Westerns

Comanche Station

/ Colin McGuigan / 9 Comments

Lean and spare are the words often used to describe the westerns of Budd Boetticher and I won’t argue with that. Of course, budgetary constraints were generally the reason for the minimalist approach but Boetticher was masterful at disguising that fact. Burt Kennedy’s drum tight scripting and Boetticher’s control of the camera mean that you never stop to think that what’s on the screen was originally shot as a B picture. Between 1956 and 1960 the director made seven westerns with star Randolph Scott, all but the first produced by Scott’s Ranown. Shooting for the most part around Lone Pine gave these films a distinctive look and feel in much the same way that Monument Valley defined the westerns of Ford. Comanche Station (1960) was their last collaboration and Scott’s penultimate movie.

The plot is quite simple really, and that’s generally the strength of all the Ranown westerns; there’s no excess baggage, and the viewer only sees and hears what is absolutely necessary. Cody (Scott) is a lonely man, a former soldier, who has spent years wandering the west in search of his abducted wife. Whenever he hears a rumor of a white captive he sets off with a mule loaded with trade goods hoping that this time his quest may end. It is said that he’s rescued countless captives but it’s never the right one for Cody. This time will be no different. He trades with the Comanche for the freedom of one Mrs. Lowe (Nancy Gates) and aims to see her safely back to her husband. However, before he can do so, three men turn up and throw a spanner in the works. Lane, Frank and Dobie (Claude Akins, Skip Homeier and Richard Rust) are running from the Comanche, and Cody suspects it’s because they’re scalphunters. Cody’s distrust of Lane dates back to their years in the army, when he had the latter court-martialed for his role in an Indian massacre. It turns out that Mrs. Lowe’s husband has offered a $5000 reward for her return, dead or alive. While the viewer is immediately aware that Cody knew nothing of this, no-one else believes it. The challenge now is for him to save his own skin and that of the woman from both the Comanche and his new companions. As the story progresses it becomes very obvious where the greatest threat lies.

Randolph Scott’s lean and craggy appearance compliments both the landscape and Boetticher’s sparse morality tale. He looks every inch the laconic westerner who’s spent years scouring the scorched, barren land with only his pain and loss for company. The older he got the more adept he became at conveying a kind of buttoned-up emotion combined with an iron sense of personal honor. He was the first actor to draw me to the western as a child, and now I’m more convinced than ever that he may have been the greatest cowboy, surpassing even Wayne and Cooper. In fact all five actors in this film play off each other perfectly, and much of that comes down to the writing of Burt Kennedy. Everyone gets something to get their teeth into and it’s difficult not to feel even some sympathy for all of them. None of the villains in Boetticher’s westerns were ever one dimensional and Kennedy always managed to provide them with enough backstory or characteristic dialogue to keep the viewer interested. Boetticher does a fine job of moving his camera around to offer some unexpected shots and angles, and his use of the wide screen makes what is essentially a small picture look very big indeed.

After what seems like an eternity of waiting, Sony have finally released the five Ranown westerns in their possession onto DVD as The Films of Budd Boetticher. All the films come on their own discs and Comanche Station looks just wonderful. Like the other titles in the set, it boasts a healthy amount of film grain and sports a fine anamorphic transfer with good, strong color. The disc also carries a short featurette with Clint Eastwood offering a few thoughts on the movie. Sony have done a bang up job with this set – I have no hesitation in saying it’s the release of the year for me.

Duel at Diablo

/ Colin McGuigan / 6 Comments

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The Hollywood western in the mid-60s was at a crossroads. Television had effectively saturated the market with oaters and the whole genre was becoming filled with cliches. In Europe, the spaghetti westerns of directors like Leone and Corbucci were posing other challenges by taking a new approach to genre conventions and increasing the levels of violence. The dilemma faced by Hollywood was whether it should stick with the traditional formula or borrow from the Europeans. The initial result was a kind of compromise or halfway house. Ralph Nelson will be best known for his brutal cavalry western Soldier Blue; in a way it’s slightly ironic for a man who really only dabbled in the genre. Soldier Blue isn’t all that good a film, and much of its fame derives from the revisionist depiction of the violent excesses of the US cavalry. However, a few years earlier, Nelson made his first western, Duel at Diablo (1966), which offered a similarly bloodthirsty view of the Apache. Taken together, it could be said that the two films balance each other out, although Duel at Diablo is much closer to the traditional western in execution.

