Here’s a look at a pair of ultra-high definition disc releases about men willing to fight alone against evil.
High Noon (Kino Lorber Home Entertainment, not rated, 85 minutes, 1.37:1 aspect ratio, $39.95) Gary Cooper’s Academy Award-winning performance as a retiring lawman forced into one last fight returns to home theaters, restored and in ultra-high definition to appreciate director Fred Zinnemann’s iconic morality Western from 1952.
Offering a narrative in real time, the black-and-white film chronicles roughly 90 minutes in New Mexico’s small town of Hadleyville right as Marshal Will Kane (Cooper) marries his beloved Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly).
After the nuptials take place, a quartet of vicious outlaws arrives led by Kane’s former nemesis Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), and our aging hero has a choice: Get out of town with his new bride before things get ugly, or stay for one last gunfight alone with citizens too afraid to stand with him.
Keep an eye out for other screen icons such as Lon Chaney Jr. (“The Wolf Man”) as the former marshal, Lloyd Bridges as an unhelpful deputy, Harry Morgan (“M*A*S*H”) as Kane’s panicked friend and a silent Lee Van Cleef (“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”) in his film debut as one of the bad guys.
As expected, the 4K facelift created from the 35mm original camera negative delivers a clean and crisp presentation throughout highlighted by the period cowboy costuming, stark southwest panoramas and too-detailed sweaty upper lips and grizzled facial hair of our tough guys.
Best extras: Kino Lorber unloads with the extras led by a pair of new optional commentary tracks.
The solo efforts feature film historians Alan K. Rode (focused on wide-ranging production topics) and Julie Kirgo (focused on more story and scene-specific notes and blacklist scandal). Both historians overload with anecdotes, nostalgia about the cast and crew, the blacklist and on-set details.
Next, four main featurettes (roughly an hour) cover the history, legacy and production of the movie mainly culled from Olive Films’ 2016 high-definition release.
Specifically, they include exploring the narrative structure of the movie as deconstructed by editor Mark Goldblatt, a short biography of producer Stanley Kramer (focused on “High Noon”), a look at the Hollywood blacklist in context to the creation of “High Noon” and its original screenwriter Carl Foreman (with words from a blacklisted writer Walter Bernstein), and a visual essay on the overall production narrated by Anton Yelchin that includes censors notes and a shooting schedule.
Finally, for a well-constructed overview, look at the 22-minute retrospective (from the 2000 DVD release) hosted by Leonard Maltin with vintage interviews with Kramer, Zinnemann, David Crosby (son of the editor), Bridges, John Ritter (son of the Oscar-winning title tune singer Tex Ritter) and even rare moments with Cooper.
Overall, Kino Lorber delivers quite an exhaustive and well-rounded package for film connoisseurs smitten by a legendary Western.
The Beekeeper (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, rated R, 105 minutes, 2.35:1 aspect ratio, $24.98) Action movie staple Jason Statham teamed up with director David Ayer (“Fury” and “Suicide Squad”) to deliver another extreme dose of antics to theaters at the start of the year.
Now in the 4K disc format, the film introduces the quiet life of Adam Clay (Mr. Statham), a retired agent from a covert and classified program nicknamed the Beekeepers who now is renting a barn from a kindly elderly woman while he tends to his real bees.
When phishers scame his landlord Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) out of $2 million, she kills herself and Adam gets accused of murder by her daughter, an FBI agent.
Quickly cleared by the agent, the now fuming Adam spends the next 90 minutes systematically hunting down the scumbags who pulled off the deception while mobsters, assassins and even those at the highest levels of the government try to stop him.
We may get the expected heavy dose of formula tied to the action thriller genre (with corny dialogue such as “he’s the last pair of eyes you will ever see,” and “there are laws and then you have me”). Sure, but it’s hard not to appreciate the simplicity of his simmering and violent performance as Adam shoots, gouges, stabs, staples, kicks, punches, blows up and burns his way through human bodies.
And, the UHD presentation is certainly a pleasure to watch, especially highlighted by Adam’s beekeeping exploits early on and the bevy of violent interactions and explosions set off by our hero.
Best extras: Home entertainment connoisseurs will be disappointed with the single-disc, packaged release that features absolutely no bonus content.
Save roughly $20 by enjoying the entertaining “The Beekeeper” on a digital streaming service ($3.99 as a rental) and do not bother purchasing this underwhelming 4K disc effort.
• Joseph Szadkowski can be reached at jszadkowski@washingtontimes.com.
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