DVD Review: Burt Lancaster - The Signature Collection

By Frankie Dees Dec 13, 2007, 16:51 GMT

Includes: The Flame and the Arrow (1950), Jim Thorpe All-American (1951), His Majesty O\'Keefe (1954), South Sea Woman (1953), and Executive Action (1973). ...more

Warner Brothers continues their prolific, nicely put-together ‘signature’ boxset releases with a five-film set based around Burt Lancaster, a former circus acrobat that brought a formidable physicality to all of his roles. This set includes a nice variety of pics that includes a swashbuckler, two adventure flicks, a sports biopic and an odd late-career conspiracy theory flick.

Rumor has it that Lancaster made quite the striking image in full military regalia in an elevator post-war and from that well-timed discovery shot to super-stardom in a matter of a few years. Leaving his NYC urban lifestyle at a young age to join the circus and become an acrobat, an injury forced him to leave the circus where he enlisted in WWII.

With that kind of a physical background, Lancaster used his athleticism to start off his acting career with a bevy of film-noir brutes and then the passing of the torch from Fairbanks and Flynn to put him atop the swashbuckler genre with ‘The Crimson Pirate’ and ‘The Flame and the Arrow’.

Making his debut opposite Ava Gardner and Ronald Reagan in 1946’s ‘The Killers’, Lancaster proved one of the top box office stars through the fifties, teaming with pal Kirk Douglas seven times over the course of his career, as well as directing (‘The Kentuckian’), being one of the first actors to start his own production company and earning a Best Actor Oscar for Evangelist dramedy ‘Elmer Gantry’.

Although less heralded than method actors at the time like Marlon Brando, Lancaster always took his craft very seriously and was able to churn out an impressive filmography raging from his early film noir work, to his swashbucklers and westerns of the fifties, strong dramatic turns throughout (including classics ‘Sweet Smell of Success’, From Here to Eternity’ and ‘Cape Fear’) and even the Visconti film ‘The Leopard’.

While none of the films in this set approach classic status per se, it does fill in some nice gaps for Lancaster devotees as well as classic film fans in general. First up is one of the better flicks of the set, 1950s ‘The Flame and the Arrow’ with Lancaster cast as Robin Hood-like character Dardo the Arrow. Taking place in Twelfth-century, medieval Lombardy, Dardo the Arrow gets a bunch in his tights when nemesis German warlord Count Lurich ‘The Hawk’ (Frank Allenby) kidnaps his son. Five years prior, Count Lurich stole away his wife and left Dardo a jaded but indifferent man.

With an outpost of rebels against Count Lurich, Dardo joins up with the rebels to give ‘The Hawk’ his comeuppance. And Dardo also happens to get the attention of Virginia Mayo during all the swashbuckling. A light fantasy flick with capable performances by all involved. Lancaster’s former acrobat skills serve the action well and Lancaster even brings along old circus buddy Bick Cravat to play his sidekick, a role Cravat would also take in ‘The Crimson Pirate’. Presented in a full-frame ratio and in Technicolor, Special Features include a vintage comedy short and cartoon and theatrical trailers.

‘Jim Thorpe-All American’ from 1953 is the next effortlessly entertaining pic in the set from Michael Curtiz. Telling the true, almost tragic story of Jim Thorpe, a Native-American who would be considered one of the first big sports stars, Thorpe came from humble Reservation beginnings to join up with Carlisle college where his athletic prowess almost immediately attracted the attention of coach Glenn Warner (Charles Bickford) .

At first a track star, a woman Jim Thorpe ends up marrying causes his interest to pique in football. Eventually going to the 1912 Olympics, where he took home a host of medals, they get unfairly ripped away from him on a technicality. Going for the last laugh, Thorpe goes pro where his passion slowly gives way to cynicism.

His marriage a bust, Thorpe refused to head back to the reservation, and his age and alcoholism led to an unavoidable downfall in professional sports. The film tries to end on a high note, but Thorpe spent most of his later years in an alcoholic bitter rage. Lancaster did a great job with a film that would capitalize on both his physical and thesping skills and the flick, while not scared of an ‘Indian’ stereotype or two, was surprisingly reverent for the time.

