A plethora of classic Westerns are making their DVD debut in May, making the month perhaps the most fruitful four weeks of Western releases since the Digital Video Disc phenomenon commenced. One wonders why the studios took quite this long to plumb their vaults for some of these renowned films, but more than anything, it speakes testaments of just how deep the Western vaults remain.

Many of the current crop of Westerns on DVD hail from the 1930’s, ‘40’s and ‘50’s, but there are some from subsequent decades as well, even up to the brand new (TLA’s 2002 film, “800 Bullets (800 Balas).” The classics feature such serial actors as Glenn Ford, Randolph Scott, Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwych, Anthony Quinn, Dorothy Malone, Richard Widmark, Maureen O’Hara, Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner, Jean Peters, Gregory Peck, and yes, even Henry Fonda in a couple of classic roles (“Drums Along the Mohawk” and “Warlock”).

These are the pre-eminent Western actors and actresses of the time, if even many of the films are not their ultimate roles. Needless to say, May’s DVD releases are stunning in their range, reach, and eclecticism, not to mention for the realization that much more exists within the vault to keep Western aficionados occupied for many years to come.

800 Bullets (800 Balas)

International Film Festival.

Imagine the love child of Sergio Leone and Mel Brooks midwived by Almodóvar and you get 800 Bullets, a wickedly wacked-out western fantasy by the baddest bad boy of Spanish cinema, Álex de la Iglesia. Ten-year-old Carlos has run away from home to find his grandfather in the deserts of central Spain, the setting for all those glorious spaghetti westerns of thei1960's. Grandpa Julian (Sancho Gracia) had been Eastwood's stunt double and now stars in a run-down western tourist park populated by washed-up stock-character misfits who can't give up the long-gone limelight. When Carlos' uptight real-estate mogul mom (Carmen Maura) buys the land and sends in the riot police to clear them out, Julian and his gang stage one last all-out overt-the-top shoot-out between good and evil.