Tag Archives: Psychological Westerns

The Tall T

Nicholas Chennault ~ October 17, 2013

The Tall T—Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Maureen O’Sullivan, Henry Silva, Skip Homeier, John Hubbard (1957; Dir: Budd Boetticher)

It is not clear what the title refers to; it is said to relate to Tenvoorde, owner of the 10-4 Ranch. At one time the working title of the movie was “T for Terror” (see the trailer on the DVD).

Patrick Brennan (Randolph Scott) is a former ramrod for that large Arizona ranch (the 10-4), now trying to establish his own ranch in the mountains. While trying to get his former employer to sell him a seed bull for his own stock, he instead loses his horse in a bet. (We see early on that he’s capable of making bad judgments, although he takes the consequences without complaint.)

Brennan afoot.

He hitches a ride on a stagecoach driven by old friend Ed Rintoon (the excellent Arthur Hunnicutt) that is hijacked at a way station by Frank Usher (Richard Boone) and his two low-life confederates Chink and Billy Jack (Henry Silva and Skip Homeier). They’ve already killed the station manager and his young son and callously thrown their bodies down a well. They soon do the same to stage driver Rintoon. Usher and his gang try to carry out a plan to get a ransom for Doretta Mims, the woman traveling on the stage. Maureen O’Sullivan plays Doretta, the daughter of the owner of the largest copper mine in the territory, who’s just been married that morning to her father’s accountant Willard (John Hubbard)—a scurvy choice for a husband, as he shortly demonstrates. Brennan plans to get away. He ultimately does, and apparently ends up with the woman, too.

Captured by bad guys.

This was shot with a limited cast and budget in Lone Pine, as were the rest of Boetticher’s westerns with Scott. This has a few edges to it, reminiscent of the Mann westerns of the 1950s. It is spare movie-making, with the story told in relatively unadorned fashion in less than 80 minutes. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of interest in the psychology of the characters, as in Seven Men from Now. Richard Boone is great as a not-entirely-unsympathetic bad guy. There’s an interesting balance between Scott and Boone; in some ways, Usher sees Brennan as who he himself might have been in other circumstances. And might still be, only richer with the proceeds of this kidnapping-robbery-murder.

Randolph Scott and Richard Boone are great in this. Maureen O’Sullivan, known mostly from her appearances as Jane in the Tarzan movies with Johnny Weismuller in the 1930s, is also very good. Henry Silva and Skip Homeier make reliably nasty henchmen, in different ways. Silva, with his Jack Palance face, went on to make a modest career of playing bad guys (see The Law and Jake Wade and The Bravados). Homeier played a series of kids with guns in the early 1950s (The Gunfighter, Dawn at Socorro), but you can’t do that forever. Sooner or later, you meet somebody faster with a gun, or drift into television parts. Or both.

Getting the girl, for once.

Note Henry Silva’s cooperative corpse helping Brennan rope his legs to drag him into the hut. The plot is similar to Rawhide and Man of the West, with regular people being held prisoner by outlaws.

[Pat, to the freshly widowed and weeping Doretta, after he has killed three murderous kidnappers]:
“Come on, now. It’s gonna be a nice day.” [And they walk off arm in arm. You might think they’d try to get the outlaws’ horses instead of walking all the way to wherever they’re going.]

From a story by Elmore Leonard (“The Captives”); the screenplay is by Burt Kennedy, as was usual with Boetticher’s better Ranown westerns. As in Delmer Daves’ 3:10 to Yuma (also from an original story by Leonard), some of the early action takes place in the town of Contention. As with others of the Ranown-Boetticher westerns, this was not generally available until the release of the Boetticher set in 2008, so they have not been seen as widely as they deserve. This is one of the four best of them.

3:10 to Yuma (the Original)

Nicholas Chennault ~ October 15, 2013

3:10 to Yuma—Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Leora Dana, Felicia Farr, Richard Jaeckel, Robert Emhardt (1957; Dir: Delmer Daves)

Dan Evans: What’s the matter?
Mrs. Alice Evans: Nothing. It seems terrible that something bad can happen and all anybody can do is stand by and watch.
Dan Evans: Lots of things happen where all you can do is stand by and watch.

