Ox-Bow Incident (DVD)

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Although Fox didn't make a cent on "Ox-Bow," Fonda always said it was one of the best films he ever made.

Video:
The people at Fox do a good job preserving their old films, and they do an equally good job when they have someone clean them up and remaster them. "The Ox-Bow Incident" is a restored print, so any traces of fade, scratches, specks, dirt, lines, or other age signs have been removed. The result is not quite in the category of the best black-and-white DVD remasterings of old movies, nor does it compare with a modern black-and-white production like the Coen brothers' "The Man Who Wasn't There," but it's good. Like most of Fox's movies, this one is transferred to disc at an exceptionally high bit rate, producing a picture that is clean and free of grain, with B&W contrasts nicely heightened. But object delineation is still slightly fuzzy or smeared, perhaps a condition inherent to the original print. Not to worry; a classic remains a classic.

Audio:
The sound is presented in two formats, the film's original monaural and a new stereo transcription, both done up in Dolby Digital. Neither soundtrack is particularly noteworthy, however, the mono sounding hard and edgy, the stereo sounding slightly smoother and wider (but not much wider), basically the mono spread across the front speakers. In either case, the audio is brighter and more forward-sounding than we are used to in most modern movies, with a small degree of background noise accompanying the quieter passages. Don't get me wrong, though. Compared to what the sound must have been like before the Dolby Digital cleaning and restoring, what we have is fine, limited frequency range, constricted dynamics, and all. Dialogue is dialogue, in any case, and it doesn't take super audiophile fidelity to convey it.

Extras:
The Fox Studio Classics line continues to provide some good bonus items to accompany the studio's older films, this one no exception. First, there's an audio commentary with Dick Eulain, a professor of history at the University of New Mexico and a specialist on the background and literature of the American West, and William Wellman, Jr., the son of the director. Their comments are generally earnest and illuminating, making them all the more entertaining for the serious film buff. Second, there's an A&E Biography, "Henry Fonda: Hollywood's Quiet Man," lasting forty-four minutes. Third, there's a still gallery. Fourth, there's a restoration comparison. And fifth, the only disappointing part, there are a meager sixteen scene selections. To be fair, though, it is a very short film. English and Spanish are the spoken language and subtitle choices.

Parting Thoughts:
Conscience can be a terrible thing. Cross it and it will haunt you forever. "The Ox-Bow Incident" reminded me of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" and of Sidney Lumet's 1957 movie "12 Angry Men." All three stories bring to mind the terrible consequences of blindly following a majority rule while asking neither the right nor the wrong of the circumstances. Yes, we in America live in a democracy. But we live in a country of moral principles, too, and the movie suggests we had better look to doing the right and decent thing before we act on a majority decision made in the heat of the moment. If that notion sounds familiar, the movie resonates with truth even today.

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