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Product Description:
Disc 1: THE REAL GLORYLegendary screen icons Gary Cooper (High Noon) and Burt Lancaster (Elmer Gantry) teamup for a magnificent action-packed western from director Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen) and screenwriters Roland Kibbee and James R. Webb. With sweeping vistas and larger-than-life heroicsit's a tale as bold and rugged as the characters it so brilliantly depicts. Cooper and Lancaster portray Benjamin Trane and Joe Erin two daredevil mercenaries who journey to Mexico in search of adventureand cold hard cashduring the 1866 revolution. But they get more than they bargained for when the wealthy and beautiful Countess Duvarre (Denise Darcel) hires them to escort her (and a fortune in gold!) to Emperor Maximilian's fighting forces in Vera Cruz. The trail is fraught with danger betrayal and murder...and when Ben is swept up in the revolutionaries' fervor he and Joe find themselves at odds with the Mexican Armyand each other!Disc 2: VERA CRUZDisc 3: THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTHDisc 4: COWBOY AND THE LADYRuntime: 375 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 027616076533 Manufacturer No: M107655

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It actually underscores the power and distinctiveness of Gary Cooper's movie stardom that this isn't so much a true collection as gleanings from the odds-and-ends table. That's not a knock; three of the four films are solid entertainments and would be well worth recommending on their own. But the only thing unifying them is the beauty and enigma Cooper brought to them, and the professionalism with which he addressed these wide-ranging assignments.

Three of them date from the '20s and '30s and were produced by Samuel Goldwyn. The 1926 silent The Winning of Barbara Worth gave Western stunt man and bit player Cooper his first featured role (by accident--the actor originally cast didn't report for work!). A cowboy whose visionary surveyor father aims to "redeem the desert and make it one fine garden," Cooper's character is the third corner of a romantic triangle, ordained by the Hollywood caste system to lose lifelong sweetheart Vilma Banky to engineer Ronald Colman. Colman has lots more screen time than Cooper and bears the moral-ethical brunt of the eco-conscious drama; he's also surprisingly persuasive wearing a sweat-stained Stetson and trading gunshots with the bad guys (if this were a sound film, Colman could never have gotten away with it). But the camera and the audience are locked onto Cooper whenever he's on screen. In longshot or vulnerable closeup, he's already one of the gods of the cinema. As for the movie, the quality of the print is excellent, its clarity intensified by bronze, yellow, and moonlit-blue tinting that often seems on the verge of resolving into full color. Director Henry King shows a good eye for action and bold vistas, and a visual adventurousness mostly absent from his later work.

Next up chronologically is The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), and the best thing about this misbegotten movie is Garson Kanin's description, in one of his Hollywood memoirs, of how Leo McCarey sold the idea for it to Sam Goldwyn. McCarey was, of course, a comedic master (recently Oscared for directing The Awful Truth), and his exuberant pitch convinced Goldwyn and his staffers that audiences would "piss" themselves laughing at this romantic comedy about a daughter of privilege (Merle Oberon) who falls for a rodeo rider (Cooper) and learns homespun values. Goldwyn paid McCarey off, assigned some writers to the script, then realized there was no real story--"no there there," as Gertrude Stein might have put it. The resultant unfunny and unromantic endeavor oozes bad faith from every pore, with neck-snapping life changes foisted on the hapless Cooper and Oberon from reel to reel, and excruciating scenes (jitterbugging in a drawing room, playing house back on Cooper's ranch) that strain charmlessly for McCarey's patented brand of fey. H.C. Potter directed, understandably without conviction.

We and Cooper are back on track with The Real Glory (1939). The reliable Henry Hathaway helmed this second cousin to his and Cooper's The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, with Cooper as an Army doctor assigned to the Philippine Constabulary on Mindanao in 1906. The movie was well-received when it came out; encountered in the shadow of the Iraq War, its tale of U.S. occupiers trying to help the local populace "stand up" against a fanatical and murderous insurgency takes on new fascination. There are some amazing passages--two horrendous murders by bolo knife--and the final battle sequence puts the CGI-riddled action films of the present day to shame. But the most impressive element is Cooper, and we can't improve on the verdict of that astute film critic Graham Greene: "Mr. Cooper ... has never acted better.... Watch him inoculate [Andrea King] against cholera--the casual jab of the needle, and the dressing slapped on while he talks, as though a thousand arms had taught him where to stab and he doesn't have to think any more."

For the final film in the set we jump into the '50s--the century's and Cooper's. Vera Cruz (1954) casts him as a former Confederate officer who's ridden into Emperor Maximilian's Mexico, hoping to make a fortune in the new civil war south of the border so that he can rebuild his own devastated homeland. Costar Burt Lancaster (whose company Hecht-Lancaster was producing) plays another mercenary, a real sociopath, and it's fascinating to watch these two stellar icons of very different Hollywood eras make common cause--Lancaster at the height of his grinning-predator mode, Cooper an aging knight whose aim is still true. Director Robert Aldrich keeps finding dynamic uses for the SuperScope format and flavorfully fills it with sublime uglies like Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Charles Horvath, Jack Lambert, and Charles Buchinsky-about-to-become-Bronson. Pieces of this movie found their way into the dreams of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone. --Richard T. Jameson

Rating : - Super Cooper?
If you think of Gary Cooper, the movies that probably come immediately to mind are films like High Noon, Pride of the Yankees, Meet John Doe or Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. The MGM Movie Legends Collection for Cooper offers none of these movies, but instead some lesser known Cooper flicks that are still quite watchable.

Chronologically, the first in the foursome is The Winning of Barbara Worth, a late silent film which actually has Cooper in a supporting role, albeit a major one. The title character is an orphan taken in by a man who envisions bringing the water of the Colorado River to the desert. As an adult, Barbara will be wooed by two men: Cooper, the friend she grew up with, and Ronald Colman, who will help develop the critical dam. When the main financier behind the dam refuses to pay for reinforcing it, disaster ensues.

The Cowboy and the Lady has Cooper as a blind date for poor-little-rich-girl Merle Oberon. They fall hard for each other, but she has concealed the fact that she is wealthy since he hates the rich. Eventually, he will find out, and (comic) disaster ensues. In The Real Glory, Cooper is a doctor assigned to a military squad in the post-Spanish American War Philippines. The American troops are there to train the locals so they can protect themselves from raids by the local bandit tribe. As people start being picked off by assassins and cholera, it's up to Cooper to lead a mission to save the day.

In Vera Cruz, Cooper is an ex-Confederate mercenary who goes to Mexico to fight its Civil War for whichever side pays the most. He eventually joins Burt Lancaster and his gang (which includes Charles Buchinsky, later known as Charles Bronson as well as Ernest Borgnine and Jack Elam). Cooper and Lancaster will lead an escort that is taking a countess from Mexico City to Vera Cruz; hidden in her carriage is $3 million in gold, and soon everyone is playing games against each other to get the money.

With one movie made in the 1920s, two in the 1930s and one in the 1950s, this set shows the evolution (and aging) of Cooper the actor and demonstrates why he is one of the biggest names in Hollywood for decades. There are no extras to speak of in the set, and the movies themselves range from near-great (Barbara Worth and Vera Cruz) to good (The Cowboy and the Lady) to just okay (The Real Glory). Overall, I rate this one four stars; it's a good chance to see some lesser known Cooper movies.