The opening of the film gives some indication of what’s to come, as the screen is sliced open by a bloodied knife to reveal a charred corpse suspended over a slow burning fire. From a distance, cavalry scout Jess Remsberg (James Garner) watches  and grimaces. Almost immediately, a rider comes into view pursued by two mounted warriors. This is Ellen Grange (Bibi Andersson), a white woman trying to make her way back to the Apache camp from which she has recently been rescued. The film is essentially an examination of race relations within the framework of the conventional revenge western. It is later revealed that Mrs. Grange bore a son while a captive, and this is a large part of her desire to return. However, that’s not her only reason; her husband Will (Dennis Weaver) cannot bring himself to come to terms with what has happened and rejects her. In her husband’s opinion, any decent woman would have killed herself rather than relinquish her honour. The attitude is widespread and is highlighted when Remsberg has to step in and save her as she is assaulted by a group of men convinced of her easy virtue. Remsberg is the only person to show any real compassion towards Mrs. Grange, and that’s because he too has placed himself on the fringes of white society. The second plot thread running through the movie concerns Remsberg’s quest to hunt down the man responsible for the murder, and subsequent scalping, of his Indian wife. While, eventually, the two threads merge and a measure of closure is achieved, the racial issue remains unresolved and the future awaiting both Remsberg and Mrs. Grange is far from certain.

James Garner may not be everyone’s first choice to play a hardened army scout but he acquits himself well. If anyone doubts his ability to play tough and gritty western characters I can only suggest they check out his performance a few years later in John Sturges’ Hour of the Gun. In truth, the casting in general is a little unorthodox, but it works for the most part. The exception would be Sidney Poitier’s dandified ex-soldier, who appears totally out of his element and never truly convinces. Swedish actress Andersson does well as the woman caught between two worlds and her odd accent actually serves to emphasise both her isolation and the outsider status of her character. Bill Travers was another piece of bold casting as the Scots cavalry lieutenant who dreams of promotion. Again I had no real problem with this since it seemed to blend into the overall scheme of highlighting the racial diversity of frontier life.

Ralph Nelson performs the director’s chores competently enough, even managing a few visually evocative shots of the cavalry column which recalls the great John Ford. His best work, however, is most apparent in the action scenes; the clashes between the cavalry and the Apache are well staged and exciting. He also displays a taste for the gruesome that he would indulge further in Soldier Blue; there are a number of scenes of Apache torture that, though tame by today’s standards, must surely have been regarded as strong stuff at the time. Nevertheless, I don’t believe he had any real feel for the western and fails to draw in the viewer in the way  the genre’s masters could. Another problem is the score by Neal Hefti, whose jazzy compositions work extremely well in the context of The Odd Couple and How to Murder Your Wife, but tend to grate a little in a western.

Duel at Diablo comes to DVD from MGM in both R1 and R2. The R2 is a typically ordinary transfer from this company (I’m not sure, but I’d imagine the R1 fares about the same) that’s neither all good nor all bad. On the plus side, the image is anamorphic 1.78:1 and there’s a theatrical trailer available, but it tends to be too soft in places. Even though it’s no classic I’d say the film is well worth a view for the interesting casting and storyline.

 

Dark Command

/ Colin McGuigan / 6 Comments

William Clarke Quantrill was one of those controversial figures who gained fame or noteriety, depending on where one’s sympathies lay, as a result of his activities during the Civil War. The nature of those activities has ensured that his character and associates have continued to appear on screen on a fairly regular basis, right up to Ang Lee’s much maligned Ride with the Devil. Raoul Walsh’s Dark Command (1940) takes Quantrill, changes his name to Cantrell, and adds a written caveat at the beginning to explain that certain liberties have been taken with the truth. As such it’s not a biopic of the man in the traditional sense; it merely uses the character and a few events from his life to tell a standard western story. Taken on this level it works very well, but then I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film by Walsh that didn’t work on some level.

Dark Command opens in Lawrence, Kansas on the eve of the Civil War, with Bob Seton (John Wayne) arriving in town in the company of perennial sidekick ‘Gabby’ Hayes. Seton is an uncomplicated Texan who’s in the process of working his way across the country. In making the acquaintance of banker’s daughter Mary McCloud (Claire Trevor), he also meets local schoolteacher Cantrell (Walter Pidgeon). Both men clearly have romantic designs on Miss McCloud, and their rivalry later extends to the political arena when they run for the newly instituted position of town marshal. It is Seton’s victory in this election that proves the catalyst for Cantrell’s abandonment of civic duty in favour of a much more lucrative career as a guerilla raider. Actually this brings about a change in the two lead characters; Seton becoming tougher and more assured once the weight of responsibility falls on his shoulders, and Cantrell revealing his venal nature in his quest to attain “greatness”. This personal animosity is played out while, all around, the town divides itself along pro-Union and pro-Confederacy lines. The wider national conflict is referred to only through dialogue and one of those, now cliched, burning map shots.

