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List Price: $12.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 4509
Released: May 22, 2007 |
| Our Price: $6.48 |
| Used Price: $5.25 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Fugitive bank robbers Robert (John Wayne), William (Harry Carey Jr.) and Pedro (Pedro Armendariz) stand at a desert grave. Caring for the newborn infant of the woman they just buried will ruin any chance of escape. But they won't go back on their promise to her. They won't abandon little Robert William Pedro. Director John Ford's Western retelling of the Biblical Three Wise Men tale remains a scenic and thematic masterpiece. Ford adds color to his feature-film palette, capturing stunning vistas via cinematographer Winton Hoch, who would win two of his three Academy Awards * for Ford films. Again, populist-minded Ford asserts that even men of dissolute character can follow that inner star of Bethlehem to their own redemption.
Description of 3 Godfathers:
It's hardly shameful that The Three Godfathers ranks as the slightest John Ford Western in a five-year arc that includes My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Wagon Master, and Rio Grande. The source, a Peter B. Kyne story both hard-bitten and sentimental, had already been filmed at least five times--once by Ford himself as Marked Men (1919). The star of that silent version, Harry Carey, had recently died. This remake is dedicated to him ("Bright Star of the early western sky") and proudly introduces his son, Harry Carey Jr. (who had already appeared in Howard Hawks's Red River--as did his father--but we won't quibble).
Just before Christmas, three workaday outlaws (John Wayne, Pedro Armendáriz, Harry Carey Jr.) rob a bank in Welcome, Arizona, and flee into the desert. The canny town marshal (Ward Bond) moves swiftly to cut them off from the wells along their escape route, so they make for another, deep in the wasteland. There's no water waiting for them, but there is a woman (Mildred Natwick) on the verge of death--and also of giving birth. The three badmen accept her dying commission as godfathers to the newborn. Motley variants of the Three Wise Men, they strike out for the town of New Jerusalem with her Bible as roadmap. It becomes increasingly apparent that saving the child's life will cost them their own.
Ford's is the softest retelling of the tale; in place of Kyne's bitter/triumphant final twist, he adds a very broad comic postlude. Elsewhere, the nearly sacramental treatment of the mother's death is followed by an extended gosh-almighty sequence of the banditos reading up on childcare. But it's all played with great gusto and tenderness--especially by Wayne, who's rarely been more appealing. Visually the film is one knockout shot after another. This was Ford's first Western in Technicolor, as well as his first collaboration with cinematographer Winton Hoch. What they do with sand ripples and shadows and long plumes of train smoke is rapturously beautiful. It's also often too arty by half, but who can blame them? --Richard T. Jameson
3 Godfathers Reviews:
waynefan 
2009-04-10 - Was good to find this again -- didn't buy it the first time and regretted it as my spouse is a BIG fan of the Duke. It's a nice movie -- the liner notes helped me make a choice between it and several others I'll be ordering later.
Old film is wonderful 
2009-04-06 - It's great to find some of the older films restored and available on disc. And "Three Godfathers" is a shining example of bringing classics to the future.
A great western and a great Christmas movie
2009-02-13 - Of course this is great viewintg any time of year as one of the great John Ford/John Wayne movies. However, it's also a Chrstmas movie with the three wise men allegory. It's a heartwarming story and definitely worth showing to family and friends at that time of year.Also notable in the cast are Harry Carey Jr. in his first role and noted Mexican star Pedro Armanderiz.
Big John
2009-01-27 - This is a great movie with John Wayne. It is a remake of an earlier one without Big John so you should be sure you get the right one for you.
Great movie!
2009-01-19 - This is a great movie, perfect for Christmas time. Three unlikely cowboys take care of a new baby using the bible as directions. They risk it all to take care of the baby. Very touching story.
