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| Actors: Sam Bottoms, Matt Clark, Royal Dano, Chief Dan George, Joyce Jameson
Studio: Warner Home Video
List Price: $6.98
Buy New: $2.08
You Save: $4.90 (70%)
New (7) Used (10) from $1.09
Rating:  136 reviews
Sales Rank: 28127
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original Recording Reissued, Original Recording Remastered, Special Edition, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 135 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 6305505721
UPC: 085391741039
EAN: 9786305505723
ASIN: 6305505721
Theatrical Release Date: June 30, 1976
Release Date: August 31, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW!!!! WRAPPED.........
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 136
 Greatest Western of All Time! March 29, 2008
Kendra
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
The Outlaw Josey Wales is considered by some to be the greatest western. I agree.
A great western should have a collection of strong key elements, and Josey Wales has them all. The setting is the savage Civil War in Missouri and Kansas where atrocities and outrages were perpetrated by irregulars of both sides. Folks at the time called these criminals and guerrillas "bushwackers". The fighting in this theater of the Civil War is not commonly known and was particularly ugly and violent. Most actions were small unit affairs, with people who were well known to one another before the war fighting under opposing flags. Violence and crimes against civilians was common as both legitimate armies used irregulars to terrorize the civilian population. The massacre at Centralia, Missouri, September 27, 1864 was perpetrated by Bloody Bill Anderson and his men. There is no mention of this event in the film, of course, as there could be no sympathy for anyone who had had a part in that abomination.
Josey Wales captures the ugliness and horror of those times and provides a motivator to the title character when his family is murdered by Kansas Union irregulars. Wales is enraged and joins Bloody Bill Anderson's Confederate guerrilla outfit. When the War ends, they are one of the last organized Confederate units to surrender (at least according to the film). Wales' comrades surrender themselves at a Union camp, but Josey refuses. But everything is not as it seems and as the men surrender their arms and take the Oath of Allegiance to the Union, they are viciously murdered in cold blood. It turns out that the same unit that has just killed his fellow Confederates is the very same that had killed his family several years before. And so the chase begins... Wales is now the "Outlaw Josey Wales" running from bounty hunters and every male in the territory with a gun not to mention the Union army.
Josey Wales is played by Clint Eastwood in one his best performances. The character is very much like the "Man with no name" from his Spaghetti Western days. Closer to "Blondie" in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly than the silent gunslinger of "Pale Rider", Wales is essentially a good man driven to revenge and violence by circumstances. He is the everyman of the Civil War dragged into the maelstrom of events. As he runs from his pursuers he picks up a ragtag crew of fascinating characters who ride with him, eventually heading for southern Texas. Along the way there are gunfights, suspense, and lots of action.
A great western should have certain components including:
* beautiful desert scenery
* a good story line
* small ramshackle frontier towns
* a hero or anti-hero with strong and understandable motivations
* guns, ideally pistols
* cool hats
* indians
* lots of horses
* rotten villains
Outlaw Josey Wales was directed by Eastwood, too. Sandra Locke, Chief Dan George, and John Vernon co-star.
Wales is an avenger as he rides across deserts and through broken down frontier towns. He has no options, but to find a place to hide, or just keep on riding forever. Every shooting that involve him is self-defense or in the defense of others who cannot defend themselves. He is a hero, an unsurrendered Confederate partisan, haunted by the senseless murder of his family.
Josey Wales has beautiful scenery, lots of horses and pistols, rotten villains who deserve to get shot (and generally do), suffering innocents who need protection, and one of the coolest hats in American cinema history.
Josey Wales' hat is stained with sweat, it's a deep Confederate Gray with a wide and slightly upturned brim. Eastwood hides his eyes under the brim of this hat, and when he slightly lifts his head to look at someone - they know quickly that Wales is not a man to be trifled with. He has a sense of honor and obligation to others, but has no compunction in shooting those who are hunting him or are fixin' to hurt his friends.
There is a touching moment after Eastwood and his friends have arrived at their Texas destination. Sondra Locke, dressed in a fine white dress, talks about how beautiful the clouds look. She represents the stability, and happiness of his pre-war life and the look of sadness and dissociation that Eastwood delivers is a fine and sad one. After all of his war-fighting, his losses, and the personal toll that the War has taken, Josey Wales must try very hard to find a place for himself in a peaceful and stable post-war environment. Killing is easy now for him; it's living without violence that will be so challenging. One of the more powerful aspects of his character is that he so wants to try.
