Customer Ratings & Reviews

A great western that has finally come out on Blu ray. Steve McQueen, Suzanne Pleshette, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Arthur Kennedy, and Martin Landau makes this a must see! Maybe not good for very young children because of some of the violence but still does not come close to what is out there these days. The story line is almost like a four act play which provides some interesting transitions.

Steve McQueen travels the west looking for revenge agains the three men who brutally murdered his parents. McQueen portrays his usual cool and Brian Keith is solid as his mentor.

it compares with real life people and makes you wonder is this their life story.

Best Buy advertises a slipcover here but it actually doesn't have one. Change the picture.

One of my all time favorites, Nevada Smith, arrived the other day in it's newly remastered Blu-Ray form. Happy Birthday for me! The video looks good, best I've seen for this film in any format. They remastered it in 4K, but this release is just HD in 1080P. Still, way better than any previous version and most scenes are colorful and rich in texture. Closeups are great and even the darker scenes play well. A few of the views of the distant landscape/blue sky in the beginning remain a bit grainy, but hardly an issue. I have been advised that depending on sales, they may release a 4K version either on disc or via a streaming service at a later date. Being an older film, that's pretty common these days as UHD discs are costly to produce and distribute. The audio was cleaned up as well, and is presented in DTS HD Master Audio 2 Channel. Nothing over the top, but the musical score sounds wonderful given it's limitation. The cast is fantastic. The acting is fabulous. The score is great. The locations are amazing. The story touches your heart and I both love and hate it when it comes to the end. Of course, the Nevada Smith character appears in the later film The Carpetbaggers, but that film has little resemblance to this one. This story evolves rapidly from the start. You quickly get past that the lead is supposed to be a teenager who is played by 35 year old McQueen. Surprisingly, they didn't do anything to "young him up" cosmetically in the beginning, or try the old switcheroo with a younger actor during the early scenes. But McQueen's acting and the situations he faces make you forget about the age factor fairly early on. His time with Mr. Cord really turned the corner for me with that. I do get however that this may have been a deal breaker for some other viewers. I was hoping for a little more from the bonus commentary, but I did pick up a few tidbits. I did learn that Joanna Moore (Tatum O'Neil's mom and Ryan's former wife) played the enticing Angie Coe, although her name was left off the main credits due to some dispute at the time. Too bad for her, but that brief scene with her and Max is my brother's favorite in the whole movie! Also, it was pointed out that most of the film was shot on location, including the swamp scenes in Louisiana. That was a challenge to film indeed and Suzanne Pleshette reportedly contracted typhoid fever while there. However, she did recover and went on to her wonderful career. Word was that she and McQueen were platonic friends prior to filming and they acknowledged that their love scenes were a challenge for them both. Funny, apparently not an issue for Steve with many of his other leading ladies from what I have heard! I also heard that George Lucas liked this movie so much that he originally planned to name his new movie character “Indiana Smith.” Somewhere along the way that was dropped and Indiana Jones became the final name for that franchise winner. Good choice, I think! I can't even guess how many times I have watched this film. I'm still not tired of it and I still get drawn into how good this film is, even with its flaws, after all these years. The Blu-Ray is a distinct improvement in the view-ability of the movie, especially given today's large screen TV's. My 82” Samsung liked it just fine! And, the wonderful main theme song and the whole great score by Alfred Newman happily continues to run through my brain even after the TV has been shut off. Thousands of folks have written reviews on this film, so I won't belabor my review any further. I just wanted to finally share my thoughts on this wonderful film, now that it is in this beautiful Blu-Ray release. And yes, I will be standing in line for a forthcoming UHD version should it appear one day. Good job, Kino Lorber.