English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono encoded at the same bitrate. I listened to both English tracks (film and commentary) as well as portions of the Italian track. Listening to the latter track was rather a lost cause - why listen to someone dubbing the distinctive drawl of John Wayne? - it sort of defeats the purpose of watching the film in the first place.

    The dialogue and sound effects were clear at all times, and the audio sync was spot on. Some of the location shots appear to have had the dialogue added later, but this has been done well and seems very natural.

    The musical score by Elmer Bernstein is very good, capturing all the sweep of the New Mexico locations (which are meant to be Texas and Colorado, but that is the wonder of the movies for you). Bernstein is a real veteran of the cinema, and is in top form here, including a nice song performed by Charlie Rich, A Man Gets to Thinkin'. Even with the mono sound the music comes across well in the sound mix.

    Unfortunately (there's that word again) there is nothing in the way of surround presence in this audio transfer. The sound is firmly fixed at centre screen, and doesn't improve no matter what sound mode you select on your amplifier. There are some bass rumblings during explosions and gunfire, but apart from an occasional variation in the volume there is not much to keep your ears busy.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There is a small collection of fairly average extras on offer, but the fact that there are any at all for an older film which is not considered a "Classic" is something to be thankful for.

Menu

    The menu is static, 16x9 enhanced, with accompanying audio. From it you can Play the Movie, go to Scene Selections (a generous 28 to select from), choose to view the Special Features, or pick a Language. The Extras are presented below in the order they appear on their menu page.

Audio Commentary - Andrew V. McLaglen (Director)

    The commentary is a mixed bag. The director has some interesting information to pass along, but his comments are infrequent and there are long gaps while he looks at the film. His memory also seems to be playing up a bit, as he sometimes makes contradictory statements about his recollections. He thinks the film is holding up well (I agree) and states that he likes Westerns due to the "simplicity of it all". Some of his more interesting insights deal with his working relationship with Wayne, and life on the set. He also says that "I hope Westerns'll always be available to us on DVD" (I hope so too). On balance, not one of the better commentary tracks, but worth listening to if you like the film or its star.

Featurette - The Man Behind the Star

    This is a short (7:45) contemporary "'making of" feature presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 which has some behind-the-scenes footage but no interviews (I was hoping for an interview with John Wayne - no luck there). It is fairly poor, and there are some major plot spoilers, so you have been warned!

Theatrical Trailer

    This has an interesting opening and is in nice condition. It runs 2:38 and is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. Not too bad as far as trailers go.

    This DVD appears to be available in Region 1, but I have been unable to find a definitive list of contents. From what I have been able to find the Region 1 version looks much the same as the Region 4, which would be preferred due to the superior PAL picture. The European version has the same contents as the Region 4, and so the local version is to be preferred on the basis of ready availability.

    This is a reasonable Western presented with excellent picture and a fair selection of extras. It is a pity more has not been done with the sound, especially with the nice music on offer, but I suppose the status of the film did not warrant any extra expense. I was discussing the picture with a friend, and we were wondering if it had been restored (as the picture looks so good). We decided that no one would have spent the money to do it; I suppose there were some good prints lying around which would have not seen much wear at the cinema, as this was not exactly big box office material. If you like the star or the Western genre, take a look at this. If not, there are better Westerns for you to look at.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall