Gary Cooper - The Signature Collection (Sergeant York / The Fountainhead / Dallas / Springfield Rifle / The Wreck of the Mary Deare)

Gary Cooper - The Signature Collection (Sergeant York / The Fountainhead / Dallas / Springfield Rifle / The Wreck of the Mary Deare) Gary Cooper, The Signature Collection has 5 great movies:1. Sergeant York: Absolutely the best of the pack which won Academy Awards. Cooper plays Sgt. York, the real life World War One decorated hero, along with his love interest, Joan Leslie, and his preacher, Walter Brennan. Cooper, as Alvin York, is a rowdy Tennessee backswoods man who becomes converted to a born again Christian as he survives a lighting bolt strike while on horseback, and joins Brennan's church. His conversion changes him to a forgiving man who forgives everyone who had been causing him trouble. But his conversion, which changes him to a pacifist, does not believe he should be fighting in the Army and becomes a Consciousness Objector. Raised in the backwoods and being a sharp shooter with a rifle winning all kinds of shooting awards in his State of Tennessee, he becomes at odds with the thinking of the Army. But when he demonstrates his skills as a sharp shooter at the firng range, the Army allows him to think about whether he wants to leave the Army or become a soldier. Cooper, after given time to think it over, comes to a conclusion to be a soldier, and when shipped to the battlefield in France, Cooper becomes a one man hero, as he captures 132 German soldiers by himself.Cooper returns a decorated hero and is given a ticker tape parade in New York, but after a while, he returns to his native town in Tennseee to be further honored and returns to his girl friend and his mother who had been waiting for him to return.A very inspiring movie and just a great performance by Cooper and al. The movie has strong Christian overtones. I saw this movie first when I was in Elementary School where it was shown in the auditorium. But, with the way things are today with religion and the schools, it would never be shown in the schools. today. But, with the DVD, one can enjoy this great, inspiring, pro American, movie.2. The Fountainhead- Gary Cooper with Raymond Massey and Patricia Neal. Cooper plays a modern Architect who builds stuctures in a manner not with the normal views and conventions that prevail at the time. For this, he is challenged by others and condemned for it publically, and in the Courts. A moving drama with a heavy romance between Cooper and Patricia Neal. The underlying subplot is indiviuality vs. collectiveness. Does one give in the collective thought and wisdom of the day by compromising to others in building structures, or does one stand up and produce what he believes expresses indivudality and freedom?3. Dallas- An average Western cowboy yarn made better than average by the acting of great acting stars like Gary Cooper, Raymond Massey, Ruth Roman, and Steve Cochran. Massey, along with Cochran, are the villians. Massey is a real estate swindler giving mortgages to settlers and then foreclosing early and taking the people's land and money. Cooper is the lawman out to stop him and this crooked business and goes after Cochran who is working with Massey and out to shoot Cooper. Plenty of action and old fashioned western shooting in this movie that presents the entertainment that western movie buffs enjoy.4. Springfield Rifle- This movie, starring Gary Cooper is an excellent western feature in this movie pack that surprised me in how good it is, considering that Sgt.York was part of the pack. Cooper is a Major in the U.S. Army during the Civil War who is charged with cowardice, stripped from his command at a Court Marshal, branded with a yellow stripe down the back of his shirt, and forced to leave the fort in disgrace. It appears that he and the Lt. under his command, who brought the charges against him, are at odds with each other. But, in reality, both are part of a newly counter intelligence unit who is trying to find out, who in the Army, is giving vital information to the Confederates about the movement of much needed horses to the field units.Cooper plays like he has joind up with a band of raiders who steals the horses and sells them to the South for money. Cooper's effort to play like he is a traitor, along with his dishonorable discharge, confuses his wife and hurts his image with his son.Cooper finds out who the traitor is within the Army which is a surprise that I will not reveal. There is plenty of action in this movie as Cooper's efforts are rewarded with the capture of the traitor and his rise back to being resinstated and honored by the Army for his great work in helping save the Union. Plus, his efforts allow him to get back in good graces with his wife and son as they find out that he is not a coward or a traitor, but a hero for great undercover work for his country.5. The Wreck of the Mary Deere- A very unusal story of a salvage unit, led by Charlton Heston, comes upon a ship, burning at sea, with only Gary Cooper aboard. When Heston boards the ship, the two men are at odds with each other as Cooper's explanation of what happened to the crew and why the ship is burning does not sit well with Heston. It appears that Cooper is the fault of eveything and that he may have even murdered the Captain. But Cooper will not reveal what happened and asks Heston to keep quiet about the ship and trust him. He gets Heston to agree that the ship sank at sea when they return to shore when in fact, they grounded the ship on rocks on a reef.It is later revealed in the movie that the owners of the ship were in a deal with members of the crew who later abandoned the ship to sell the cargo of modern airplane parts to China for money and collect the insurance money for the ship that supposedly sunk. The owners were in business with selling materials to the enemy. Cooper is being set up and charged as the one who set fire to the boat with an explosion and who killed the Captain, and who told the crew to abandon ship for no good reason.Even Heston believes that Cooper might be the culprit until Cooper convinces Heston to go to the ship which is on the reef at sea, and get Scuba gear to check the cargo bin to see what is in the cargo crates. The crates should still contain the airplane engines, provided that they were not actually sold to the enemy. But, this gets back to the owners of the ship, and members of the crew who were in on the selling of the engines, and they go after Cooper and Heston to stop them from discovering and reporting the facts about the crates on the ship.An excellent and unusal drama script with great acting by great actors.

