Reviews (7)

BONANZA Restored To Its Original Quality!
Bonanza is at last available as its meant to be...Digitally Mastered, original music, the burning map, and the beautiful watercolor drawings of the opening and closing credits.

The various repeat airings on television since the series ended were edited by up to 10 minutes to allow for more commercial time. This DVD presents the episodes in their original form. And the picture quality is no doubt better than the quality of the then-new color TVs when the series originally aired.

May this Volume 1 sell enough that Republic/Artisan continue to remaster the original prints from the series. There are many classic episodes that have never seen release on video, and were sadly edited in tv repeats...

Springtime, The Hayburner, Hoss and the Leprechauns, The Wooing of Abigail Jones, etc.

The original masters of the Bonanza series need to be restored and preserved on DVD.

For die-hard Bonanza fans only
The class act in classic TV westerns seems to be Have Gun Will Travel, which works on many levels and effectively engages the modern audience. Bonanza fans may appreciate the excellent DVD transfer, gorgeous settings and selection of episodes in this product. But the rest of us would be better advised to select something with vision and adult-level dialogue going for it.

Why not Season Box Sets?
This is a great compilation of classic episodes of one of the best shows in TV History.My only complaint is the lack of the deserved respect for such a show.Many classic shows from the 60s and 70s have been released in wonderful quality season box sets.Why not Bonanza?

A Western classic!
So,the waiting time is over.A beautiful DVD in Top Quality of the great Bonanza TV-Show.I am astonished about the remarkable Choice about the episodes.The Crucible and All about Walter,one dramatic and one funny,are truly some of the greatest from the complete Run.And the Orginal Sound and Opening Sequence let the heart jump.Bonanza Fans,this is the first real deal on DVD.Buy it and lets hope there will be more.And my wish is that there will be more classic shows like Branded,Man called Shenandoah,Lancer,High Chapparal,Bronco,Laramie or Gunsmoke.I think there is a big market for these treats.

great all around dvd
this is the best dvd yet and i would highly recommend. i too will be waiting for future editions from artisan. now if we can only get alias smith and jones by someone like "artisan"!!!! ... Read more

Amazon.com

Two years after unleashing The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms upon New York City, master special-effects creator Ray Harryhausen turned loose a giant (albeit six-armed) octopus on San Francisco, and the result is another enjoyable atom-age adventure that should please fans of vintage science fiction. Kenneth Tobey, who battled The Thing (From Another World) in 1951, stars as a Navy captain who pursues a monstrous octopoid (sextapoid?) after it attacks his atomic sub. After it wreaks havoc with shipping lanes, he tracks the creature to San Francisco for a final showdown. Scripting by George Worthing Yates (Them!) and Hal Smith and direction by Robert Gordon are perfunctory at best, which gives the always-reliable Tobey and co-star Faith Domergue little to do, but this is Harryhausen's show, and his monster, though budgetarily restrained, is still impressive. Younger audiences weaned on digital FX may find this creaky, but nostalgic viewers will enjoy its simple thrills. --Paul Gaita ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Ray himself found the movie lacking.....
This was another movie where the budget was so small, Ray had to sacrifise the quality of the story for more cheaper production issues. The design of the creature was also limited, the budget being what it was, Ray only designed the octopus with six arms. and tried to maintain that the other two arms were underwater (Okay). They also never got permission to actually film in San Franciso, so they filmed all the out door scenes from the back of a bakery truck that drove all over the city and over the Golden Gate Bridge, the rest of the movie was shot either on other locations or on sound stages. As a result, this movie really was not much different then other B-movie monster pictures that were made at the time, and for Ray, to this day, he still maintains that the movie was not one of his better films.