There’s an undercurrent of fatalistic courage in the Dan Evans character played by Van Heflin. Dan struggles with his obligations the whole movie, but when it counts he doesn’t just stand by and watch. The inevitable comparison is with the 2007 remake. Well, this unpretentious 1957 original from a story by Elmore Leonard has much less action than the remake; it’s more a psychological study, with Glenn Ford’s excellent performance as ruthless but charming outlaw boss Ben Wade at its heart. The plot holds together a little better, and the ending is simpler and makes a bit more sense, although there have always been those who don’t find this original ending believable, either. For a western, there’s a lot of talk in this movie.

Van Heflin as Dan Evans is good, but he’s doing a version of his solid rancher character from Shane, the sort of role for which he is now mostly remembered. This one is deeper and more complex, with more camera time for his character. Evans is an Arizona rancher about to go under financially. When a reward is offered to get captured outlaw chieftain and gunman Ben Wade on the 3:10 train to Yuma, where the infamous territorial prison is located, Evans takes the job as a way to address at least some of his difficulties. Unexpectedly, a relationship of sorts develops. Heflin’s stolid and beleagured Evans gives Ford’s Wade a worthy opponent to play against, as Evans’ courage develops while he’s faced with temptation. Evans’ ambivalence is obvious the entire movie as he is forced to hear Wade’s Mephistophelean blandishments during a lengthy stretch in an upper hotel room (the bridal suite, in fact) in Contention. As things turn out, Wade also has more ambivalence than he has showed most of the time.

Outlaw chieftain Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) chats up barroom girl Emmy (Felicia Farr).

Leora Dana, as Evans’ wife Alice, seems realer than Gretchen Mol does in the remake, but she’s also given a meatier role than Mol. It’s a little surprising how much of Wade’s interlude with a saloon girl Emmy (Felicia Farr) was in the original; it seems a little frank in its implications for a 1950s western. Richard Jaeckel as Wade’s second in command Charley Price doesn’t have Ben Foster’s psychotic edge, but the role wasn’t written that way the first time around. Missing from the remake is Henry Jones’s role as Alex Potter, the town drunk cum outlaw guard, replaced by Alan Tudyk as Doc Potter in a different kind of role. Also not in this original: the nastiness of the lender and his repulsive henchmen; the father-son developments between Dan and his oldest son; Dan’s disability and Civil War background; the morally-blinkered Pinkerton man killed by Wade on the trip to Contention; and the Indians and the railroad men who try to the keep the party from making it there. In fact, the arduous segment from Evans’ ranch to Contention is not in the original. Wade’s gang in Contention seems a little more human and less invincible, although Dan Evans still seems very overmatched.

Wade (Glenn Ford) and his lieutenant Charley Prince (Richard Jaeckel).

In the end, Alice shows up in Contention to try (unsuccessfully) to talk Dan out of walking Wade to the train; and as Dan and Wade get to the train under attack from Wade’s gang, they just roll into an empty boxcar on the moving train. Dan has earned Wade’s respect, and it’s Wade who suggests getting onto the train to get Dan out of an otherwise untenable situation. He ends by saying that he’s broken out of Yuma before, and the feeling is that he’ll do it again. That’s probably okay with Dan, who just sees his job as getting Wade to Yuma and is not concerned with what may happen after that. He’s developed a little affection for Wade, too, if not any admiration for his moral character.

Wade (Glenn Ford) and Evans (Van Heflin) look to make a run for the 3:10 train to Yuma.

You can see this as another of those 1950s meditations on the uneasy relationship between the law enforcer and the town he protects, as with High Noon, The Tin Star, and Warlock, although the emphasis here is on the developing relationship between Evans and Wade. Dan is one of those ordinary citizens who steps up, not a professional gunman or career law enforcement man. There are obvious noir influences here. This original version of the story is highly watchable and ought to be seen by any fan of the remake. This could legitimately be placed on a list of great westerns, and probably would be if it weren’t eclipsed by the showier remake. At 92 minutes, it’s also considerably shorter than the remake. This is more about psychology (in a good way); the remake is more about action. Glenn Ford dazzles in the juicier Ben Wade role.