This signature collection of films starring Gary Cooper that are now under the control of Warner Home Video is a great tribute to an actor whose film career spanned 35 years. Two of the films are 5 star films - "The Fountainhead" and "Sergeant York", two more are 4 star films - "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" and "Springfield Rifle", and one film is a 3 star work - "Dallas". The idea of the signature collections is to present the best performances of an actor or actress in as good a group of films as possible, not vice versa. Thus, you don't necessarily have the best movies a particular performer did, but you do have their finest performances."Sergeant York" gets the best treatment of the collection, with a special two disk edition that includes a commentary track by film historian Jeannine Basinger, the classic Warner Brothers cartoon "Porky's Preview", the vintage short film "Lions for Sale", several Gary Cooper film trailers, a very good documentary on the making of Sergeant York, and a documentary on the life Gary Cooper. Cooper does a very good job in holding your attention in a rather long film tribute to the story of Alvin York, who pretty much single-handedly killed 32 German soldiers and captured 132 others during World War I. This performance won him his first Best Actor Oscar.The role of Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead" must have been a difficult one to pull off, but Cooper does it with style and with believability in a real departure from his other screen roles. Here he is still the rugged individualist, but a different kind than what you're probably accustomed to seeing. I've never bought into Ayn Rand's philosophy, but this movie is very well done with some great performances, even if you do have a hard time buying the motivations of the supporting players. The film comes with a featurette on the making of the film, and is quite enlightening.The other three films do not have extra features. My favorite of the three is "The Wreck of the Mary Deare". Here Cooper costars with Charleton Heston as a mysterious ship captain found alone on a ghost ship when Heston's salvage company runs across the abondoned vessel. Through a large part of the film you can't tell if Cooper is playing a crazy man, a criminal, or one of the good guys. It's a good combination maritime adventure and courtroom drama and also features a good performance from a very young Richard Harris in a supporting role.No Gary Cooper collection would be complete without some westerns, and so we have "Springfield Rifle", which is a rather obscure but excellent western with plenty of twists and turns in the plot. "High Noon" it is not, but it will still hold your interest with Cooper playing a dishonorably discharged Army officer during the late stages of the Civil War. Finally, there is "Dallas", another western and the least entertaining of the five films. It is above average, but that is about all. The best part of the film is seeing Raymond Massey, who often plays self-righteous parts, play a murderous villain. Don't get me wrong, Cooper plays the fugitive ex-Confederate soldier to perfection, it's just the material itself that could have been better.Warner's still has several other good Gary Cooper films it has not released to DVD yet, so perhaps there will be a volume two. If so, one wish I have that I hope is granted is that Warner Bros. rescues "Meet John Doe" from the public domain and includes it.

All my compliments for delivering the movies pack so fast. All films have great image quality and formats perfectly respected; 3 films have never been relased in France: Dallas, The wreack of the Mary Deare and Sergeant York. You can imagine the joy of a Gary Cooper's Fan watching these films for the first time. I owned yet Springfield Rifle and Fountain Head, but it doesn't matter to my point of view, it's a great movie collection with english and french subtitles, that every collector should own. Thank you very much to the Amazon organisation making that opportunity possible. I'm 100% satisfied. Best wishes.PS: I'm interested too with: Steve mcQueen, Burt Lancater, Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn, Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Jack Palance, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Cary Grant, Peter Sellers, Jack Lemmon, Jack Palance,etc; with french and english subtitles. Don't hesitate to contact me.

This is an awesome set of Coopers 40s-50s career films. All movies are in a slim clear case and doesn't contain any inserts. All movies except "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" are in Full frame format. This collection includes stars like: Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Walter Brennan, Patricia Neal, Ruth Roman, Steve Cochran, Joan Leslie, Phyllis Thaxter, Raymond Massey, George Tobias, plus others! "Sergeant York" ('41) runs for about 134mins and is in b&w, "The Fountainhead" ('48) runs for about 112mins and is in b&w, "Dallas" ('50) runs for about 94mins and is in color, "Springfield Rifle" ('52) runs for about 93mins and is in color, and "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" runs for about 105mins and is in color. Overall this is an awesome collection of great movies and I would recommend it.

What a brilliant collection of Gary Cooper's movies, varied, and entertaining. I have seen many of his movies, but not whats on offer here. Enjoyed all of them.

GOOD

Terrific

Great actor Gary Cooper. These movies are a great buy and it's nice to watch movies with an actor who is honorable on screen and off.