As I said before the film isn’t a straight biopic and never claims to be giving all the historical facts. Having said that Quantrill did work as a teacher in Lawrence in the years preceding the Civil War, although I’m not aware of his running for marshal or other elected office. It has been said of Raoul Walsh that his idea of humour was burning down a whorehouse; in Dark Command he goes one step further by burning down a whole town, although not for comedic value. The sacking of Lawrence by Quantrill is a known historical event and the film duly acknowledges this. However, this set piece, which forms the climax of the story, doesn’t dwell on the gory excesses of Quantrill’s men. Instead it uses it as a means of neatly wrapping up the personal battle between Seton and Cantrell. One could pick out all kinds inaccuracies relating to timelines, weaponry, the ultimate fate of Quantrill and so on, but I’ve never felt that this serves much of a purpose. Movies are a means of telling stories, and if this requires the makers to play a little fast and loose with the facts, well, so be it.

John Wayne made Dark Command one year after Stagecoach, the film which offered him a way out of the cycle of B westerns he’d been doing since the failure of Walsh’s The Big Trail. It’s a little ironic that the man who first introduced Wayne to the cinema-going public should again feature at the rebirth of his career. The Duke is still not the finished product here, although he’s not far away; audiences wouldn’t really see his fully formed western character until Tall in the Saddle, a few years later. There’s a bit too much mugging in the first half of the picture, although the easy, confident Wayne we’re all familiar with starts to emerge as the story moves along. Walter Pidgoen was an actor I’ve never really warmed to, but he was capable of turning in good performances as men carrying around a lot of internal baggage – How Green Was My Valley would be a good example of this. His Cantrell is never all that convincing as an out-and-out villain but maybe that’s just the way the part was written. Where he’s at his best are those private moments when he gives vent to all the pent up frustration that comes from thwarted ambition. Claire Trevor, who received top billing here, was a fine actress and does well as the conflicted woman at the centre of events. In Stagecoach she showed good chemistry with Wayne and that spark continues to be evident in this film. Romantic interludes were never Wayne’s strong suit but the tough Miss Trevor manages to draw out her co-star quite successfully.

I’ve already alluded to the fact that Raoul Walsh’s sense of humour tended towards the broad, and that’s certainly the case in the scenes with ‘Gabby’ Hayes. In much the same way as with Walsh’s contemporary and fellow Irish-American John Ford, audiences either get this kind of humour or they don’t. Superficially, one could see similarities in the styles of these two directors, but Ford remains the better known filmmaker. That’s not to say that Walsh should be regarded as a lesser figure, mind; he was every inch the professional and turned out some of the finest films of classic era Hollywood. It should also be mentioned that Dark Command contains some top class second unit work from the great Yakima Canutt. There’s a spectacular wagon jump from atop a cliff, and another outing for his patented under-a-moving-wagon escape ala Indiana Jones. Today’s climate of clumsy editing and overused CGI makes this viewer yearn for the era when there was genuine creativity and artistry in the second unit.

The movie is available on DVD in both R1 and R2. I have the old R1 from Artisan and the picture quality is quite good. Like all those Republic pictures released by Artisan there hasn’t been any restoration done, so there are instances of speckling and the odd cigarette burn. However, the print remains in pretty good shape and is always watchable. The R2 comes from Universal UK, and while I don’t have it to compare I would be wary of its quality considering its source. Dark Command is a fine western with an epic feel that comes partly from the bigger budget that Republic granted it. I’d recommend it to the general western fan and anyone with an interest in the Civil War era, or the development of the Duke’s career.

Ride, Vaquero

/ Colin McGuigan / 2 Comments

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Ride, Vaquero (1953) was one of those films that always seemed to elude me. I’d read about it and heard about it often but, somehow, could never manage to see it. Well, I’ve finally got around to it. Robert Taylor may not be the first actor some would think of as a western character but the fact is he made a good number of oaters in his time. I’ve been watching quite a few of his westerns recently (the ones in the R1 westerns set, and a TV broadcast of The Hangman) and I quite enjoyed this.

