Building a DVD Library—the MGM way: Oscar winners, drama, comedy, westerns, and a handful of British films combine to delight movie buffs - Entertainment - Bibliography

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), July, 2003 by Robert S. Rothenberg

Dual at Diablo (104 minutes, $14.95) does a marvelous job of casting against type, yet making everything work. James Garner, normally affable and action-shunning, a trait engendered in his initial success as the original "Maverick," here is a grim Army scout, seeking revenge for the murder of his Native American wife; Sidney Poitier portrays a bronco-busting ex-cavalryman; Scottish Bill Travers is an Army officer; Swedish Bibi Andersson is a frontier wife kidnapped by Indians, later rescued by Gamer, and concealing the fact that she bore a child to the tribal chief's son; and Dennis Weaver, another actor normally associated with affability, is her racist shopkeeper husband, bitterly unable to live with the "shame" she has brought down upon him. Nevertheless, this odd stew of mismatched styles and accents succeeds in making the 1966 movie thrilling, yet thoughtful, and the pulsing score by Neal Hefti drives the action inexorably forward to the cavalry's determined last stand against its fierce opponents. There are no special features.

Zulu (138 minutes, $14.95) is another classic cowboys and Indians movie. In this case, though, the cowboys are a small group of Welsh soldiers defending a backwoods garrison in Natal, while the Indians are 4,000 Zulu warriors out to massacre them. Stanley Baker, who produced the 1964 film, plays a British engineering officer with the unenviable task of holding that tiny outpost against arguably the finest light infantry force extant, and the callow upper-class lieutenant who is second in command is none other than Michael Caine, making his screen debut. The battle scenes are extraordinary, and the bravery of the defending troops clearly demonstrates why, in the real-life 1879 event, 11 individuals won the Victoria Cross, England's highest military honor, the largest number ever awarded for a single engagement. For sheer excitement, it matches any American western equivalent. There are no special features.

So there you have 28 films to fit virtually any taste. Add these to the 24 saluted in the previously cited articles, and there are enough to keep movie buffs in bleary eyed viewing ecstasy.

Robert S. Rothenberg is Senior Editor of USA Today.