In general Delmer Daves seems a workmanlike director who made some good westerns in the 1950s. His work is usually worth seeking out. But he has his champions as something more. Bertrand Tavernier pointed out in Film Comment, “What first impresses the viewer is Daves’ attention to landscape, to nature, expressed in shots that intimately and sometimes inextricably mingle lyricism and realism.

“He actually insisted on personally supervising the kind of material many Hollywood filmmakers would leave to second-unit directors–extreme long shots, transitional moments filmed at dawn or twilight.”

In black and white; cinematographer Charles Lawton (not Laughton), Jr., also worked with Budd Boetticher during this period. This would get some votes as the most beautifully shot black-and-white western ever made, if you watch it in high definition (either the Criterion Collection DVD or somewhere like TCM). The Contention-Bisbee railroad connection figured again in Leonard’s story for Hombre. The theme song is sung by Frankie Laine: “Though you’ve got no reason to go there, and there ain’t a soul that you know there, when the 3:10 to Yuma whistles its sad refrain, take that train . . . . . .”

Note: The hat Glenn Ford wears in this movie he wore for most of his westerns in the 1950s and 1960s, long past when it should have been retired. He joins John Wayne and James Stewart as western stars with recurring hats.

Winchester ’73

Nicholas Chennault ~ September 24, 2013

Winchester ’73—James Stewart, Millard Mitchell, Dan Duryea, Shelly Winters, Stephen McNally (1950; Dir: Anthony Mann)

This movie marks the first cinematic pairing of director Anthony Mann with actor James Stewart, who teamed for five memorable westerns in the 1950s before falling out over Night Passage. As a notable actor-director pair in westerns, they rank with the John Ford-John Wayne and Budd Boetticher-Randolph Scott teams. For Stewart, it was his first western since 1939’s Destry Rides Again, and it marks the real beginning of his career as a significant western star.

The title refers to a new model rifle, the One-of-a-Thousand Model 1873 Winchester, of which only 133 were made. It is won by Lin MacAdam (Stewart) in a hard-fought marksmanship contest in Dodge City in 1876, where the contestants include Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally), who, not coincidentally, turns out to be MacAdam’s brother. MacAdam went off to the Civil War on the Confederate side with his sidekick High Spade Frankie Wilson (Millard Mitchell), and Brown followed the outlaw trail. (Dutch Henry Brown is the actual name of at least two real outlaws of the post-Civil War period in the west.)

MacAdam (James Stewart) at the shooting contest.

MacAdam is tracking down Dutch Henry for reasons of his own. Dutch Henry steals the rifle (among other things) and leaves Dodge abruptly. The rifle is coveted by everybody who sees it and seems to take on a life of its own, interweaving its own story with MacAdam’s chase of Dutch Henry. MacAdam and High Spade also cross paths with Steve Miller (Charles Drake) and his girl Lola Manners (Shelley Winters), and a cavalry troop besieged by Indians. The rifle goes from Dutch Henry to Joe Lamont (John McIntire), who trades guns to the Indians, including, unwillingly, this rifle. After the cavalry battle the rifle goes to Steve, although he doesn’t seem to deserve it. Near-psychotic gunman-outlaw Waco Johnny Dean (Dan Duryea, in a bravura performance) takes it—and Lola—from Steve and heads for Tascosa, Texas, where he is to meet Dutch Henry for a bank robbery. There he loses the rifle to Dutch Henry.

Losing it with Waco Johnny Dean.

As Dean and Lola wait in a saloon in Tascosa for a signal from Dutch Henry, MacAdam and High Spade catch up and recognize Lola from their previous encounter. MacAdam (showing some incidental instability himself) takes care of Dean, breaks up the robbery and sets out in hot pursuit of Dutch Henry again. He catches him, and they have it out in a final shootout in the rocks. (The shootout in the rocks has some similarities with the final showdown in The Naked Spur.) In the end, Lola (who has been wounded while trying to save a child) and MacAdam appear to end up together.

Shootout in the rocks.