Rio (Taylor) is the right hand man for bandit chief Jose Esqueda (Anthony Quinn), operating along the Texas/Mexico border in the aftermath of the Civil War. The end of the war has thrown up new challenges for these men, namely the arrival of new settlers and the renewed interest of the army and the federal government. Esqueda understands that such developments will spell the end of his reign as the undisputed master of his territory. His preferred course of action is a simple one; drive out the settlers before they have had a chance to put down permanent roots. The toughest proposition Esqueda has yet to face comes in the form of King Cameron (Howard Keel), who has come west with his wife (Ava Gardner) to build a new life. An abortive raid on the Cameron ranch leads to the capture of Rio. Instead of handing him over to the law, Cameron offers Rio the opportunity to switch allegiances and become his partner. He accepts, but the question remains whether his decision is based on a desire to embrace a more lawful lifestyle, or just a desire to embrace Camerons wife.

Director John Farrow manages to throw a number of big themes into the mix – the old ways vs progress, loyalty and betrayal, and a man’s need to hold onto what he has won. Taylor gives a good performance as a man who’s in search of his place in the world. He may seem cold and aloof, but that’s surely an essential part of the character. His precise relationship with Esqueda is not fully revealed until the end, and it goes a long way towards explaining the alienation his character feels. Anthony Quinn gives the lusty, larger-than-life treatment to his role of the bandit king, and it’s very enjoyable. Ava Gardner naturally looks great and brings a credibility to her part as the rancher’s wife with the wandering eye. Howard Keel is just about adequate but, since I believe this was his first non-musical role, I won’t be too harsh on him. There are also small yet memorable parts for Jack Elam and Ted De Corsia.

Ride, Vaquero has recently been released on DVD by Warners in France. The disc is a barebones affair with removable French subs and, unfortunately, boasts a weak transfer. The image doesn’t seem to have undergone any restoration and looks soft throughout. The biggest problem though is the colour, which has faded badly. The film was shot using the cheap Anscocolor process and if you’ve seen the recent R1 of Escape form Fort Bravo you’ll have some idea of what to expect. That said, the film is well worth 90 minutes of anybody’s time and I’d recommend it, if you can get past the deficiencies in the DVD transfer.

Seminole

/ Colin McGuigan / 5 Comments

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Budd Boetticher is celebrated, and rightly so, for the seven westerns he made with Randolph Scott in the late 50s. Seminole was produced just a few years before those collaborations and, while it’s a satisfying enough picture, it’s not quite up there with his best. One could, I suppose, quibble about its credentials as a western due to the setting (Florida) and the time period (1835) but I feel it’s as near as makes no difference.

The story, most of which is recounted in a long flashback sequence, follows the newly appointed Lt. Caldwell (Rock Hudson) who is travelling back to his birthplace in Florida to take up a position at Fort King. His arrival coincides with the beginnings of an uprising among the Seminole, provoked by a government plan to uproot the tribe and move them west to prevent their presence slowing down the nation’s expansion. Within this framing story there’s further conflict due to the revelation that Caldwell’s boyhood friend, the half breed Osceola (Anthony Quinn), is not only the chief of the Seminole but is also vying for the affections of his sweetheart Revere Muldoon (Barbara Hale). While Revere shuttles back and forth in the role of intermediary between the Seminole and the army, a plan is set in motion by the fort’s commander, Major Degan (Richard Carlson), to strike at the enemy in their Everglades homeland and thus preempt any further threat.

The film raises a number of issues, only a few of which are fully explored. The main conflict is the internal struggle which Caldwell experiences between his loyalty to the army and his inherent sympathy for the Seminole he has known all his life. This leads to his being suspected of treachery by his superiors and his eventual court martial. The film tries hard to show the Seminloe in a positive light (mostly due to the performance of Anthony Quinn) but generally takes the middle way, since the army is portrayed as being reasonably even-handed with the exception of the uptight martinet Major Degan. This leads to a bit of a pat, upbeat ending. Much stronger is the middle section where Degan leads his troop on a disastrous march through the steamy swamps with a huge cannon in tow, all the while insisting they keep their tunics buttoned to the collar as per the regulations. One of the more interesting themes, and the film really only touches on it, is that of miscegenation. It is quite clear that Revere has been involved in a long-term relationship with Osceola but, after a brief mention by the chief of how white society would frown on this, she quite happily drops him and contents herself with a future by Caldwell’s side.