Good Film But More Bland Than Most Harryhausen Films
I had never seen the film until this past week when I picked it up at a local Borders store for $15. To tell you the truth, I had some high hopes for the films, but like most monster films of the era, the monster's time was limited and short. So I wasn't expecting too much.
The film starts out pretty slow with Ken Tobey and his sub crew trying to figure out what they got themselves caught up in (the octopus).
The human parts of the film are like any other monster film where a man falls in love with a beautiful woman and they love each other in the end. The acting is pretty decent but seems to drag on for FAR too long! Plus the monster scenes were much shorter in this one compared to other Harryhausen films which was disappointing.
Overall, the film does deliver and is an enjoyment. But the overdone human drama and very few scenes of the octopus make this movie somewhat dull. A good film, but not one of Harryhausen's best as far as entertainment value.

Great effects from Harryhausen in a rather bland film.
"It Came from beneath the Sea" marks the second time special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen would head up the effects on a feature film. (He made his solo debut on "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and had previously worked with Willis O'Brien on "Mighty Joe Young.") It also marked Harryhausen's first collaboration with producer Charles H. Schneer, with whom he would form a long-lasting partnership through many classic fantasy and adventure films such as "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" and "Clash of the Titans." Schneer conceived the idea for this film: a giant octopus attacks San Francisco. He thought that the image of a huge mollusk tearing down parts of the Golden Gate Bridge would thrill audiences, and Harryhausen told him he could pull it off.

And he did! Harryhausen's capabilities got better with each film, and in this 1950s rampaging radioactive monster flick, he managed some stunning effects sequences with his stop-motion octopus. Actually, the octopus only has six arms (a 'sextopus' I guess), a budget-saving move Harryhausen incorporated so there would be less action to animate. It's almost impossible to notice this slight-of-hand because the monster is usual half-submerged, and the constantly moving tentacles are partially hidden behind its body. It works fantastically; the tentacles seem independent creatures as they break through concrete, rip apart towers, and slither after and crush fleeing tourists on the Embarcadero. The shots of the semi-octopus towering over the wharf are still stunning even today; Harryhausen's optical work is fantastic. The attack on the Golden Gate Bridge is justly famous, and was done without the city fathers' permission! (The crew had to sneak shots out of truck driving back and forth over the bridge to get the required background plates for the special effects.) Harryhausen developed a special screw device that unfurled the tentacles and pushed them up through the simulated concrete on the model of the bridge. The final result still has magic.

But perhaps the best effects sequence in the film is the thrilling battle between the army soldiers armed with flame-throwers trying to push the octopus's flailing tentacles off the streets and back into the water. The reality of the scene is amazing: you really will suspend disbelief and enjoy watching the army battle street to street with the groping tentacles.

All this great effects work aside, "It Came from beneath the Sea" is a lesser film in the Harryhausen/Schneer body of work. Away from Harryhausen's magic, the film is remarkably flat, wooden, and shows too obviously its tight budget. The stars, Kenneth Tobey and Faith Domergue, are nearly stick-figures with little in the way of character or energy, and the romance between them is so boring you'll be praying for the octopus to show up and smash something. Director-for-hire Robert Gordon does little with the human scenes aside from letting them play out in front of a static camera, and most of the dialogue scenes are loaded with stodgy clichés no different than any other science fiction film of the period. The dull documentary narrator explaining the many shots of stock footage doesn't help much either. With their next two films, "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" and "20 Million Miles to Earth," Harryhausen and Schneer would find more interesting actors and more creative directors to give the story some help.

"It Came from beneath the Sea" is a must-have for Harryhausen fans of course, and anyone with a love for the handmade visual effects of the good old days (before computers) will enjoy immensely the creative work that Harryhausen pulled off here. It might be a bit rough for non-Harryhausen veterans to make it through the human scenes, however. I would advise them to start with "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" or "20 Million Miles to Earth" before beholding the destruction of San Francisco by a six armed Octopus.

The DVD comes with the full documentary "The Harryhausen Chronicles," which can be found on most of Columbia's Ray Harryhausen collection discs. The DVD also preserves the film in its original widescreen format (most people probably had no idea it was show in widescreen!).

