What’s New in Old Movies: April 2025

Don Stradley

With the cancelations of such legendary Western TV shows as Gunsmoke and Bonanza, Kirk Douglas felt the public was hungry for a big screen Western shoot ‘em up. The result was Posse (1975), starring Douglas as Howard Nightingale, a marshal who travels the country with his crew of sharpshooting law enforcers. Nightingale has political ambitions, but his election hinges on the arrest and hanging of a criminal named Jack Strawhorn (Bruce Dern). Being a 1970s film, when characters were often depicted in shades of grey, Nightingale turns out to be a heel, while Strawhorn is the more sympathetic character. Posse was one of only two films directed by Douglas, and he promoted it with characteristic gusto. He felt it reflected the political tone of the times. “If Watergate didn’t happen,” Douglas said, “I wouldn’t have made this picture.” 

Unfortunately, Posse died an inglorious death at the box office, as many films did during that 1975 summer of Jaws. Critics had been reasonably kind, with most praising the one-two punch of Douglas and Dern. But pleasant reviews weren’t enough, not when Steven Spielberg’s shark was on the prowl. Before the year was over, Posse was relegated to a little-known cable outlet called Home Box Office.

The film came about during a rough time in Douglas’ career. A project he’d nursed along for years, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was being filmed with Jack Nicholson in the role Douglas had coveted (and had played on Broadway). And though he was still considered a major star, Douglas was 59. It had been more than a decade since he’d anything resembling a major hit. Most of his recent movies had been made in Europe, and he was increasingly viewed as an aged-out personality of the past. Paramount let him direct Posse, but then saddled Douglas with a skimpy budget. Forced to cut corners, Douglas would book tourist class flights for himself and the film crew, which resulted in him getting fined by the union for not flying first class. He never directed again.

“I was lonely,” Douglas recalled in his 1988 memoir, The Ragman’s Son. “When you’re the producer, the boss, the star, and the director, who do you talk to? It is lonely. Who loves the boss?” Posse received some initial publicity for Douglas’ hiring of actor James Stacy, who had been in a terrible motorcycle crash a few years earlier that cost him his left leg and left arm. Douglas created a role specifically for Stacy, that of a newspaper editor who had lost his limbs in the Civil War. The supporting cast also included Bo Hopkins, Luke Askew, and Alfonso Arau. Though Posse didn’t lift Douglas out of his career slump, he remained proud of it. A dozen years later as he wrote his autobiography, he was still intrigued by questions over who the film’s real hero was. “Posse made a significant statement,” Douglas wrote.  

The 50th anniversary edition of Posse is coming from Kino Lorber on April 29. It is a no-frills single disc package, the only extra being a new audio commentary from filmmaker/film buff Steve Mitchell. Still, it’s nice to see a new Blu-ray release for an overlooked film.

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Kino Lorber is also releasing a pair of John Wayne titles this month. Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) has long been one of Wayne’s most beloved movies. Directed by Allan Dwan and featuring a bigger-than-life performance from Wayne, the film had been a major undertaking by Republic Pictures, which was known for smaller productions. With this World War 2 drama, the company went over budget and even brought in the U.S. Marines to serve as technical advisors. The effort paid off. Sands of Iwo Jima was a financial success and earned Wayne his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor. 

As the hardboiled Sergeant Stryker, Wayne is a man with a troubled personal life who must whip some young recruits into shape. He brings his usual swagger to the role, with just enough nastiness to let us know he’s the right man to lead troops into battle. You might not want him as your pal, but on the front lines at wartime? Yes, he’s the guy. Dwan recalled discussing the part with Wayne. According to Dwan, as the actor discussed  Stryker’s family problems that were like his own, “tears were rolling down his cheeks.” Wayne often cited Stryker as one of his favorite characters, along with Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, and Ethan Edwards in The Searchers.