Rock Hudson is just about adequate in his role as the new officer forced to make war on his one time friend but his acting is a little too wooden to do justice to a part which requires him to experience a good deal of inner turmoil. Anthony Quinn fares better as the reluctant war chief whose living in both the white and Seminole cultures has afforded him an understanding of both. However, the role, as written, calls for a little too much nobility on his part and so weakens the chracter. Richard Carlson’s Degan is a very one dimensional portrayal which consists of much manic ranting and petty spitefulness, still he makes for a good hissable villain. As for Barbara Hale, she hasn’t a lot to do except act as a plot device and provide  some decoration. Lee Marvin shows up in one of his small early parts as Sergeant Magruder and adds a touch of class to the proceedings, as he always did. Boetticher directs the whole thing at his trademark brisk pace, and does his best work when he moves out from the confines of the fort into the swamp scenes and the ensuing battle at the Seminole camp. As I said earlier, his finest work would come a few years later but Seminole remains an entertaining little piece.

Now for the DVD. Seminole is available in R2 in the UK from Optimum and the transfer can best be described as weak. The picture is very soft and muddy throughout, and the colours are extremely faded – a real shame since this is a movie that would benefit enormously from strong, vibrant colours. The only bonus included is the theatrical trailer. There are editions of the film available from France and Germany but I have no idea if they look any better. All told, I would recommend the film – pity about the DVD.

 

3:10 to Yuma

/ Colin McGuigan / 34 Comments

I guess, like everything else, the circumstances in which you view a movie will affect your perception of it. I just rewatched the 2007 3:10 to Yuma the other day having already reacquainted myself with the 1957 version the previous night. Now, I’ve seen the original many times and always held it in high regard although it’s not without its faults. So when I went to see the remake, during its theatrical run, I knew that the central story was a strong one and I was curious to see what it would turn out like. At the time I came away thinking that I had just seen a moderately entertaining but imperfect film. In short, I wasn’t overly displeased. The thing is though, I hadn’t seen the original for a few years at that point. Viewing the two versions so close together has forced me to alter my appraisal of the remake somewhat.

The plot of both films is derived from a short story by Elmore Leonard, and tells of a struggling Arizona rancher Dan Evans (Van Heflin in the original, Christian Bale in the remake) who witnesses a stage robbery carried out by notorious outlaw Ben Wade (Glenn Ford in the original, Russell Crowe in the remake). When Wade is later captured Evans volunteers to escort him to the town of Contention and put him on the titular 3:10 to Yuma state prison. Evans hopes that the money he earns from this will be enough to see him and his family through the drought that’s crippling his ranch. There follows a battle for Evans’ soul as Wade tries to buy, persuade and cajole the desperate rancher into letting him go while the clock counts down and the threat of attack by the outlaw gang draws ever nearer.

Those are the necessarily common elements, but if a remake is to have any purpose it must add to or change certain aspects of the original. Firstly, the 2007 version expands the story and runs about a half hour longer, most of this extra time being used to depict the journey to Contention and introduce more characters. This doesn’t really come off successfully for, despite being crammed with incident, it simply serves to slow down the central thrust of the story: the conflict and relationship between Evans and Wade. Where the original cut straight to the chase, the remake forces the viewer to sit through a lot of implausible action which seems to exist merely to dispose of a few superfluous characters. By the time Evans and Wade reach Contention and hole up in the hotel the momentum has been lost and the tension levels have dropped. The DVD of the 2007 movie contains an extra feature which carries the title An Epic Explored, and that tells a tale. This is essentially a small, intimate story based around two men and covering a short period of time. The 1957 version succeeds admirably in telling this story, whereas the remake has ambitions to be something altogether grander yet falls short of fulfilling them.

The other major difference in the two films is a change in emphasis and tone. The first movie presented Dan Evans as a man in a bad spot and dogged by ill fortune, but there was nothing pathetic or defeatist about him and the viewer can feel for him without ever being asked to. The new Dan Evans is, we are told over and over, a cringing loser who manages to elicit only pity from his captive rather than respect. In fact, even his family are contemptuous of him – Van Heflin’s distraught wife turned up in Contention to beg him to drop the matter and return home while Christian Bale’s other half disappears from the story early on like she just doesn’t give a damn what happens to him, and I’m not sure if I blame her. The ’57 movie showed Evans’ two boys to be a couple of nice respectful kids, while the ’07 one gives us a surly brat who never misses an opportunity to bad-mouth his father, regardless of the company they’re in, and left this viewer yearning to see him on the receiving end of a good hiding. All told, there are far too many jarringly modern touches to the remake; when Bale’s wife upbraids him for not making decisions together and his son throws another insult his way I was taken out of the film completely. Such moments defy all logic in terms of time and place – it’s akin to seeing a bunch of brawling cavemen interrupted by one of their number saying “Wait a minute fellas, surely we can talk this through like civilized men.”