Out of primordial depths to destroy the world!
Legendary producer Charles H. Schneer, the man behind such films as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and Clash of the Titans (1981), and technical effects master Ray Harryhausen (back in the day they were called technical effects, not special effects), the man behind the eye popping effects of all the movies listed above, comes It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), a rousing tale of scary sea beast from the greatest depths of the ocean floor rising to satisfy its' insatiable hunger on us tasty humans.

The film stars Tobey Keith, who many may remember from the quintessential sci-fi thriller The Thing From Another World (1951) and Faith Domergue from This Island Earth (1955) as Cmdr. Pete Mathews and Professor Lesley Joyce, respectively.

The movie opens on the maiden voyage, or shake down cruise, of the United States newest, most advanced, and spiffiest atomic submarine, with Cmdr. Pete Mathews in charge. Things seem to be going well, that is, until a large object is appears on the ping ping machine, sonar I think they called it, making a beeline for the sub. What is it? What could it be? If you've seen the front of the DVD case, then you probably know it's a giant octopus, so I don't feel I am giving anything away here. Why does a giant octopus attack the submarine? It's actually explained pretty well further into the movie, so I will leave it to that. After some tactical maneuvering, the submarine gets free with the crew unable to determine what actually happened. Once in port for repairs, a huge piece of organic material is found caught in the flaps or something of the submarine, and some specialists are called in to investigate.

Enter Professor Joyce and some other dude (actually, it's Donald Curtis, an actor who appeared in more movie than I care to count throughout the 40's and into the 50's). Commander Pete gets the google eyes for Professor Joyce, but is unsure of her relationship with the other scientist dude, and thus sets up the screwy romantical subplot someone thought needed to be in the film. Finally, after weeks of intensive research, the scientists believe they have identified the organic material to be from a humongous cephalopod (octopus to you and I...yeah, those scientist types have odd names for everything. They need to learn to speak English good like you and me). The military big wigs are skeptical, which infuriates Professor Joyce, but their reaction seemed the right one as not to run around starting a panic and go off half-cocked. Anyway, the octopus starts tearing into shipping lanes, thus confirming the fact that it is real, and the hunt is on. The United States Navy vs. the giant, grabby octopus...get your tickets now, as they are going fast.

The special effects by Harryhausen look great, with the octopus attacking a ship for the soft, chewy occupants, dragging itself on to coastal areas to grab a few landlubbers, and ripping up the Golden Gate Bridge. I had read that the octopus only has six arms, as budgetary constraints did not allow for the extra expense of animating all eight limbs, so it was proposed that the two limbs we don't see are always submerged. The action during the scenes with the octopus is pretty fast and intense, so I didn't even notice this minor issue. The acting was pretty good, for the most part, and there is copious amount of stock footage, some of which the quality was pretty poor, making it stand out against the really good-looking picture quality. At least the footage used was relevant and pretty exciting stuff, most dealing with naval ships and depth charges being set off in the water...BOOOOOM!!! The idea of a giant octopus dragging itself on land to feed on the puny humans (the cephalopod was HUGE) seemed pretty 'out there', but allowed for some cool scenes of the creature trashing buildings and such. Maybe next time those civilians will heed the civil defense sirens, those that didn't get all squished or ate up...hee hee...I will admit, the movie was a bit campy at times, but it's a lot of fun, and fairly fast paced at a run time of 79 minutes.

The quality of the print is really nice and clean, and presented in wide screen anamorphic. Special features include a trailer for the film and other Harryhausen movies, along with one for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The featurette 'This is Dynamation' is here, along with documentary 'The Harryhausen Chronicles', both of which I've seen on other releases.

Cookieman108

Six Arms To Hold You...
IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA is another good Ray Harryhausen monster vehicle. Kenneth Tobey (The Thing From Another World) is a tough submarine commander, thrust into the middle of a nautical mystery when his sub is attacked by some unknown object. It turns out to be a gargantuan six-armed octopus on a rampage of death! Faith Demergue (This Island Earth) is a marine biologist who just happens to be beautiful. She and Tobey soon fall for each other while trying to study the monstrous mollusk. The best part is when it rises from the sea and goes berserk in San Francisco, it's tentacles serpentining through the streets and grabbing the Golden Gate Bridge! Will it destroy the bay area? Will mankind survive it's onslaught? Will Tobey and Demergue's characters marry in a nice little ceremony? Watch and find out... ... Read more

Reviews (2)

it all comes back!
Bonanza was the first series I watched on tv and it's great to see it back. This is a real good buy: eight episodes of good image and sound quality. The stories are a bit too simple for these times, but these episodes sling you right back forty years ago when you were a twelve year old kid. Great! Everything seemed clear and simple then. Hum. Curious but fun.

