Treasure 5 The West 1898-1938

[Chet Rollins]

Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938

The National Film  Preservation Foundation has dedicated an entire three-DVD collection to  the American West and the Western. For hardcore fans, this collection  truly is a treasure.

Written by Henry Cabot BeckPublished November 08, 2011

 

 

After reading about this collection in TW, I looked the set up on the NFPF website that showed a few selected clips and gave a listing for what was in the package. I placed it on my christmas list and I just finished watching it front to back. Disclaimer; I have to admit to being an an old west movie geek. I say that because in each movie chapter there was a great information piece that told the viewer everything about the clip they were showing, then you could choose to either watch the film in it's original "silent" movie form with only the musical background or you could, as I did, choose to watch the film with critical commentary. It took time to read and then watch each clip with commentary, but the only other choice was to just watch each silent flick and miss out on the meat of the whole series.

What a treat. What really drew me in was the Bill Tilghman, Al Jennings and the lariat weaving. Other treats like "Mantrap" and "Salomy Jane" were great to watch. There is only one film that actually has original narration and there are a lot of "travelogues" that were fun to watch. The story behind the making of "Ammunition Smuggling on the Mexican Border" was fascinating to say the least.