Delmer Daves is a director who I feel has been severely underrated and a comparison of his work with that of James Mangold during two key sequences points this up. Take the scene with Glenn Ford and Felicia Farr first. When they stand on the porch and talk about their former lives there’s a very poignant sense of two lonely people and their sense of loss. As the camera follows Ford back into the saloon there’s a kind of innocent charm about his seduction of Farr, and then the camera zoom and music cue hit the mark perfectly when he asks the colour of her eyes. In contrast, Mangold just has Crowe sidle up behind Vinessa Shaw, grunt in her ear and off they go. The other sequence that highlights Daves’ superior handling of the material is during the lengthy wait in the hotel. While Ford stretches out on the bed he tries to tempt his captor into letting him walk with offers of a bribe. During this exchange the camera cuts back and forth between the faces of the two men, each time the focus zooms marginally closer on Van Heflin and ratchets up the tension. Mangold shoots the same scene mostly static and the result is that the tension doesn’t build and it simply falls flat.  Another problem is the ending of the remake. One criticism of Delmer Daves’ work was that his endings were often a bit of a cop out after what had gone before. The climax of the ’57 3:10 to Yuma was always its weakness but it feels deeply satisfying when compared to the absolute travesty that the remake offers as a conclusion. This is not to say that Mangold doesn’t do anything well. His handling of the action sequences is noteworthy, from the opening stage hold-up (complete with exploding horse) to the climactic gun battle/chase through the streets of Contention. The problem is that these have a comic book, Spaghetti western feel that sits a little uncomfortably with the dour tone of the rest of the picture.

I know Russell Crowe is a fine actor but when I compare his Ben Wade to that of Glenn Ford’s he comes off second best; there’s just not enough charm and too much of his natural oafishness showing through. I also prefer Van Heflin’s Dan Evans to that of Christian Bale but I don’t mean that as a criticism of the latter’s acting skill, rather I would put it down to the writing of the part. Ben Foster certainly outscores Richard Jaeckel as Wade’s henchman Charlie Prince; the role is greatly expanded in the remake and Foster really sinks his teeth into it. I also want to mention Peter Fonda, whose grizzled bounty hunter was one of the best things about the 2007 movie. How can you not admire a man who’s back in the saddle mere hours after being gut-shot and then operated on by a vet – what a guy!

So, I think I can safely say that my preference is for the 1957 3:10 to Yuma. However, people who come upon the remake with no knowledge of or exposure to the original may find it entertaining enough. Sure it’s chock full of implausibilities and boasts an outrageous ending but even I was willing to take these in my stride at first. Watching them consecutively as I did will only throw all those negatives into even sharper relief.

Hondo

/ Colin McGuigan / 11 Comments

There’s a small, isolated western homestead looking out over the harsh wilderness. A lone figure appears in the distance, and slowly makes his weary way towards the house. As he does so, the inhabitants watch his advance warily; does this figure represent hope or danger? While that may sound a whole lot like the opening of 1953’s Shane, it is actually from the same year’s Hondo.

The stranger who appears from the desert turns out to be Hondo Lane (John Wayne), part Indian and a former scout for General Crook’s cavalry. He tells the homesteaders, Mrs. Lowe (Geraldine Page) and her boy Johnny (Lee Aaker), that he  lost his horse a few days before while running from Apaches. He plans to buy a replacement and be on his way, but when he sees that the man of the house is absent, and Mrs. Lowe’s story about his being away in the hills for the day is patently a lie, he tries to make himself useful chopping wood and shoeing horses. He also happens to be carrying dispatches to the effect that the Apache under Vittorio (Michael Pate) are gearing up for war, and tries to impress upon the woman the dangers ahead and the necessity to move out. However, his appeals fall on deaf ears and, being a man who believes in letting people follow their own judgement, he takes his leave the following day. But something about the courage and character of the woman has impressed this fiercely independent man and you know that it’ll only be a matter of time before he returns. Soon after, the farm is visited by Vittorio’s war party, and the Apache chief is so impressed by the grit of little Johnny that he takes a special interest in him. Like Hondo, he feels the woman has no business raising the boy on her own and hands her an ultimatum that unless her man returns by the next rains she must become the squaw of one of his warriors.

