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Jim Brown fans, take note: this a disc for you.  The Wild West Collection moniker is truth­ful, as this rep­re­sents a pair of west­erns for 20th Century Fox’s back cat­a­log, but it’s also a dou­ble bill of movies with Jim Brown.  However you slice it, it’s another strong cat­a­log release from Shout Factory that is likely to enter­tain budget-conscious cult movie fans.

Both films are pre­sented in anamor­phic trans­fers here.  Rio Conchos is pre­sented in its full Cinemascope for­mat, a first for domes­tic home video, and it looks suit­ably sharp and col­or­ful.  Take A Hard Ride, which had pre­vi­ously been issued on disc by Anchor Bay Entertainment, also looks nice in this pre­sen­ta­tion.  Mono mixes are used for both films, pre­sented in Dolby Digital, and both sound fine.

In terms of extras, trail­ers are pro­vided for each film: the trailer for Rio Conchos comes from a rough-looking ele­ment and Take A Hard Ride comes from a video source but both are a fun view for fans.  There are also a cou­ple of new extras included with Take A Hard Ride in the form of inter­views with Jim Kelly and Fred Williamson.  Kelly gives the viewer a thumb­nail sketch of how his career began and offers a few choice mem­o­ries about the shoot in a gen­tle but artic­u­late style.  Williamson’s inter­view is a lit­tle longer and fea­tures him dis­cussing his love of west­erns, what it was like to work with Jim Brown and how he and Brown chore­o­graphed their own fight at the end of the film.  As always, Williamson is an ener­getic racon­teur and fun to watch.

In short, the pre­sen­ta­tion is nice on both titles and a few extras fur­ther sweeten an already gen­er­ous deal.  Whether Jim Brown movies or west­erns are your thing, this double-bill of Rio Conchos and Take A Hard Ride offers some­thing for a broad swath of cult movie fans.

Rio Conchos / Take A Hard Ride [Double Feature]

Rio Conchos / Take A Hard Ride [Double Feature]

Rio Conchos / Take A Hard Ride — Double Feature      Rio Conchos: In aveng­ing him­self against the Apache Indians who have mas­sa­cred his fam­ily, ex-Confederate Army offi­cer Lassiter (Richard Boone) recov­ers a stolen U.S. Army repeat­ing rifle and finds him­self arrested by the U.S. Army in con­nec­tion with the stolen firearm. Lassiter is offered his free­dom if he leads a small group into Mexico, con­sist­ing of an Army cap­tain (Stuart Whitman), a Buffalo Soldier sergeant (Jim Brown, in his film debut), a knife-wielding Mexican pris­oner (Tony Franciosa) and an Apache woman war­rior. After blast­ing their way through ban­dits and Apaches, they dis­cover a mega­lo­ma­ni­a­cal Confederate sol­dier (Edmond O’Brien) sell­ing guns to the Apaches.Take A Hard Ride: Take a tough-as-nails trail boss (Jim Brown, The Dirty Dozen), a smooth gam­bler (Fred Williamson, Black Caesar), a ruth­less bounty hunter (Lee Van Cleef, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly), a mute mar­tial arts mas­ter (Jim Kelly, Enter The Dragon), a des­per­ate pros­ti­tute (Catherine Spaak, Cat O’ Nine Tails) and hun­dreds of greed-crazed gun­men. Turn them all loose in a chase to the Mexican bor­der for a for­tune in gold, and you have the action-packed epic Take A Hard Ride. Hollywood leg­ends Dana Andrews (Laura), Barry Sullivan (The Bad And The Beautiful) and Harry Carey Jr. (The Searchers) costar.