Garden of Evil may not be a well remember Western from 1950s but it’s still a entertaining film featuring strong yet charming performances from Gary Cooper and Susan Hayward. The Blu-ray released by Twilight Time offers good video and audio transfers and in a nice surprise, some respectable features.
Garden of Evil
(1954)
REVIEW NAVIGATION
The Movie | Special Features | Video Quality | Audio Quality | Overall
Genre(s): Western, Drama
Twilight Time | NR – 100 min. – $29.95 | May 10, 2016
Date Published: 05/13/2016 | Author: The Movieman
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PLOT SYNOPSIS |
| Henry Hathaway directs the lavish ‘Scope Western, focusing on a desperate woman (SUSAN HAYWARD) who hires three prospector—played by Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark, and Cameron Mitchell—to help her rescue her husband (HUGH MARLOWE), trapped in a Mexican gold mine in hostile Apache territory. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 2.75/5 |
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This release comes with a 6-page essay booklet. For a Twilight Time release, there’s actually a fair amount of features, mostly archival material: Audio Commentary – Film and Music Historians John Morgan, Nick Redman, Steven C. Smith and William T. Stromberg offer their musings of Garden of Evil providing some interesting historical stories on the production. It’s very academic but still decent enough. Travels of a Gunslinger: The Making of Garden of Evil (13:26; SD) is a featurette on the movie featuring interviews with authors, film historian and the offspring of those involved including Gary Cooper’s daughter and Henry Hathaway’s son. The participants talk about some of the troubles in the production. Also included are some production photos and archival audio interviews with the Hathaway and others. Henry Hathaway: When the Going Gets Tough… (11:41; SD) chronicles the career of the director with interviews by some of the same people in the previous featurette. Susan Hayward: Hollywood’s Straight Shooter (6:55; SD) covers the starlet’s career with more interviews. Also included are a TV Spot and two Theatrical Trailers. |
VIDEO – 4.5/5 |
| Twilight Time releases Garden of Evil onto Blu-ray presented with a 1080p high-definition transfer (MPEG-4 AVC codec) and shown in its original 2.55 widescreen aspect ratio. The picture definitely has a warm texture with an almost over-saturated look but I suspect this is how it was shown in theaters instead of artificially re-produced on modern media. Detail is more or less good outside of some of the more distant shots and there no noticeable ailments like dust marks and scratches making for a clean transfer. |
AUDIO – 4.0/5 |
| The film comes with no less than three options: 5.1 DTS-HD MA, 4.0 DTS-HD MA and 2.0 DTS-HD MA, all of which aren’t half bad, though I only tested out the latter two with the bulk of the movie I watched with the 5.1 track. Dialogue levels do sound crisp and clean but where these tracks really come to life is with Bernard Herrmann’s soaring Western score. |
OVERALL – 3.0/5 |
| Overall, Garden of Evil may not be a well remember Western from 1950s but it’s still a entertaining film featuring strong yet charming performances from Gary Cooper and Susan Hayward. The Blu-ray released by Twilight Time offers good video and audio transfers and in a nice surprise, some respectable features. |
Check out some more screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.