By the early 50s, westerns had begun to portray Indians as more than just faceless bogeymen. Broken Arrow and Devil’s Doorway (both 1950) are generally credited with starting this trend, though you could argue that John Ford had already made moves in that direction a few years earlier with Fort Apache. Although Hondo is certainly no revisionist western it does show the Apache as two dimensional people. The film doesn’t shy away from their brutality with plenty of references to massacres and scalpings, and a scene where the captured Wayne is tortured with burning coals. Nevertheless, Vittorio is shown to be a man of honour who respects guts and, above all, honesty. This essential honesty of the Apache is juxtaposed with the whites’ tendency to be less than truthful in their dealings with friend and foe alike. In fact the issue of truth and lies runs all through the picture, with Wayne’s Hondo emphasising its importance again and again. Of course by the end of the film Vittorio is dead, and the last scene brings home how futile the Apache’s struggle would ultimately be as Wayne laments the passing of their way of life.

Hondo Lane is one of Duke’s better roles; he starts out as a man alone who values integrity and self reliance more than anything. Little by little we learn bits and pieces about him and how he came to this point in his life. There’s a nice scene where he talks about his dead wife, an Apache woman, and tries to express in English exactly what her name meant. It’s a simple little scene but Wayne manages to get across not so much the loss his character felt at her passing, but the wonderful memories that he was left with – memories that might be evoked just by the act of saying her name. Although it’s never directly stated, the inference is that his aloof manner is the result of his grief, and it’s only when he sees something of his late wife in Mrs. Lowe that the cracks begin to appear in his armour. There’s no schmaltz in the scenes with Gerladine Page and Lee Aaken, instead there seems to be a real chemistry. Page was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her role as the abandoned wife and her performance justifies that; there’s nothing whiny or hysterical about her, just a kind of quiet acceptance. She wasn’t the most striking woman you’ll ever see but I think that’s as it should be for a character who has been dealt a fairly lousy hand of cards by fate and must play them as best she can. The other notable performance is that of Michael Pate. His Vittorio, as I said above, is more complex than many of the stereotypical Indian characters of the time. This is a man who boasts proudly of the number of white men he’s killed yet is human enough to feel protective towards a boy without a father. Hondo was shot in 3D and this obviously influenced the way John Farrow directed the picture. Action and fight scenes in particular are used to highlight the process, with guns fired directly at the screen and arrows and knives thrust dramatically in your face. (I suppose it should be mentioned that a few bits and pieces during the climax were actually shot by John Ford.)

The DVD from Paramount is presented flat in full screen, although I understand it was intended to be projected in 1.85:1 widescreen. It looks then like the transfer is an open matte one as I couldn’t detect any noticeable cropping at the sides. Generally, the image is a very strong and colorful one with only a few shots, especially near the end, looking a bit ragged. The disc is packed with extras: a commentary, a number of featurettes etc. This was one of the Batjac titles which the Wayne estate had kept out of circulation for years, and so the reputation of the film may have suffered a bit. I think it’s a great movie and would rank it as one of Wayne’s best, right alongside his work with Ford and Hawks.

Mackenna’s Gold

/ Colin McGuigan / 5 Comments

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Well, time to roll out one of my guilty pleasures. Mackenna’s Gold (1969) is one of those movies I saw as a youngster and which has entertained me ever since. Everyone knows that the age at which you first see a film is a major factor influencing how much you appreciate it. When I was a little boy this film seemed like the best western I’d ever seen. It had everything you could ask for: a strong hero, a roguish villain, cavalry, Mexican bandits, menacing Apaches, and lots of action. I’m a good deal older and more jaded now and I no longer think it’s a great western, but it is a great fun western. Sure, I can see all it’s shortcomings now and, if I wanted to be coldly objective, I could probably savage it. But I  don’t feel like being objective; this movie was a genuine childhood pleasure and I intend to hang on to the memory.

There’s a great opening sequence with Joe MacDonald’s camera swooping and soaring over a primal western landscape to the accompaniment of Victor Jory’s narration and Jose Feliciano’s theme song. Ancient buttes and mesas rise up from the parched desert floor before the circling camera locks onto a lone figure and zooms in on an equally ancient Indian on horseback. This old man, Prairie Dog (Eduardo Ciannelli), is carrying a map that reveals the location of a mythical canyon of gold. Before dying he passes on the map to Marshal MacKenna (Gregory Peck), but the marshal has little faith in such tall tales and promptly burns the document. When he is subsequently captured by an outlaw band led by Omar Sharif, he is forced to lead them to the canyon whose whereabouts he has memorized. As the treasure hunt progresses more people are drawn in, notably a number of the leading citizens of the nearest town. There are ambushes, Indian attacks, betrayals and more before the whole thing wraps up with a psychedelic sunrise and a massive earthquake. And let’s not forget there’s the very welcome sight of Julie (Catwoman) Newmar stripping off for a swim in among all that.