The cast is remarkable, and not just the leads. Stewart is terrific, demonstrating his usual decency but with a touch of dangerousness, obsession and a little instability. The young Shelley Winters gives one of the best performances of her career as Lola, a blowzier Claire Trevor-esque role. Millard Mitchell is fine as High Spade; he shows up as a sheriff in The Gunfighter released the same year and later with Mann and Stewart again as a prospector in the small cast of The Naked Spur. Duryea as Waco Johnny Dean outshines Stephen McNally as Dutch Henry Brown when it comes to villains. If you look at the supporting cast, you’ll find Will Geer as Wyatt Earp (although older and in a more senior position than he would have been in 1876) in the opening sequences; Jay C. Flippen as hard-bitten cavalry Sergeant Wilkes, in over his head in defending against a large force of hostile Indians; John McIntire as a sleazy gun-runner; Ray Teal; and Charles Drake as Lola’s unheroic fiancé Steve. Among the young Hollywood newcomers are Rock Hudson as the Indian chief Young Bull and Tony Curtis as the cavalryman who finds the rifle after the battle and gives it to Sgt. Wilkes.

Fritz Lang was originally slated to direct this one, and when he pulled out Stewart recommended Anthony Mann, with whom he had done some stage work in the 1930s. It gave Mann his opportunity to move up from low-budget movies into A westerns, and he made the most of it. Much of Mann’s previous work had been in the noir genre, and it shows with the psychological elements of this and future Mann westerns—a new kind of mental claustrophobia in the wide-open spaces of the west. The film also gave a new twist to Stewart’s traditional persona; this one is decent, too, but also obsessed with vengeance and troubled by his own personal demons. These characters led to perhaps the most productive decade of his career, in such films as The Naked Spur (also with Mann) and Vertigo (with Alfred Hitchcock). Elegantly filmed in Arizona in black and white.

Production still of James Stewart.

The DVD issued in 2003 has an unusual, fascinating and rambling commentary by James Stewart, originally recorded in 1989 for the laser disc version of the film. One wishes that John Wayne and Henry Fonda, or John Ford and Anthony Mann, had done a few such commentaries.

You can see the rifle from the movie, with the names of the actors engraved on the stock (“Jimmie Stewart”), at the Cody Historical Center in Wyoming.

This film made movie history in another way, too. Stewart’s salary was a bit steep for this movie’s budget, so he agreed to lower it and accept a percentage of the film’s gross as part of his compensation. When the film was a hit, Stewart did significantly better financially than he would have in just taking his usual salary. Instead of the $200,000 Stewart was requesting for the movie, he is said to have ended up with $600,000 because of the new deal structure. This led to many more such arrangements for stars in movie financing, as well as to much creative accounting about what the “gross” or “net” take of a movie might be.

The Naked Spur

Nicholas Chennault ~ September 19, 2013

The Naked Spur—James Stewart, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Ralph Meeker, Millard Mitchell (1953; Dir: Anthony Mann)

Every one of the characters in this movie is deeply wounded or flawed in some significant way. As the film develops, it’s not clear who’s the best one, but it is clear who’s the worst: Ben Vandergroat, played by Robert Ryan in one of his best roles, an outlaw wanted for murder in Abilene, Kansas. He’s always smiling and utterly without conscience, traveling in the company of Lina Patch (a dirty-faced Janet Leigh), the young daughter of a now-deceased outlaw colleague.

At the start of the movie, Ben is captured in the mountains by Howard Kemp (James Stewart), with the incidental help of cashiered cavalry lieutenant Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker) and down-at-the-heels prospector Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell). Ben knows Howard from the Abilene area, and lets the others know that (a) Howard (whom he irritatingly calls Howie throughout the movie) is not a peace officer but only wants to bring him in for the $5000 reward, and (b) Howard went off to fight for the Union in the recent Civil War and deeded his ranch to his fiancée so she could work it properly in his absence. When he returned from the war, she’d sold the ranch and left with another man. Betrayed and unsure of himself now, Howard wants the reward to buy back his ranch and start over.

