The Steve McQueen Collection (The Great Escape / Junior Bonner / The Magnificent Seven / The Thomas Crown Affair)

Amazon.com

A stirring example of courage and the indomitable human spirit, for many John Sturges's The Great Escape (1963) is both the definitive World War II drama and the nonpareil prison escape movie. Featuring an unequalled ensemble cast in a rivetingly authentic true-life scenario set to Elmer Bernstein's admirable music, this picture is both a template for subsequent action-adventure movies and one of the last glories of Golden Age Hollywood. Reunited with the director who made him a star in The Magnificent Seven, Steve McQueen gives a career-defining performance as the laconic Hilts, the baseball-loving, motorbike-riding "Cooler King." The rest of the all-male Anglo-American cast--Dickie Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, James Garner, Charles Bronson, David McCallum, James Coburn, and Gordon Jackson--make the most of their meaty roles (though you have to forgive Coburn his Australian accent). Closely based on Paul Brickhill's book, the various escape attempts, scrounging, forging, and ferreting activities are authentically realized thanks also to technical advisor Wally Flood, one of the original tunnel-digging POWs. Sturges orchestrates the climax with total conviction, giving us both high action and very poignant human drama. Without trivializing the grim reality, The Great Escape thrillingly celebrates the heroism of men who never gave up the fight.

Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven (1960) effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys. The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum....

Millionaire businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is also a high-stakes thief; his latest caper is an elaborate heist at a Boston bank. Why does he do it? For the same reason he flies gliders, bets on golf strokes, and races dune buggies: he needs the thrill to feel alive. Insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) gets her own thrills by busting crooks, and she's got Crown in her cross hairs. Naturally, these two will get it on, because they have a lot in common: they're not people, they're walking clothes racks. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) is a catalog of '60s conventions, from its clipped editing style to its photographic trickery (the inventive Haskell Wexler behind the camera) to its mod design. You can almost sense director Norman Jewison deciding to "tell his story visually," like those newfangled European films; this would explain the long passages of Michel Legrand's lounge jazz ladled over endless montages of the pretty Dunaway and McQueen at play. (The opening-credits song, "Windmills of Your Mind," won an Oscar.) It's like a "What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?" ad come to life, and much more interesting as a cultural snapshot than a piece of storytelling.

Junior Bonner (1972) is director Sam Peckinpah's lovely, elegiac look at the world of the rodeo--and his only film with nary a bullet wound. Steve McQueen, engagingly easygoing but determined, is the title character, a rodeo rider out to win a big bull-riding contest in his hometown. Even as he confronts his dwindling days on the circuit, he also must deal with his feuding parents, marvelously played by Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. Preston is particularly good as the randy old con artist; he and Lupino strike real sparks. Peckinpah's slow-motion camera is put to particularly good use filming the balletic violence of the rodeo, at once more terrifying and awe-inspiring than any gun battle. A lovely country-western valentine to a dying breed.

Customer Reviews:

Steve McQueen Collection.......2007-07-16

I've been a Steve McQeen fan since Wanted Dead or Alive first appeared on TV. I'm wrapped in this collection I have purched from Amazon

A nice sampling from McQueen's career.......2005-06-06

The one word that is always used to describe actor Steve McQueen is cool. He was the essence of cool. The movies he made were always considered the epitome of cool. He was a hard working, hard playing rebel who had the kind of dangerous charisma that women found attractive and men wanted to emulate. McQueen died in 1980 but left behind a considerable legacy. MGM has repackaged several of his movies in a box set that provides an interesting cross-section of his work, that ranges from the ensemble piece, The Magnificent Seven to the rich, characterization of Junior Bonner that would mark his later films.

McQueen died from lung cancer at the age of 50 but left and enduring legacy behind. He continues to be a much admired and respected actor. This box set is a fitting reminder of the kind of range McQueen was capable of as an actor.

On The Magnificent Seven DVD there is an audio commentary by James Coburn, Eli Wallach, producer Walter Mirisch and assistant director Robert Relyea. This is a solid commentary packed with rich anecdotes with no one person dominating.

"Guns for Hire: The Making of The Magnificent Seven," is a retrospective look at the making of this classic. Most of the main cast are interviewed either in new or vintage footage in this excellent documentary.

There are two trailers and a still gallery with behind the scenes photos, portraits and production and poster art. *NOTE* However, be forewarned, this is not the awesome 2-DVD Special Edition that came out awhile ago. Why MGM didn't include this version in the box set is beyond me. Disappointing.