Bonanza Episodes.
This dvd has two discs with a total of 8 episodes. A snap case and double sided.[Brentwood home video] Episodes are,Disc 1 side A.1. Escape to Ponderosa.2. The Ape.Disc 1 side B.1. The Bloodline.2. Death at Dawn.Disc 2 side A.1. Blood on the Land.2. Badge withouit Honor.Disc 2 side B.1. Day of Reckoning.2. Desart JusticeThe sound and picture is very good you can hear clearly and see clearly but the bad thing is how many times are they going to re..release the same episodes over and over again???Features are simple....play,choose sceen and the story of Bonanza.If you don't have these episodes on dvd or vhs do buy this one, because of the picture and sound it's worth the money.I bought this in a video store just a short time ago and I couldn't pass it up so I thought I'd pass some info to other amazon buyers. ... Read more

Description

3 Great Movies on 1 DVD.Star Power, Exciting Genre with Extras on each DVD. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

What A Wonderful Episode
This is an excellent episode.Hoss finally gets to meet his uncle Gunar who turns out to be a comanchero.Nevile Brand is great playing the long lost uncle who in the end is not what he appears to be after all. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Very emotional Bonanza.
But fun. It's about a boy who's struggling to get over his father's death when Ben killed him in self defense. It's fun, emotiomal, dramatic, and many more adjectives I can't think of right now. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

I'm very dissapointed with this pack
I though I have made a good election but this 2 dvd pack has two lenght episodes but the sound is quite bad is very hard to hear some sentences and the most important the famous theme has been changed by a ridiculous country theme.

Gladdly I didn't pick the 5 dvd pack made by the same studio.

Don't buy this please,try something else.

Could have been much better
Good story and good acting, but audio is quite poor. The familiar theme music is missing entirely and the dialogue is spotty at best. Several sentences were hard to hear, and then the background music would blast you out of your chair. Glad I didn't buy the 5-pack. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Good eps, so-so quality
These are classic "Bonanza" episodes. I would prefer that the videos include the original theme music, but I understand that copyright issues prevent that. The technical quality of the video is not the best, but the DVD is quite watchable. I'm happy to see "Bonanza" being released in DVD format, and look forward to more eps on DVD!

Struggles for justice amidst violence and lawlessness
Bonanza is the famous television western series, set in the vicinity of Virginia City, Nevada, during the years of the Civil War, soon after the discovery of the fabulous Comstock Silver Lode. Bonanza is the saga of the Cartwrights, a prosperous family of ranchers. The stories relate their struggles for justice amidst violence and lawlessness as they attempt to maintain and operate their timberland ranch, known as the Ponderosa Ranch. Many of these classics were produced in the early years of filmmaking. This means that primitive audio recording technique will be more noticeable in the DVD format, so will glitches in picture. These movies ("Desert Justice" & "Badge Without Honor" have been rescued from the film vaults in most cases and have not been restored. "Desert Justice" is the story of Dave Walker, one of Ben's ranch hands. Dave is accused of murdering the wife of Marshall Dowd. After the Cartwrights discover that Dave was beaten while in jail, they decide to accompany him to Los Angeles where his trial is to be held. "Badge Without Honor" is about a man named Gerald Eskith who comes to town claiming to be a Deputy Marshall. He wants to take the Cartwrights friend Jason Blaime to San Francisco to testify against the Murdock Gang. Adam, however, has his suspicions and decides to go along with them..... On the DVD (one episode on each side) you'll also find Interactive Menus, Interactive Film Trivia about Bonanza and information about the actors. A pity is the missing well-known "Bonanza"-tune. Now all the episodes start with a nasty kind of music. See Lorne Greene as Ben Cartwright, a three time widower; Pernell Roberts as his eldest son Adam; big Dan Blocker as son Hoss; Michael Landon as the youngest son, Little Joe. It's nice to see all the famous characters back on the screen. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A very different type of Bonanza.
They don't mean ape literally. They mean a man who has lived like an ape all his life and is now scaring everyone in Virginia City. Nobody likes him when they meet him, except Hoss. The ape loves a girl, who he thinks loves him back, but is really laughing behind his back. After the law goes after the ape, it's up to Hoss to lead him the right way. I'm pretty sure you will find this weird Bonanza entertaining. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