The movie was also a great PR campaign for the Marines, at the time on the verge of being combined with the Army. As Wayne biographer Scott Eyman wrote, the Marines were behind the film all the way, thinking “a big gung-ho movie would serve as good propaganda for maintaining a stand-alone Corp.” The film’s gala Los Angeles premiere included a performance from a large Marine band, probably from nearby Camp Pendleton where some of the film was shot. Indeed, it certainly appeared as if the Marines had landed. 

“Wayne is splendid in the vigor of his style,” wrote the Los Angeles Times, praising Sands of Iwo Jima for its “hearty, human quality. Its humor is robust. Its drama is not sentimentalized. Its tragedy is simply and forcefully stated.” The Los Angeles Evening Citizen News was equally effusive, calling the film, “A smashing pictorial drama…simple and unadorned.” 

The one bump came after the film was finished, when Wayne realized Republic Pictures founder Herbert J. Yates was refusing to pay him his percentage from Sands of Iwo Jima. Wayne’s response was to go on strike at Republic, which didn’t last long. Yates, who was often at odds with Wayne over contractual and production deals, capitulated quickly and paid the money owed. 

Kino Lorber’s two-disc set includes a 4k and standard Blu-ray, (from the original camera negative) with new audio commentary by filmmaker Steve Mitchell and author Steven Jay Rubin. You’ll also get the theatrical trailer, and “The Making of Sands of Iwo Jima,” a featurette hosted by that reliable old warhorse, Leonard Maltin. (Available April 15) 

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Kino’s other Wayne offering this month is Donovan’s Reef (1963), a two-fisted dramedy that reunited Wayne with his nemesis from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Lee Marvin.  It’s the final collaboration between Wayne and director John Ford, and while it isn’t up to par with their previous work, it has a big, brassy feel to it, with a bunch of WWII veterans causing mayhem on the French Polynesian island of Haleakaloha. The film was a bit of a lark for the director, who lured Marvin into it by saying, “Don’t you want to go to Hawaii for eight weeks?” But Ford, at 68, was dealing with health problems and not thinking as sharply as he once had. According to legend, Wayne watched the daily rushes to make sure “Pappy” was getting the job done. 

“Although it doesn’t represent Ford at his best, it is a lively, fast-moving action film,” wrote the New York Daily News. The supporting cast included Cesar Romero, Dorothy Lamour, and Jack Warden. The movie also features a skull-busting fight scene, showing that Ford and Wayne could still deliver the big moments. Kino Lorber is offering Donovan’s Reef  in a two-disc set with more audio commentaries from film historians, plus a 1957 short from Ford, “The Growler Story.” (Available April 15).

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From the Warner Archive Collection comes Springfield Rifle (1952). Starring Gary Cooper and directed by the versatile Andre De Toth, this is a rugged Civil War yarn about a Union officer who goes undercover to investigate the theft of army horses by Confederates. There’s a lot of suspense in this one, and the occasional cold-blooded killing. Phil Hardy’s Encyclopedia of Western Movies praised De Toth’s “taut direction” and the “economical screenplay” by Charles Marquis Warren and Frank Davis, which was based on a story by a former Roy Rogers scriptwriter, Sloan Nibley. The book’s entry reads: “Like High Noon, but far more modestly, Springfield Rifle sees the Western responding to changes in American life.” 

The new Warner 4k restoration Blu-ray package includes a couple of vintage cartoons (“Feed the Kitty,” with a giant bulldog who loves a kitten, and “Rabbit’s Kin,” starring Bugs Bunny and that stupid cougar, Peter Puma), plus the original theatrical trailer. You’ll also get a Joe McDoakes short, “So You Want to Enjoy Life.” McDoakes (George O’Hanlon) was a flustered everyman character who appeared in more than 60 WB comedy shorts in the 1940s and ‘50s. Offering a lighthearted look at American life after wartime, he was usually trying to build a backyard barbecue or fussing with a new electric razor. Poor Joe. Good to see him sharing the bill with Gary Cooper. (Available April 29)