The Great Escape DVD features a decent making of documentary entitled, "Return to the Great Escape." Interestingly, the screenplay was never finished and this upset McQueen so much (because his part had not been defined) that he walked out after six weeks demanding his part be rewritten. It took Coburn and Garner to coax him back.

Also included is a theatrical trailer.

The Thomas Crown Affair disc has an audio commentary by Norman Jewison. He admits that the film places an emphasis on style over content and saw it as an experiment in film style. This is a solid track from the veteran filmmaker.

There is also a trailer.

Finally, on the Junior Bonner DVD is an audio commentary by Peckinpah authors Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle with moderator Nick Redman. They point out the richness of the direction and how it is a very visual film with minimal use of dialogue, especially McQueen's character. Like with their Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia commentary track, these guys provide an excellent analysis of the movie.

Flawless.......2005-05-19

In The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven, Steve McQueen gives worthy performances but they are more or less ensemble films. In ESCAPE you might argue that McQueen is the actual star and the other characters, vivid as they are, serve only to support him, but in SEVEN he's not even the main star. People like myself with action fever in our blood think the world of these two films, early exposures to adrenaline pumping, and we remember them with the same intake of breath we remember the first time we jumped out of a plane or got into a fistfight.

In JUNIOR BONNER, the action is more subtle, though the rodeo background is colorful and McQueen, a little more weathered, is even better than before. His tangles with Ida Lupino are legendary and she was never better than in this film, a nice valedictory on Sam Peckinpah's part to one of Britain's (and Hollywood's) finest actresses, a woman who could spit out nails when she wanted to and a fitting progenitor for McQueen's icy stare (she plays his mother). It's a softer and more lyrical Peckinpah film, unlike the later THE GETAWAY (also with McQueen, although not in this boxed set).

Finally there's Norman Jewison's remake/remodel of Steve McQueen as a dashing, dapper Cary Grant type in the sophisticated caper thriller THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. To McQueen's credit, he was able to st-r-e-t-ch his screen image to accommodate the rapier verbal wit of the screenplay as well as do his customary "blue haze" screen stare. Faye Dunaway, as the curious heroine, is also very good and hardly mannered at all. When the film appeared, there was a lot of attention paid to their chess scene, which more or less frankly tried to imitate the baroque erotics of TOM JONES' famous "eating scene" with Albert Finney. Everything in the sequence is a complex double entendre, and often the actors are photographed in intense closeup, letting their eyes do all the talking for them. It works today, even though it has itself been imitated dozens of times since. On the entertaining commentary track Jewison acknowledges the prickly personae of his stars, and hints at how difficult they both could be, and he'll make you smile with some of his insider info.

This MGM set is released at a low (if not quite budget) price and has four great films in it. The competing McQueen set may have more discs, but it has more duds too. You pay your money, and you make your choice!

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:.......2005-03-22

Description for Steve McQueen Giftset - 4 Pack DVD
--This exciting compilation features four classic Steve McQueen adventures, described individually below:

THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) - John Sturges's dramatization of the true story of a group of British, American, and Canadian POWs who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III in Upper Silesia in March 1944 remains arguably the best World War II adventure film ever made. A host of excellent up-and-coming actors, including James Garner (MAVERICK and THE ROCKFORD FILES), Richard Attenborough (future director of GANDHI), James Coburn (IN LIKE FLINT), and Charles Bronson (DEATH WISH) mesh beautifully in this meticulous recreation of the legendary escape. The German high command rounded up all of the allies' most talented escape artists and placed them in a POW camp specifically designed to foil any unwanted departures, but many of them laboriously tunnel out anyway. Steve McQueen's thrilling motorcycle chase sequence instantly made him a major movie star.

MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) - John Sturges's remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic THE SEVEN SAMURAI has become an extremely influential film in its own right. A small farming Mexican village that makes involuntary donations of its harvest to a gang of bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach) decides to hire a group of professional gunmen, headed by gunslinger-for-hire Chris (Yul Brynner), to protect them. Despite the meager pay, Chris and Vin (Steve McQueen) sign on after the Mexicans see them face down some racist thugs. As they ride back to the village, Chris begins to pick up other gunmen, including Bernardo (Charles Bronson), Lee (Robert Vaughan), Britt (James Coburn, looking eerily like his alter ego in the Kurosawa epic), Harry (Brad Dexter), and aspiring gunslinger Chico (Horst Buchholz falling short in the role played to perfection by Toshiro Mifune in the Japanese original). This rousing action film launched the movie careers of McQueen, Coburn, and Bronson. Although McQueen's character had only a few lines of dialogue, Sturges told the young actor that he would "give him the camera," and certainly kept his word. The movie also benefits tremendously from the unforgettably polyrhythmic score by Elmer Bernstein, among the most famous in film history, so popular and effective that it was used to sell Marlboro cigarettes for years afterward (and was memorably "sampled" in a very early Yes album from the 70s).