Capturing Ben

When Roy and Jesse hear this, they want equal shares of the reward and Howard is forced to accept that arrangement. As the group heads east toward Abilene, Ben starts to work on the three taking him back, exploiting personal weaknesses and setting them against each other. He also uses Lina to appeal to their baser instincts. (“They’re men, honey, and you ain’t. Remember that.”) Ben’s creepily physical relationship with Lina sets their teeth on edge. (“My back’s bothering me again, honey. Can you do me?”) Howard’s emotional stability starts to show some cracks. It turns out that the sleazy Roy was dishonorably discharged from the army for being “morally unstable.” The group is followed by a dozen Indians (Blackfeet, Howard says), and it’s Roy they’re after. Apparently he demonstrated his moral instability by raping a young Indian woman, and they want revenge. Ben plays on Jesse’s lifetime of unsuccessful prospecting by slyly suggesting he knows the secret location of gold in the mountains.

Ben, Lina and Jesse

Howard expels Roy from the group when he discovers why the Blackfeet are following, but Roy gets the group ambushed for his own protection. They kill the Indians, but Howard is shot in the leg. Lina tends Howard while he is delirious and seems to be developing some sympathy for him; Howard may reciprocate, on his way to becoming more human. Ben uses that attraction between them to try repeatedly to escape. He’s never quite successful, but he never gives up

Finally the lure of a potential strike becomes too much for Jesse, who cuts Ben loose to lead him to the supposed gold. Jesse, Ben and Lina escape, but Jesse by himself is no match for Ben, who shoots him and prepares an ambush for Roy and Howard. The final showdown takes place in mountain rocks (much like in Mann’s Winchester ’73), which Howard climbs with the help of a spur used as a piton. In the end, both Howard and Lina have to decide what they really want—the reward for Ben and a life in the shadow of the past, or a new beginning somewhere else.

Fighting things out.

There’s always action, either psychological or physical or both, in this tautly-paced movie. In a genre previously known for black-and-white values, this one has all shades. With all those loose psychological threads, the end can seem abrupt. Nobody’s entirely admirable. With only five characters, it’s a small cast, but every performance is excellent. Stewart was in the middle of his association with director Anthony Mann, and gives perhaps his most tortured performance for Mann. Meeker would not be recognized by most audiences now; he had a brief career in the movies, with his greatest success as Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly. He is very good as the sleazy Roy, who wears his uniform throughout the movie despite having been cashiered. Millard Mitchell (who also appears in Winchester ’73 with Stewart and in The Gunfighter with Gregory Peck) is fine as Jesse, the failed prospector. Janet Leigh’s role is the smallest, but she does well.

Mann and Stewart made several westerns in the 1950s, and Mann is now considered the father of the psychological western. Many think this is his best movie, although The Man from Laramie and Winchester ’73 also get votes. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Script, and William Mellor’s color cinematography makes good use of the high country of Colorado where it was shot. It’s gorgeous if you’re watching this on a good print or DVD transfer.

The Man from Laramie

Nicholas Chennault ~ September 17, 2013

The Man from Laramie—James Stewart, Donald Crisp, Arthur Kennedy, Alex Nicol, Cathy O’Donnell, Aline MacMahon, Jack Elam, Wallace Ford (1955; Dir: Anthony Mann)

This was the last of five westerns in five years with the very effective pairing of director Anthony Mann and leading man James Stewart. It was the only one in Cinemascope, and it’s one of the best. (Mann and Stewart also made three non-westerns, and Mann made three or four westerns without Stewart.)

As this film opens, freighter Will Lockhart (Stewart) is taking three wagons of supplies from Laramie, Wyoming, to Coronado, New Mexico. At his last campsite before arriving in Coronado, he surveys the site of the Dutch River massacre, where a patrol of twelve cavalrymen were all killed by Apaches with new repeating rifles. Lockhart’s brother was one of the twelve, and he’s come to find and kill the person responsible for selling the guns to the Indians.

In town he delivers the supplies to the general store run by Barbara Waggoman (Cathy O’Donnell), niece of the local cattle baron who basically owns the town and most of the surrounding countryside. He was lucky to get through; the Apaches have prevented most such shipments from arriving in Coronado. He’s looking for return cargo to Laramie, and Barbara directs him to nearby salt flats, where she says the salt is free for the taking.

