Saddle Up for Blu-ray Blasts From the Past

Sagebrush fans with a sense of humour can look forward to a rootin’-tootin’ Blu-ray bonanza.

Universal is about to dust off four westerns that, while not as distinguished as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood’s other credits, still will be well worth rediscovering in HD.

British art work

The best of the mild bunch is The War Wagon, in which The Duke and Kirk Douglas join forces in a 1967 romp that was directed by Support Your Local Sheriff’s Burt Kennedy.

As the late Roger Ebert observed at the time of its theatrical release: “The War Wagon is that comparative rarity, a western filmed with quiet good humour.

“It is also a point of departure for John Wayne, who plays a bad guy for just about the first time in his career.”

The War Wagon will roll again on June 5, along with Wayne’s odd-couple True Grit sequel with Katharine Hepburn, 1975’s Rooster Cogburn, and two of Eastwood’s more lighthearted westerns: Two Mules for Sister Sara and Joe Kidd.

Mules (1968) was one of five movies Eastwood made with Dirty Harry director Don Siegel, and is about a gunfighter and a nun (Shirley MacLaine); Joe Kidd (1972) co-stars Robert Duvall in an Elmore Leonard screenplay directed by John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven).

None of these titles has yet been released on Blu-ray in the US and will go on sale here and in the UK and Europe first.