Lancaster, widely-known as a liberal, would return to these themes often. Not a film that’s necessarily exceptional on any one level, it still sticks out as a nice example of its genre. Also in full-frame, Special Features also include a vintage comedy short, a vintage cartoon and trailers.

1953’s oddball ‘South Sea Woman’ is next, an unsuccessful comedy adventure where even Lancaster comes up short. A convoluted mess, I’m not even sure where to begin narrative-wise or if it’s worth it. I’ll throw it out there real quick; like ripping off a band-aid. Lancaster stars as Marine Sgt. James O’ Hearn who we find being tried at court in San Diego for theft, piracy, desertion, destruction of property, etc.

O’ Hearn, who refuses to testify or plead guilty or not guilty, gets help in his corner in the form of showgirl Ginger Martin (Virginia Mayo) who takes the stand pleading his case; she says he’s protecting his pal Pvt. Davy White (Chuck Connors), the two of whom she met a couple weeks before Pearl Harbor and where the three wound up in a host of misadventures, fights and double-crosses.

Luckily, we get extended flashbacks…or maybe we’re not so lucky.... One of Lancaster’s rare misfires, the flick is not particularly exciting or funny. In fact, the flick isn’t particularly anything…it’s just blah. Presented in a full-frame ration, Special Features include a vintage comedy short, cartoon and trailers.

‘His Majesty O’Keefe’ from 1954 is quite a bit better, an epic south sea adventure that’s almost refreshing with its quaintness. The year is 1870 and sea captain O’ Keefe gets dumped overboard by his mutinous crew – so much for that captain gig. Luckily, he finds himself on the Micronesian island of Yap, where there could be some considerable money to be made by copra oil (dried coconut).

A German trading officer is already on the island capitalizing what he can with his limited crew but the key to the real bucks is figuring out how to coax the natives into speeding up production via labor. Offering trades and incentives, trying to earn their respect through one-on-one challenges, nothing seems to work.

He eventually makes his way to Hong Kong to try and attain his own ship, where he achieves success through an aging Chinese dentist with an old junker. Making the dentist’s nephew first mate, he sets out on the seas again, only to pick up a wife and partake in some old-fashioned pirating when he battles old nemesis Bully Hayes, who has pillaged the island of Yap.

With more than its fair share of plot threads, the film keeps the pace moving. Byron Haskin stages the adventure with an eye for natural beauty and a deft hand and Lancaster is well-cast in the main role. While there are some antiquated elements to the handling of the natives, the overall portrayal is definitely reverent – the main chieftain particularly is shown as a man to be reckoned with both physically and mentally.

An odd comparison but if you liked the last half of ‘Joe vs. the Volcano’, you’ll find lots to like here. Presented in a full-frame ratio, Special Features consist of a vintage comedy short, a cartoon and the trailer.

The last pic in the set is the underwhelming yet intriguing entry ‘Executive Action’. A late effort from Lancaster, along with costars Robert Ryan and Will Greer, this 1973 conspiracy pic is a precursor to Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK’. Based on Mark Lane and Donald Freed’s novel about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, it plays out as yet another blurred what is fact?, what is fiction? scenario surrounding those events.

A few moments of intelligent, gripping what ifs mostly falls under the weight of the films hefty pretensions and obviously skewed propaganda.

The low-budget and heavy exposition makes the film a tedious sit-through if not approaching it in the right mind-set but fans of 70s political thrillers or Lancaster’s previous, and much better, political offering ‘Seven Days in May’ may find this more tolerable.

Presented in a widescreen ratio and enhanced for widescreen televisions, Special Features include a vintage 10-minute featurette that looks at the JFK assassination and a trailers gallery.

Overall, this varying hodgepodge of films is a welcome, disparate slice of Lancaster’s filmography. Three good to great flicks will be must-owns for Lancaster fans and decent watches for classic cinema fans and the other two can, at the very least, provide check offs for completists. Another well-done set from Warner Brothers.

Burt Lancaster - The Signature Collection is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.