Yul Brynner

Westworld
$19.98
yeah , if you're young and you look at this film today (what with all the advances in filmaking) you're probably not going to be knocked out . when i was ten and even looking back , it rocked . evidently that wasn't much of a budget i see in retrospect . yes , some of the stuff (and folks) look television . i love it though . i thought and still think the idea and execution is so cool and different . i showed it to one of my nephews some years back . my wife and her sister were gently teasing the film from the kitchen . the boy was captivated and excitedly told his mother all about it afterwords . i know the feeling . old school 101 .

Taras Bulba
$14.98
Good old Yul ( actually a Ukrainian who never admitted his heritage and instead preferred to offer the public various absurd explanations of his ancestry ) is perfect for this role and its no wonder that this project was so important to him in so many ways. The Cossacks were among the world's most outstanding warriors. They offered unrelenting and valorious battle to the Ottoman Turks, Mongol Tartars, and invading Poles while facing the overwhelming numbers of these enemy forces. History must recognize the Cossack as the most outstanding horseman any culture ever produced. A Cossack could slice an enemy in half with a single blow from his sword arm. He fought with halberd, pike, mace, warclub, spear, and sword. His courage in the face of superior enemy numbers was unquestionable and a matter of historic record. Such were those rustic, scalp-locked riders of the Ukrainian Steppes!
This movie is good, but that's all. Hollywood ruined it - PERIOD ! Considering WHO the people were who ran studios in those days, its no surprise either. At least the script could have followed the story Nicholi Gogol wrote in which Taras Bulba meets his end as a Polish captive who is burned at the stake. This would have been an ending that would have allowed Yul's macho persona to really electrify the screen since Gogol's character is defiant and haughty toward his enemies even as the flames licked at his legs! Instead this movie offers the viewer an ending that is mush! A pathetic excuse of a finale in which the Cossacks become humane toward enemies who had been utterly inhuman toward them for decades! Absurd and sickening! However, some of the battle scenes are worth watching just in themselves.
Anyway, it could have been better, but at least its something in terms of Medieval Eastern European history on film.

Buccaneer [VHS]
$14.95
I saw this movie three or four times when it first came out on the big screen. It might be considered a little sugary today, but compared to the poor releases we now see from Tinseltown, it is miles ahead.
The United States in the War of 1812 were not the losers nor the "bad guys." There were several reasons for the war, most of them based on the British understanding that these states were still colonies and therefore liable for assisting their naval war against the French (e.g., by the impressment of American seamen). The outcome of the war forever abolished that idea; for that reason, the War of 1812 is justly termed America's Second War for Independence and a key victory. It is true that the British did not wear kilts at new Orleans, but this movie, as well as the 1938 version, if anything downplay the stupendous achievement by Jackson and the civilians, militia and few career soldiers on the American side. A small British force did advance on the opposite side of the river, but their initial landings were soundly thrashed, their preceding artillery barrage was smashed and their naval attack upriver was decisively repulsed, all before the great attack of January 8th (a national holiday for Americans up to the Civil War). The victory also meant that the British were barred from seizing and holding the city as a naval base, which the treaty of Ghent, signed in December, 1814, was deliberately worded to let them do (see Peter Reilly's British at the Gates).
This movie is enjoyable and, at times, inspiring and, guess what - it is also factual.

Villa Rides
$14.95
One would think that with a cast like this it couldn't miss. But, what a turkey. "Plan 9 from Outerspace," may be the only movie that I've seen that is worse. Actually, "Plan 9," may be a better movie.

What a waste of the talents of Yul Brenner, Robert Mitchem, Charles Bronson, and Herbert Lom.

Pretty sad...