This marvelous western, which I reckon may well be Andre de Toth’s finest movie, and which I’ve written about here in the past, is to be released on dual format DVD/Blu-ray by Eureka! as part of their Masters of Cinema line on December 7. I’ll definitely be picking it up and I have no hesitation recommending it. Here’s the press release info:
Eureka Entertainment to release DAY OF THE OUTLAW,the last western made by Andre De Toth set in a snowed-in Wyoming town and starring Robert Ryan and Burl Ives,available for the first time in the UK and on Blu-ray in a Dual Format edition for the first time anywhere in the world on 7 December 2015.
As in George Stevens’ Shane, the place of action of Andre De Toth’s demented Western Day of the Outlaw is once again the state of Wyoming and the contested land of the homesteaders. Day of the Outlaw was one of Westerns at the twilight of the studio era in which anything might go, and director De Toth, the creator of two infamous idiosyncratic films — the groundbreaking 3D House of Wax and the naturalistic Sterling Hayden-starring noir Crime Wave — here firmly established his pedigree as one of the maverick directors such as Nicholas Ray for whom boundaries proved only elastic consequence.
The magnificent Robert Ryan portrays Blaise Starrett (surname itself an evocation of the family in the earlier Stevens film Shane) who comes between a landowner (Alan Marshal) and his wife (Tina Louise). But after a band of outlaws ride into town headed by Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives), Starrett must rise to the occasion and defend the hostage townsfolk while redeeming his own advances towards the landowner’s wife.
Filmed on a shoestring budget, Day of the Outlaw proved to be an enduring touchstone for the directors of the French New Wave; it came to exemplify De Toth’s resourcefulness around budgetary limitations and the (here often snow-strewn) difficulties of the shoot. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Andre De Toth’s Day of the Outlaw in a Dual Format edition for the first time in the UK.
Watch what happens to the woman… Watch The West explode!
SPECIAL FEATURES including:
· Glorious 1080p presentation of the film on the Blu-ray
· A video appreciation by filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier
· Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
· 24- PAGE BOOKLET containing a new essay, vintage writing on the film, the words of De Toth, rare archival imagery, and more!