JUNIOR BONNER (1972) - Steve McQueen plays Junior Bonner, an aging rodeo champ who returns to his hometown to participate in the annual rodeo. He finds his family estranged, does what he can to help, and then moves on...after some serious rodeo riding and a few brawls. Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, and Ben Johnson lend strong support to McQueen's laconic loner.

THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1968) - Rich and charming (but thrill-seeking) businessman Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) must be the last person anyone would suspect as a bank-robbing mastermind, but Vicki Anderson (Faye Dunaway of NETWORK and BONNIE AND CLYDE), the insurance investigator assigned to the case, gradually catches on. A memorably erotic chess match between McQueen and Dunaway, both at their stratospheric career heights when the movie was filmed, serves as a metaphor for their relationship in the film.

DVD Features:

Region 1
4-Disc Box Set
Disc 1: THE GREAT ESCAPE
Widescreen - 2.35
Single Side - Dual Layer
Audio:
---Dolby Digital Mono - English
---Dolby Digital Mono - French
Additional Release Material:
---Making-of
---Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
Text/Photo Galleries:
---Production Notes
---Additional Text - 1. Trivia

Disc 2: JUNIOR BONNER
Widescreen - 2.35
Audio:
---Mono - English
Additional Release Material:
---Audio Commentary
---Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer

Disc 3: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Keep Case
Widescreen - 2.35
Audio:
---Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
---Dolby Digital Mono - Spanish
---Dolby Digital Mono - French
Additional Release Material:
---Audio Commentary - 1. Eli Wallach - Star, James Coburn - Star
---Trailer - 1. Original Theatrical
---Documentary
Text/Photo Galleries:
---Stills/Photos - 1. Gallery
Additional Products:
---Booklet

Disc 4: THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR
Full Frame - 1.33
Letterboxed - 1.85
Audio:
---Mono - English
---Subtitles - English - Optional
---Subtitles - French - Optional
Additional Release Material:
---Audio Commentary - 1. Norman Jewison - Director
---Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
Additional Products:
---8-Page Booklet featuring Trivia, Production Notes, and Making of the Film

Release Info:
--Color Film
--Year Released: 1960-1972
--RunTime: 502 Min.
--Release Language: English
--Original Language: English

Average customer rating:

Junior Bonner
A beautiful time capsule
The reason this was underappreciated
Junior Grade
Fascinating Slice of American Pie

Junior Bonner
Starring: Joe Don Baker , Don 'Red' Barry , Sandra Deel , Rita Garrison , and Charles D. Gray
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( J ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B0001GF2JC
Release Date: 2004-05-25

Amazon.com essential video

Junior Bonner is director Sam Peckinpah's lovely, elegiac look at the world of the rodeo--and his only film with nary a bullet wound. Steve McQueen, engagingly easygoing but determined, is the title character, a rodeo rider out to win a big bull-riding contest in his hometown. Even as he confronts his dwindling days on the circuit, he also must deal with his feuding parents, marvelously played by Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. Preston is particularly good as the randy old con artist; he and Lupino strike real sparks. Peckinpah's slow-motion camera is put to particularly good use filming the balletic violence of the rodeo, at once more terrifying and awe-inspiring than any gun battle. A lovely country-western valentine to a dying breed. --Marshall Fine

Description

Steve McQueen is at his "rugged best" (Entertainment Today) in this "totally captivating" (Leonard Maltin) tale of a fading rodeo champion from acclaimed director Sam Peckinpah and screenwriter Jeb Rosebrook. Co-starring Robert Preston and Ida Lupino in "excellent, well-turned" (Variety) performances, Junior Bonner is "an extraordinarily graceful yet unflinching rendering of a slice of Americana" (Los Angeles Times). With his bronco-busting career on its last legs, Junior Bonner (McQueen) heads to his hometown to try his luck in the annual rodeo. But his fond childhood memories are shattered when he finds his family torn apart by his greedy brother and hard-drinking father. Now Junior must break the wildest bull in the West to bring his family togetherfor one final moment of cowboy glory in the roughest, rowdiest ride of his life!