Great film with some UGLY skeletons... June 27, 2003
Irony Value (Twin Cities)
12 out of 20 found this review helpful
Clint Eastwood has long been known as a star of Western film-it would not be inaccurate to say that no one else since John Wayne has anywhere near the claim he has on being the definitive Western star of the twentieth century. Writer Garth Ennis (The Preacher) has remarked that "there are two kinds of people in the world: people who like Clint Eastwood movies, and dweebs." Ennis is mainly referring to Eastwood's Westerns, and rightly so. Classics like Sergio Leone's "Man with No Name" trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) and Eastwood's own Unforgiven bookend an incredible career in Westerns that astonishingly numbers only eleven films over thirty or so years (in addition to the films named above, Eastwood starred in Hang `Em High, Paint Your Wagon, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Joe Kidd, High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and Pale Rider), not counting contemporary films in which he plays Western-esque characters.The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) is a personal favorite of mine from childhood, and was the second Western Eastwood directed himself; the first was 1972's High Plains Drifter. It features a compelling story, beautiful cinematography, and a fully realized protagonist. The latter is a welcome change of pace from the characters in the Leone films and High Plains Drifter, who were loners with no name and no past. Wales is a dirt farmer in Missouri shortly after the Civil War whose wife and young son are murdered by a renegade Union cavalry unit called the Red Legs, under the command of the evil Captain Terrill. Wales falls in with the Missouri Bushwhackers, a group of similar men who ride the Ozarks fighting a guerilla war against the Union even after the War has ended. They are under the command of Fletcher, who persuades them to turn in their guns and surrender to the Union. Only Wales refuses, and only Wales and Fletcher survive-Wales because he flees, Fletcher because he reluctantly betrays his men, who fall before a Gatling gun as they take an oath of allegiance to the Union. When it becomes known that Wales is the lone survivor, a price is put on his head and Terrill and Fletcher set out after him. Wales embarks on a journey that will take him to Texas en route to Mexico, and ultimately to bloody revenge. Along the way he picks up a few friends: an elderly Cherokee man, a young Apache woman, and a family of Kansas Jayhawkers, including a troubled young woman played by Sondra Locke, Eastwood's longtime live-in companion (this is quite possibly the only role in which I find her even remotely appealing). Eastwood has memorable lines galore and seems to walk around in a perpetual cloud of cordite, spitting tobacco juice on the face of anything and everything around him; in other words, this is a classic. All in all, this is probably my favorite Clint Eastwood Western, but there is one troubling aspect to the film. The degree to which it acts as an apologist text for the Confederacy can sometimes be a bit much. Anyone from North of the Mason-Dixon line who wants to know how English audiences felt about The Patriot is urged to screen this film-its bias is naked. The Union Army is portrayed as an honorless bunch of ruffians and murderers; the only mention made of slavery is a scene in which the young Native American woman Wales rescues remarks that his actions mean that he now owns her. Wales replies simply that he "doesn't want to own anyone," and the matter is never mentioned again. Considering the source, I suppose this is to be expected. TOJW is based on an at the time unpublished novel entitled Gone to Texas, by Forrest Carter. Carter is better known for his controversial fictitious autobiography The Education of Little Tree (about his imaginary childhood as a Native American boy - guess he forgot he's always been just a hateful Cracker), but his best-known work is probably the speech he wrote for Alabama Governor George Wallace's inauguration, the highlight of which was "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" He also headed a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan at one time. It explains a lot. If you can simply accept the film on its own terms, it certainly will not detract from your enjoyment (at least two of my ancestors fought for the Union, one in a fairly high-ranking position, and it's still a sentimental favorite), but you have been warned. On the positive side, Warner Home Video's DVD presentation is flawless-the print used was obviously the absolute best that could be found, with excellent sound and color as crisp as the day it premiered. There's nothing much in the way of extras except for a large collection of trailers for other Westerns, but the film itself is gloriously presented in its original aspect ratio and will only set you back about fifteen bucks. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone who collects Western film not to own this film.
On the Contrary, Great Eastwood May 16, 2006
Wilson Pupps (Blacksburg, VA United States)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
There is something about Clint Eastwood that allows him the luxury of delivering a cheesey macho line without looking like an ass. In a movie full of such lines, Eastwood really shines in this epic western. I have always wondered why the critics never gave this western its due, while normal every day joes continue to give it the thumbs up. I believe the answer lies in the sympathic portrayal of the Confederate outlaw who is Josey Wales. How dare anyone cast anything wearing a Confederate uniform in anything less than an evil light? Moreover, How dare anyone portray Union Soldiers as a bunch of marauding murderers who looted and pillaged their way through a defeated South? These are the type of thoughts likely dancing through the heads of liberal wine drinking cheese eating newspaper types while sitting down to disparage what is Eastwood's best movie.
