Vera Cruz was only director Robert Aldrich's second Western (his first, made a few months earlier, was the revisionist, pro-Native-American Apache), but it's such an assured, stylish affair that he might have been roaming the sagebrush for decades. In the aftermath of the American Civil War two lone adventurers make their way south of the border, where Mexico is fighting a civil war of its own to rid the country of the French-imposed Emperor Maximilian. Neither the dour Benjamin Trane (Gary Cooper) nor the grinning, devil-may-care Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster) has much in the way of idealism, but Trane still retains a thin bitter edge of integrity, a quality quite alien to the cheerfully amoral Erin. In uneasy alliance, constantly looking to outwit or double-cross each other, the two find themselves escorting a beautiful French countess (Denise Darcel) and a shipment of gold across country. Cooper and Lancaster create a superb double-act, using their contrasted screen personas to point up the humour and the cynicism of the two mercenaries' relationship. Darcel makes less than she might of the femme fatale role, but there are relishable cameos from Cesar Romero as a suavely duplicitous aristo and Ernest Borgnine as another gringo with an exceptionally vicious streak. The script, according to Aldrich, was written on the run, "always finished about five minutes before we shot it", but you wouldn't guess it from the laconic wit of the dialogue. It looks great, too-Ernest Laszlo's widescreen photography makes the most of the handsome Mexican locations. With its irreverent take on the accepted moral conventions of the genre, Vera Cruz ushered in a new kind of Western, and its central love-hate relationship would be replayed in Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962) and Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). On the DVD: Not much in the way of extras but the mono sound has been expertly remastered to the benefit of Hugo Friedhofer's spirited score. [+]

A favourite film of some of the world's greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, John Ford's The Searchers has earned its place in the legacy of great American films for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most notably, it's the definitive role for John Wayne as an icon of the classic Western-the hero (or antihero) who must stand alone according to the unwritten code of The West. The story takes place in Texas in 1868; Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a Confederate veteran who visits his brother and sister-in-law at their ranch and is horrified when they are killed by marauding Comanches. Ethan's search for a surviving niece (played by young Natalie Wood) becomes an all-consuming obsession. With the help of a family friend (Jeffrey Hunter) who is himself part-Cherokee, Ethan hits the trail on a five-year quest for revenge. At the peak of his masterful talent, director Ford crafts this classic tale as an embittered examination of racism and blind hatred, provoking Wayne to give one of the best performances of his career. As with many of Ford's classic Westerns, The Searchers must contend with revisionism in its stereotypical treatment of "savage" Native Americans, and the film's visual beauty (the final shot is one of the great images in all of Western culture) is compromised by some uneven performances and stilted dialogue. Still, this is undeniably one of the greatest Westerns ever made. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

The war-time memories of surviving World War II bomber squadrons were still crystal clear when this acclaimed drama was released in 1949-one of the first post-war films out of Hollywood to treat the war on emotionally complex terms. Framed by a post-war prologue and epilogue and told as a flashback appreciation of war-time valour and teamwork, the film stars Gregory Peck in one of his finest performances as a callous general who assumes command of a bomber squadron based in England. At first, the new commander has little rapport with the 918th Bomber Group, whose loyalties still belong with their previous commander. As they continue to fly dangerous mission over Germany, however, the group and their new leader develop mutual respect and admiration, until the once-alienated commander feels that his men are part of a family-men whose bravery transcends the rigours of rigid discipline and by-the-book leadership. The film's now-classic climax, in which the general waits patiently for his squad to return to base-painfully aware that they may not return at all-is one of the most subtle yet emotionally intense scenes of any World War II drama. With Peck in the lead and Dean Jagger doing Oscar-winning work in a crucial supporting role, this was one of veteran director Henry King's proudest achievements, and it still packs a strong dramatic punch. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

Reach for the Sky was a box-office hit in 1956 and rightly remains a fondly regarded classic of British cinema. Kenneth More is ideally cast as Douglas Bader, the gifted pilot who loses both legs in a pre-war air crash, only to play a major role in the Battle of Britain, rise to the rank of Group Captain and become a war hero. Based on Paul Brickhill's biography, this is an "official" history maybe, but Lewis Gilbert's screenplay and direction are historically accurate and informed by that very British humour, of which More was a natural. The film is graced by a decent supporting cast and a typically "widescreen" score from John Addison. On the DVD: Reach for the Sky is vividly reproduced in 16:9 anamorphic format and decent mono. There are subtitles for the hard of hearing and detailed biographies of More, Gilbert and Barder. The original theatrical trailer is included, but it would also have made sense to include an interview or documentary footage of Bader himself. -Richard Whitehouse.

John Wayne recovered from his first bout of cancer to appear in 1965's The Sons of Katie Elder as the brother of Dean Martin, Earl Holliman and Michael Anderson Jr. All four characters are wandering souls prone to trouble, but after the funeral of their frontier mother, they set out to avenge her death. Directed by Henry Hathaway (Wayne's director on True Grit), the film moves like a conventional, latter-day Western, with good performances from Wayne and Martin, who'd already costarred with the Duke in Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo. There's also nice support from Dennis Hopper (who had a legendary conflict with Hathaway on this film), Strother Martin and George Kennedy. -Tom Keogh.

This classic World War II actioner has Wayne as a tough but compassionate Marine Corps sergeant, John M. Stryker. Tough name, too. Stryker's job is to turn a bunch of raw recruits into a fighting machine. His no-holds-barred approach causes a great amount of friction, not to mention a running subplot concerning his personal life that makes him something of an enigma to his men. The mystery of his past is not fully resolved until the very ending, by which point Stryker is decidedly a war hero. The supporting roles of those who hate Stryker's guts, and who are inevitably won over, are played handsomely by John Agar and Forrest Tucker. Veteran film director Allan Dwan helmed this one, and used real war footage and three of the surviving soldiers who raised the flag on Mt. Suribachi to reenact that momentous event. An engrossing and entertaining war flick all around, Sands of Iwo Jima boasts one of the Duke's finest, most measured and layered performances. [+]