Customer Reviews:

Junior Bonner.......2007-07-03

Sam Peckinpah's most subtle, gentle movie is a perfect showcase for the mellowing McQueen, who wears the part of Junior like a pair of old jeans. "Junior" also boasts a fabulous late career turn from Preston, who steals the movie as Ace. Appropriate for older children, who should enjoy the bucking bronco scenes. Terrific Americana, not to be missed.

A beautiful time capsule.......2007-03-31

I just finished reading a Steve McQueen biography and it said that this was his only film that lost money (not counting 'An Enemy of the People', which was never released. I've been watching all the McQueen films I can find since reading the book and some of them seem flawed by bad writing or poor production quality or poor performances by other cast members. This film was surprisingly good, and well made. Its box office failure probably had more to do with the fickle mood of the public at the time than any qualities of the film itself.

There is a Special Feature on the DVD. It is a narrative track that can be run along with the movie. It is several experts on Peckinpah and this film who discuss it scene by scene as it plays out. It is well worth listening to, as it pointed some things out to me that I had missed or not understood. It also points out much of the behind the scenes technique being used to make a difficult and complex picture look like a naturally flowing sequence of events.

Even if there were no story, I'd enjoy this movie just for the wonderful photography and local Prescott, Arizona circa 1972 flavor. The print is perfect in its bright clean colors.

The reason this was underappreciated.......2006-09-20

JUNIOR BONNER takes a more worldly spin to the land of the rodeo and its slow decline. Granted it's not as graphic as some of Peckinpah's earlier undertakings, and not quite as intense personal drama either. But the story of J.R. Bonner, an aging cowboy and rodeo star, who has to confront the changing times, has a lot of major societal issues weaving through its pages.

You have to understand the times. In the early 1970s the American West was still quite open and quiet, but the old ways were slowly fading off and the new consumer culture was coming in. Compared to today's dog-eat-dog economy, the late 1940s through early '70s were a socialist paradise. Jobs paid well, housing was affordable, and the executives didn't run off with seven- or eight-figure salaries. But the system became a victim of its own success as the middle class got wealthier and began to move around and buy bigger (and second) homes. Greed slipped back in, in real estate but also in the general public ideology.

JR, visiting in Prescott, Arizona for the 4th of July, is looking for his dad Ace, and sees a huge excavation pit and housing subdivision going up. Ace seems all too willing to go along with brother Curly, who is profiting from a mobile home development named after him. The Bonner family plans to move into a subdivision and work for the company. They don't realize how unfair the land deal was and how stifling the new way of life may be for them. Especially JR, who wants none of it. The conflict between JR and Curly over the future of the world they live in becomes important.

One can look at this theme two ways: Perhaps JR sees the new residents as foreigners who threaten the traditional cowboy way of life. Many are from the east and are used to things like golf courses, shopping malls and tract housing. Or maybe the real problem is the capitalist greed of Curly Bonner and his development agenda. None of it seems like authentic country life but a silly commercialized mockery of it.

JR doesn't seem like a raging idealist out to save the world, though. He just wants his freedom to live and do what he loves with animals in the rodeo. He isn't the perfect gentleman but not a mega-chauvinist either. The arena and the bullfights are his symbol of identity and the fight he is leading in his heart to resist what is happening to his family. Ace wants to search for gold in Australia, which everyone else thinks is silly.

There could have been more development in the conflict between the two brothers, something to bring it to a dramatic climax. And maybe the rodeo events should have been spaced out a little more over time to get a feeling for life on the road. But then, there's only so much time and space in one movie...

Definitely close to the heart of the anti-sprawl crowd, the history crowd, the social vision crowd, not to mention the rodeo crowd. So why wasn't it a big success? American audiences seem to prefer thrills over social conscience, and this movie takes a deeper conscience to truly enjoy. It was ahead of the times as well, anticipating a trend that has gone so much further in the 34 years since this film was written. Perhaps that is why it is enjoying a second fame today.

Junior Grade.......2006-08-01

JUNIOR BONNER is a flat, aimless, meandering, unfocused and unrewarding character study of an aging rodeo star. Steve McQueen stars, Sam Peckinpah directs, and how these two titans could have combined for such a disappointing movie is beyond me. There's a story, of sorts, and a slender plot thread that is more or less ignored. Aging rodeo circuit rider Junior Bonner (sometimes referred to as J.R.) has recently been thrown and injured by Sunshine, one of those red-eyed, two-ton, jet black bulls that seem 90% mean shoulder muscle and 10% goring horn. Bonner's next stop is Prescott, Arizona, to compete in yet another rodeo and visit the family. Father Ace Bonner (Robert Preston) is hospitalized after an auto accident, and younger brother Curly (Joe Don Baker) is selling off the family estate for gaudy chunks of cash. Ace wants a $5000 grubstake to relocate to Australia and mine for gold. It's a dream of his. Curly's got the old man on a strict allowance, though, and won't contribute a dime to the old man's crackpot scheme.