As Lockhart and his men load their wagons, a number of cowboys led by Dave Waggoman (Alex Nicol) ride up with guns drawn. Dave thinks the salt is on Barb Ranch land and isn’t free to just any one. On Dave’s orders, the cowboys burn Lockhart’s wagons, kill his mules, and rope him, dragging him through a campfire. Before matters go any farther, Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy), the Waggoman foreman, rides up and stops the altercation. The next day in Coronado, Lockhart beats up Dave and fights Vic to a draw before Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp), the cattle baron himself, stops things. Alec offers to pay for Lockhart’s destroyed wagons and animals and suggests that he leave the country.

We see that Vic and Barbara would get married, but Barbara wants Vic to agree to leave the area before she’ll marry him. She needs to get him away from her uncle’s powerful and slightly malevolent influence. Vic feels that Alec has promised him a stake in the Barb Ranch and he is unwilling to leave that. Dave, Barbara’s cousin, is described as “weak,” and we see that he has poor judgment and a sadistic streak. Kate Canady owns the Half Moon, the only significant spread in the area not controlled by Waggoman. She’d like to hire Lockhart as her foreman, but he says he doesn’t know anything about cattle. The inference is that he’s been in the army. Eventually Lockhart takes the job with Canady. Lockhart: “You’re just a hard, scheming old woman, aren’t you?” Kate: “Ugly, too.”

Alec Waggoman is played by Donald Crisp with his usual appearance of stern rectitude, but Alec isn’t averse to breaking his word occasionally. Despite his promises, he seems willing to cast Vic off with nothing if it helps him get what he wants. Alec and Kate have some ancient history and were engaged in their younger days. It’s a pretty complex group of characters, although Lockhart doesn’t have as much of the potential instability that Stewart’s characters sometimes show in other Mann westerns.

As Lockhart trails some Half Moon stock on to Barb range, Dave Waggoman takes a shot at him. Lockhart returns fire, hitting Dave in the hand. When Dave’s backup cowboys arrive, Dave has them hold Lockhart while he shoots him point blank in the right hand in a brutal scene.

This is the low point for Lockhart, but the Waggoman faction is having internal troubles of its own. Alec Waggoman is going blind, unknown to his son and foreman. Dave and Vic are the ones selling guns to the Indians, and when they fall out over how to manage it, Vic kills Dave. When Alec finds a discrepancy in accounts and goes looking for a wagonload of guns, Vic pushes him down a cliff and leaves him for dead. Lockhart finds him and takes him to Kate for medical help. He’s also developing his own romantic interest in Barbara, who seems attracted back despite her arrangement of sorts with Vic.

Lockhart (James Stewart) is not letting his wounded hand stop him.

Ultimately, Lockhart finds the wagon with guns by following Vic. He forces Vic to push them over a cliff before deciding he can’t just take his long-awaited revenge and shoot Vic. Vic’s escape is only momentary, though. He encounters the Apaches who were coming for the guns they’d already paid for, and they surround him and shoot him down.

As things quiet down, Lockhart suggests to Barbara that if she’s going east, she’ll pass through Laramie and should ask for Capt. Lockhart. (Laramie and Fort Laramie were not the same place, and someone headed east from New Mexico would have to go considerably out of her way to pass through either.) Meanwhile, Kate Canady takes over the care of the now-blind but still alive Alec Waggoman. Finally, they’ll be married, several decades after that wedding was initially planned.

The cowboy, the girl and the horse.

These characters are all written to be more complicated than you’d find in most westerns. Stewart and Crisp are both known quantities as actors, and they’re as good as you expect. Alec Waggoman as a character has some Lear-like overtones, if you like that sort of thing. Kennedy as Vic seems better than Nicol as Dave, but some of that may be because Dave’s role is written to be more overtly unattractive. Vic’s motivation is not always clear and seems to be changing during the movie. Cathy O’Donnell manages to convey a certain amount of stubbornness coupled with romantic confusion but is otherwise not terribly memorable. (Stewart seems too old for her. And it’s hard not to think that Joanne Dru, Virginia Mayo or Coleen Gray would have done better with the role.) Aline MacMahon is very good as Kate Canady; she has some of the most acerbic lines in the film. Wallace Ford is good in brief appearances as Lockhart’s scout Charley O’Leary, and Jack Elam puts in an equally brief appearance as the town drunk and informer before he’s killed. It all works, even though there are some loose ends to the plot that are never explained.

Great Western Movies

An In-Depth Guide to Westerns