Lonely are the Brave (1962) DVDRip (SiRiUs sHaRe)

Lonely are the Brave (1962)



In order to free his best friend Bondi, Jack Burns lets himself be imprisoned only to find out that Bondi does not want to escape. Thus Burns breaks out on his own and is afterwards being chased by sheriff Johnson with helicopters and jeeps.



Kirk Douglas ... John W. "Jack" Burns

Gena Rowlands ... Jerry Bondi

Walter Matthau ... Sheriff Morey Johnson

Michael Kane ... Paul Bondi

Carroll O'Connor ... Hinton (truck driver)

William Schallert ... Harry (soft-spoken radio operator)

George Kennedy ... Deputy Sheriff Gutierrez

Karl Swenson ... Rev. Hoskins (prison inmate)

William Mims ... First deputy arraigning Burns (as Bill Mims)

Martin Garralaga ... Old man (observer in Latin bar)

Lalo Rios ... Prisoner



Director: David Miller



Runtime: 107 mins



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056195/
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Codecs:



Video : 1.31 GB, 1832 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 688*288 (Unknown), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,

Audio : 141 MB, 192 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, 0x2000 = AC-3 ACM Codec, CBR,



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A much under-appreciated movie, I love it. I caught a snippet of it the other night and it got me to thinking how many "modern" day cowboys were influenced by Burns' character. I'll bet anything Jerry Jeff Walker has seen it. Kirk's performance alone justifies the look but I can't recall another flick with so many actors in pre-star roles. For example, Gena Rowlands, George Kennedy (pre- Cool Hand Luke), Walter Matthau, William Schallert (Patty Duke's dad, Bill Bixby etc.



What I'd like to focus on is a very small piece of the movie focusing on the "one-armed man" Bill Raisch (pre-The Fugitive). Bill starts a fight with Burns just to have something to do on a Saturday nite. The scene is a great reminder to be careful of dropping in on unfriendly/unknown bars.



This movie could serve as the basis for any English/Literature major's college paper/thesis. Not surprising since Dalton Trumbo had a hand in the screenplay.



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No Western could be more out of time-scale than "Lonely are the Brave," and yet, paradoxically, no central character was ever more truly Western than Jack Burns, the strange wanderer, played by Kirk Douglas…



Douglas in this film version of Edward Abbey's moving novel 'Brave Cowboy' is, among a number of other things, a man who hates barbed wire… He showed, a similar dislike for it in King Vidor's "Man Without a Star" (1955), which was a traditional cattle range movie, and in those circumstances that seemed reasonable enough… But "Lonely are the Brave" is a film set in the New Mexico of 1953 and such behavior now seems totally irrational…



But then he's an irrational, quite extraordinary man… He rides a horse called Whisky when the world flashes past him in Cadillacs… He carries a guitar and sings folksy ballads of the old West... Arriving in the concrete of Duke City he is quite confident that in order to free a pal he has only got to break into jail, fool a sheriff and make his getaway… After all, it's Western territory and this was always the way of it…



Who and what is he? The question bears examination for he is one of the most intriguing characters in the whole Western portrait gallery... He is never really explained in the book, nor indeed in the film… He is drawn and stated and the rest is left to the reader or audience… You watch the way he moves, you listen to what he says and the way he says it… You observe his strange actions and reactions… But most1y you are left to make your own conclusions…



Is it a case of a fantasist totally hooked on the Western legend? Has he seen too many Western movies (probably 'B' features)? Has he read too much Western pulp fiction? Is he so deep in thought by it all that he is incapable of realizing that the world has moved on, is running out of grass, or tolerance for oddballs with a preference for grass?



Is he making a protest about what the West has become, and is seeking, in his inarticulate way, after different values? Is he just pure throwback, a man belonging to another time? This figures, as he might say… He would belong so splendidly, with his simple values…



Whatever he is, he's a profoundly tragic conception....



The old friend he is there to aid (Michael Kane) has been jailed for giving shelter to over-the-border illegal immigrants… Douglas calls on his buddy's wife, sensitively played by Gena Rowlands, who seems as touched and dazed by him as anyone in the audience… In order to get Kane out of prison he decides that he first needs to get into it himself and so after a saloon bar fight, followed by more fisticuffs at the jail, he gets the cell he wants…



In jail, however, he finds himself once more knocking up against the twentieth century—its mores and inhibitions… The pal doesn't want to conform to the old Western pattern by making a break for it… Far better to serve out his two years and then return to his wife and child knowing that his 'debt to society' has been paid and they will have nothing else to worry about… This is not just pure self-interest… He honestly thinks it the right thing to do…



So having fought his way in, Douglas now has to fight his way out… This he does with the aid of files he brought with him to effect his friend's escape… And out with him go a couple of characters not inhibited by fears and scruples…



So he becomes a man on the run, but, since he still has his horse, an old-style outlaw on the run, heading for the mountains with—naturally—a posse after him…



But no ordinary posse… This is the 20th century version, supplied with all sorts of technological devices… If this very recent cowboy in his strange, ancient times way, is challenging the rule of technology, it is only logical that the long cold arm of science should reach out for him… It does so with walkie-talkie radios, jeeps and even a specially borrowed helicopter…



What chance has he? The sheriff seems puzzled by the situation—that a man on a horse should dare everything against such a formidable array of gadgetry… Since the enigmatic wanderer is determinedly playing out a Western drama he must inevitably come up against a compassionate sheriff…



The sheriff is a man doing a job, without any keen enjoyment for the job or, in fact, for anything particularly… He's bored, skeptical, laconic, and you feel that he would like nothing better than for Burns to get out of his territory…



But while the sheriff goes about his manhunting duties in a routine way he lets slip another implication—that deep, down in the lethargy and disillusion there's a soft spot for the man on a horse… Is the sheriff at heart—if you could ever find his heart—a bit of a rebel, too?



Kirk Douglas will be remembered most of all for his performance as the man out of step, out of his proper time… His Jack Burns in "Lonely are the Brave" is one of the warmest, most deeply felt characterizations in all Western movies… David Miller directed the film with simplicity and a similar warmth… No more was needed…



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This is a wonderful movie that never fails to impress me whenever I view it.



As many have stated, Kirk felt that this was his favorite movie and I quite agree. As the existential drifter searching for something that has long passed him by, Kirk delivers a stunning performance. I felt that the character development in this film was outstanding. Each individual plays an important role in delivering the theme of the story.



I was amazed that no one wrote about the bar fight scene where Burns battles a bitter one-armed local. There is something disturbing about this encounter...the one-armed man's bitterness and Burns' attempt to avoid the confrontation. Handled in black and white, this scene is memorable.



This film easily makes my top ten list.



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* The one-armed man tells Jack Burns in the bar that he lost his arm at Okinawa during World War II. Bill Raisch, the actor who played the one-armed man, actually did lose his right arm in a fire on board a ship during the war.



* Bill Bixby's film debut as the uncredited Airman in the helicopter.



* Kirk Douglas' own favorite performance.



* After Kirk Douglas read the book Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey, he purchased the rights to the novel and gave the project to his friend Dalton Trumbo. Douglas said Trumbo's screenplay was perfect, the best he had ever read, and didn't change one word of it.