2 Great Bonanzas!
The Blodd Line is an emotional Bonanza about a boy who must get over his father's death. But Death at Dawn is really fun. The murderer, Farmer Perkins, laughs throughout the show. I know it's supposed to be a mean laugh, but it's hilarious. This guy killed a store cashier in cold blood and only the cashier's wife was an eyewitness to the murder. They sentence Perkins to hang, but his friend has held Ben to hostage to free Perkins. It's up to the three boys to save their pa and still hang Perkins. This is probably the best Bonanza dvd that you'll find. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Outstanding fun and suspense.
This is a definite dvd to add to your Bonanza collection. It's about a cold blooded murder by a murderer who denies killing a storeowner. Her wife testifies in court of the cold blooded murder and it makes the murderer to be sentenced at dawn to be hanged by the neck until death. But the murderer'd friend takes Ben into hostage into a stable so that if they hang him, Ben gets hung. It's up to Joe, Hoss, and Adam to go on with the hanging and save their father. Such a suspicious and entertaining Bonanza; so fans, don't pass this by. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

bonanza video dvds or vhs series
i just want the viewers to know that Bonanza is nothing like the lone ranger series. Bonanza is in a class by itself. Bonanza ran for 14yrs in a row. you can't say that about anyother western of that time span. Bonanza has great stories with some shoot outs but not too much violence. Bonanza had excellent actors and writers and producers. If your're not sure of what western series to purchase, you can rest asure that anything that deals with Bonanza is a plus for your collection. trust someone who knows that show well, i promise you won't be sorry. after all we have enough violence in the real world!

Probably a 2 & 1/2 star
First of all DVD quality...It sounded in between I think the only place I noticed it was the theme sounded a little off.; but the picture did look good to me.

Now the other stuff. This has two movies: The Stranger and The Avenger. For those who haven't watched Bonanza on TV (like myself) These are not the mean killing machine type of Westerns that fill the market, but Westerns with very minimal violence. They remind me a lot of the Lone Ranger in almost every aspect. What more can I say? You decide. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Terrible Hossless...
No Hoss. Poor fellow died prior to this episode, so we don't get to see the big guy. But that's not what makes this episode terrible. If you want to see what really killed off this series, watch Landon (Little Joe) overacting in this reinterpretation of "The Miracle Worker". Painful! Poor Altman and Landon were just doing their jobs. The blame goes to the scriptwriter and producer of this wasted effort. IMPORTANT NOTE: The DVD does NOT use the original "Bonanza" title theme, which was probably too expensive for them to procure, but substitutes a nice little alternative country-music ditty. Should be banned from all reissue. Not worth watching, even for Altman fans, which begs the question ... why is it that [junk] like this is available, but Robert Altman's wonderful films "Three Women" and "Images" remain unattainable?

I don't know about the quality, but I know about the episode
Little Joe is in one of his best episodes in this one. He tries to teach a deaf girl to talk with her hands and needs the help of the girl's daughter. But there's another man who don't care about her talking; he just wants to kiss her and all. Anyway, so Little Joe gets a book to help teach her and she soon catches on. Until she says she's in love with Joe. The Joe gets mad, but apologizes. They go back to normal later and then it has a surprising ending. A great early Bonanza to own. ... Read more