If this is really what troubles the crtics, then the everyday joes are left ot wonder why. After all, this is one of the first westerns to positively portray the Native American. Gone are the the usual "Indian" stereotypes of broken English, firewater references, and raids on helpless pioneers. In their place, stand references to the Trail of Tears and good hearted attempts to conform with the "white man's world". Furthermore, Josey Wales was never a slave owner but a man seeking vengeance on a rogue group of Union cavalrymen who murdered his family. Taken in its proper context, the war supplies merely a backdrop that allows Josey Wales to develop as a character.
Amidst all the seriousness of vengeance and social commentary regarding the treatment of Native Americans lies several instances of black comedy which keeps the movie from becoming too bitter and preachy. Sure Josey Wales blows away several men with his pistols, but he always makes us laugh by splattering their dead foreheads with tobacco juice, or uttering another of those macho cheesey lines. His elderly side kick supplies a few laughs along the way by bedding a young woman and shoving horny toads in the sleeping face of Josey Wales.
As many times as the Outlaw Josey Wales has been replayed on cable, I guess is the same amount of times I have seen a negative review placed next to its title in the newspaper television guide. With such unfavorable reviews, it's a continued wonder that people continue to discover this film. I guess that in itself is a testament to how good a film this really is.
The Masterpiece Josey Wales February 20, 2005
Jonathan A. Mince (Orlando, FL)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Clint Eastwood surpasses the realm of just a "good classic western film," here he has managed to create a masterpiece. Eastwood himself refers to this as one of his most important films, following the equally great "Unforgiven."
The 1976 film opens with Josey's family being violently slaughtered, sending the Outlaw into a remarkable wrath of revenge. Without giving too much away, the road to death soon becomes the road to redemption.
Eastwood and company incorporated wonderful two handed gunplay, laugh out loud humor, magnificent character development and overall a masterpiece that will stand the test of time.
The remastered edition is a God sent. The anamorphic widescreen has never looked better. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack brings new life to the picture.
I personally loath the Warner Bros. snap cases, but the Clint Eastwood Collection is well worth the frustration. Eastwood's films deserve so much better, such as the treatment of the 2004 3 Disc set release of the dark and spectacular "Mystic River."
The Outlaw Josey Wales throws away the formula of the standard "Western." Maybe that's why it's charm and the power and patience of Eastwood is undeniable.
Eastwood's Masterpiece October 23, 2004
Erik North (San Gabriel, CA USA)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Aside from his multi-Oscar-winning 1992 film UNFORGIVEN, THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES, released in the summer of 1976, may very well be the pinnacle of Clint Eastwood's career both in front of and behind the camera. This is an epic western where Eastwood leaves behind the Man With No Name persona he had cultivated in the spaghetti westerns of director Sergio Leone in the 1960s. For here, he is a man with a name...and a conscience to go along with it.
Eastwood's Josie Wales is a Missouri farmer making out a quiet life for himself amidst the turbulent end of the Civil War who must watch in horror as marauding Union men tear up his land and kill his family. Joining up with a group of Confederate rebels to "set things right", Eastwood soon finds himself on the run from a Union detachment, led by his former commander (John Vernon) and a ruthless soldier (Bill McKinney, who portrayed one of the evil mountain men in DELIVERANCE). In his travails through the Southwest, he makes friends with a wise old Comanche (Chief Dan George) and makes an effort to find peace. But when the Union men close in on him, then he is forced to resort to violence.
A fairly long film, at 135 minutes, and riddled with scenes of occasional violent gunplay and sex scenes, THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES nevertheless shows a more human side to Eastwood's persona than the more modern-day Dirty Harry films. This is in large part due to the complexity of the character as laid out in the screenplay by Phil Kaufman (who was the original director, but was replaced by Eastwood after the two men clashed) and Sonia Chernus, from Forrest Carter's book "Gone To Texas." It also gives Eastwood a chance to stretch himself as an actor with some memorable one-liners, particularly in a scene involving a bounty hunter (John Davis Chandler):
BOUNTY HUNTER: "You're wanted, Wales."
WALES: "Reckon I'm right popular. You a bounty hunter?"
BOUNTY HUNTER: "A man's gotta do somethin' for a livin' these days."
WALES: "Dyin' ain't much of a livin', boy."
As is commonplace with Eastwood as a director, he gives some of his favorite fellow actors prime supporting roles for their talents, George in particular, but also Vernon, whose role as a sympathetic heavy is as rich in complexities as Eastwood's Josie Wales. John Quade, John Mitchum, Royal Dano, Sondra Locke (soon to be Eastwood's beau), Matt Clark, and Paula Trueman are among the other actors that give good support to Eastwood.
Filmed in various parts of California, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada and complete with a superb score by Jerry Fielding, who was nominated for an Oscar here (as he had been on THE WILD BUNCH and STRAW DOGS), THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES proved not only the magnitude of Eastwood's talents, but also the durability of the western genre in the morally complex world of post-Vietnam America. It is strongly recommended.
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