So the main plot pivot point is reached early enough, and you'd think it sturdy enough. Can Junior draw Sunshine again in the Prescott Rodeo and, most importantly, ride well enough and stay on the bull's back long enough (8 seconds) to win the competition and get pa his grubstake? Okay, maybe it is kind of a light thread to hang a major movie on, but JUNIOR BONNER is more character study than action movie, and with McQueen in front of the camera and Peckinpah behind it the `character' part of it ought to be a lot more interesting than it is. But nothing happens, at least nothing that stinks enough of drama to pull this movie up out of its terminal funk. Junior, who lives according to a code diametrically opposed to Curly's, has a showdown or two with his younger brother, but they're a fizzle. The most likely candidate for dramatic tension - Junior's second date with Sunshine - is treated as an afterthought. Peckinpah punctuates the movie with an inordinate amount of documentary footage. There's the mandatory scenes of real rodeo stars in real rodeo competition. There's also an extended documentary sequence shot at a Prescott Fourth of July parade. Such insertions usually add an authentic atmosphere to a movie, but they're also favored by inept director as filler. Smells like filler here, and the sad thing is the documentary shots are the most interesting part of the movie.

Steve McQueen was a great movie star and Sam Peckinpah was a great director. Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch is one of the top two or three westerns ever, and his Ride the High Country is a neglected classic. That McQueen and Peckinpah would be attracted to an apparent modern-day maverick, like an itinerant rodeo star, is understandable. That they'd make a low key and boring movie is unfortunate. Having a handful of rodeo movies under my belt I'm convinced you can't make a good movie out of this likely subject. The problem, as always, is bridging the gap between inspiration and execution. Rodeo stars seem a natural, but where do you take them? If you're Peckinpah, not very far.

Fascinating Slice of American Pie.......2005-12-29

You can walk away from "Junior Bonner" having seen every Sam Peckinpah and Steve McQueen film and not know that either contributed to this low-key gem. It's a tribute to both legends that they eschewed vanity to create a film that feels like real life. I don't know how long it took Peckinpah to lens this film but it feels like he just took his camera for a few days to capture the ambiance of Prescott, Arizona on a Fourth of July Weekend when the rodeo came to town. Having never been to a rodeo or seen any films about it I found the way Peckinpah captures the people, the sights, and sounds thrilling. Anybody whose followed the career of Steve McQueen knows that he was the master of understatement. Here he gracefully captures the essence of an aging rodeo star who goes from one show to the next in hopes of winning the $950.00 in prize money. Peckinpah populates the cast with legendary actors like Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, and Ben Johnson along with notable character actors like Joe Don Baker and William McKinney. This ensemble of actors are terrific because they seem like real people who've been part of the rodeo world or Prescott landscape their whole lives. Needless to say, a must for Peckinpah or McQueen fans and essential viewing for all film lovers.

Average customer rating:

Junior Bonner
A beautiful time capsule
The reason this was underappreciated
Junior Grade
Fascinating Slice of American Pie

Junior Bonner
Starring: Joe Don Baker , Don 'Red' Barry , Sandra Deel , Rita Garrison , and Charles D. Gray
Manufacturer: Anchor Bay
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

All Deals | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( J ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: 6305388865
Release Date: 1999-04-13

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

Junior Bonner.......2007-07-03

A beautiful time capsule.......2007-03-31

The reason this was underappreciated.......2006-09-20

Junior Grade.......2006-08-01

Fascinating Slice of American Pie.......2005-12-29

Average customer rating:

Duel in the Sun/Junior Bonner
Starring: Double Feature
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( D ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000M9BS4G
Release Date: 2007-01-16

Average customer rating:

Junior Bonner
A beautiful time capsule
The reason this was underappreciated
Junior Grade
Fascinating Slice of American Pie

Junior Bonner [Region 2]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

( J ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B000059RNR

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

Junior Bonner.......2007-07-03

A beautiful time capsule.......2007-03-31

The reason this was underappreciated.......2006-09-20

Junior Grade.......2006-08-01

Fascinating Slice of American Pie.......2005-12-29

DVD:

DVD

DVD