One of the better Westerns of Jimmy...
Another classic Western offering starring Jimmy Stewart.

There is not much to be said about this DVD transfer, just that as MGM/UA, even Universal Studios don't do too much with their classics, except transferring their Films in digital format.

One must also add, that so far, since the copies transferred, where almost pristine looking, save some minor scratches and dust speckles, their DVDs, and those of MGM/UA, still look at least decent if not good on a 16:9 Television.

Yet one wonders why they never bother to restore them digitally to a cleaner copy and perhaps adding some depth to their soundtracks.

But it is a James Stewart Western, and like those of the Duke, they cannot be missed and on DVD they really look at their best.

They are just Classics and as such, they should be part of any serious movie collector's movie vault.

Entertainment guaranteed.

clairty
Clairty not as good as my old VHS tape for sure..a bit on the dark side.
However, I will make do! BB

Average James Stewart/Anthony Mann western

This is a decent western but it doesn't pack any surprises.

There is lots of nice location scenery spoilt by all-too-obvious studio work - but I guess this was the 50's.

The best Mann/Stewart western by far is The Man from Laramie.

Best of enemies
Bend of the River is in many ways Anthony Mann's `nicest' Western, but underneath the gorgeous Technicolor location work there's a darker side to Stewart's border raider desperate to reform and his relationship with friendly enemy Arthur Kennedy that threatens fireworks to come - and when they do, in the last 20 minutes, there's no problem in believing the depth of Stewart's rage or the relentlessness of his pursuit. Shot on many of the same locations as the even darker The Far Country, it's still terrific entertainment. Stepinfetchit's role is a little uncomfortable, but compared to the humiliation inflicted upon him in other pictures he's allowed a bit more dignity here than usual, closer to Hank Worden's Old Mose Harper in The Searchers than the racial stereotypes other directors expected.

As with Universal's DVD of Winchester '73, the print quality isn't always quite as good as it could be, but it's mostly an acceptable transfer.

A good standard Western with pace and period feeling...
"Bend of the River" welcomes the fine blend of a passionate action with intense characterization that had become Mann's masterful specialty...

Stewart (in his second feature with Mann) is seen as a reluctant hero, stumbled, brutalized and confused, chasing a personal mission with severe determination, and giving life to the complex moral and psychological forces that drive Mann's heroes...

Vivid as a laconic quiet man driven by betrayal to violent rage, Stewart is a former raider on the Missouri-Kansas border, who guides a wagon train of settlers to Oregon... There he gets double-crossed by associates who try to turn aside necessary food and supplies to gold-rush activities...

Ingenious and malicious, Arthur Kennedy (very much in his element), is Stewart's former companion-in-crime whom Stewart saves from hanging, and helps him fight the Indians on the way to Oregon...

Adroit, insincere, and dishonest, Kennedy turns on Stewart stealing the settler's supplies for a handsome profit but is later dispatched by an irritated and enraged Stewart...

Kennedy has been preferred in Westerns as the more insidious kind of villain: friendly, smiling, charming and smooth-talking on the surface, weak and corrupt underneath... His specialty is the courteous type who befriends the hero and then turns out to be planning something illegal to his own advantage on the side...

Julie Adams is along the ride as a love interest getting short penitence in all the macho interplay...

Rock Hudson is cast as a soft gambling man from San Francisco, adept at cards as well as women, defender of a fair deal, ready to fight beside his friends...

Filmed against a breathtaking Technicolor panorama, with nice music that highlights the action, "Bend of the River" is a good standard Western with pace and period feeling, rolling along to its predictable happy ending, discarding any unwanted characters...