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The acting tends to come second in a piece of fluff like this, and that’s pretty much the case here. Gregory Peck is as stoic (those who wish to be unkind might say wooden) as usual in a part that doesn’t call for much more than that. Leaving aside the Egyptian cowboy and the Italian Indian, the best bits come from the starry citizenry of the town (Lee J. Cobb, Edward G. Robinson, Anthony Quayle, Burgess Meredith, Raymond Massey and Eli Wallach) although they have little more than cameo roles and don’t last too long before being massacred. Telly Savalas was generally worth watching when he got to play a villainous part and he’s not bad as a greed fuelled cavalry sergeant.

The direction of J. Lee Thompson, and Carl Foreman’s script keep things moving along fast enough to paper over many of the plot holes and gaps in logic. The action scenes are well filmed, but then you would expect that from Thompson. There’s also some fantastic location photography from veteran cinematographer Joe MacDonald but, despite that, there’s too much reliance on obvious back projection. The only real complaint I have is one shockingly bad effects shot which involves a rope bridge and what looks like an Action Man tied to a toy horse.

OK, this is no masterpiece of cinema but, as I said, it is a movie that I have fond memories of and I’m willing to overlook or forgive many of its faults. Perhaps others who came to it later in life would not be so generous. Sony’s DVD of Mackenna’s Gold is a reasonable transfer. I have the R2 which is anamorphic scope (I have heard that the R1 may be a pan and scan effort – if I’m wrong, feel free to correct me) and it is generally clear but the process shots do stick out like a sore thumb.

The Revengers

/ Colin McGuigan / 4 Comments

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The Revengers (1972) is a movie that I picked up some time ago and then just left it sitting on the shelf. I can remember seeing it offered for a bargain price and thinking that anything which had Bill Holden, Ernest Borgnine and Woody Strode in it must be worth at least a look. How very wrong I was. Having just had the misfortune of sitting through this turkey, my dearest wish is that I had let it alone on the shelf or, better yet, had never parted with cash for it in the first place. I think I’m usually fairly generous in my assessment of movies and can find something positive to take away from most of them. With The Revengers, I really tried to find something – anything – of worth, but ultimately, struck out.

I had a bad feeling right from the off, when the credits appeared to the accompaniment of the kind of theme music that screams “made-for-television” movie. However, one can’t judge a film on the basis of its title sequence and I just wrote this off as a particularly pungent slice of early 70s cheese. For a time (about a half hour or so), I thought this might turn out to be a moderately entertaining little flick – something I’m happy to settle for any day. The plot didn’t promise anything original – the family of Civil War hero John Benedict (Holden) are massacred by a bunch of comancheros during a raid on his ranch and he sets off in search of revenge – but I was okay with that. In order to assist in the pursuit of the killers he recruits a band of six ne’er-do-wells (Borgnine and Strode among them) from a Mexican prison. The fact that there are seven gunmen on a mission south of the border, and the casting, automatically evokes thoughts of both The Magnificent Seven and The Wild Bunch. But there’s nothing remotely magnificent about the events that follow. The main problem is that the comanchero camp gets attacked too early and leaves the movie thrashing around in need of direction and drive. None of the characters behave in a rational manner and their motivations are weak in the extreme. There’s an interlude in the plot where the wounded Benedict rests up in the home of an Irish nurse (Susan Hayward) that, while kind of sweet, serves only as padding. I suppose I could go into the script’s twists and turns in more detail but I honestly can’t be bothered; it’s just too dispiriting. As for the ending, the less said about that the better.

William Holden, probably wondering how he got talked into doing this movie.

I would count myself a fan of Bill Holden and I’ve enjoyed about every performance I’ve seen him give. He could usually be depended on to provide some grit and world-weary realism but in The Revengers he just looks old and tired, although not as old and tired as I felt at the end of it. You might have thought that The Wild Bunch would have resulted in his landing more plum roles but it wasn’t to be – at least not until Network came along a few years later. Ernest Borgnine basically just chews up the scenery and Woody Strode shows his customary quiet dignity in what is a bit of a non-role. Susan Hayward’s part is a small one and, as I already mentioned, doesn’t add a hell of a lot to the story; if it weren’t for the fact that this was her last cinematic appearance it would hardly be worth noting. Whatever talents director Daniel Mann possessed, they didn’t lie in the western genre and it shouldn’t come as any surprise to learn that this was the only one he made. 

The Revengers is available on DVD in R2 in continental Europe but not in the UK. The transfer of this Paramount release is merely passable, and is presented in its correct scope ratio but without anamorphic enhancement. I believe the movie can be obtained in R4 on an anamorphic disc, however, I wouldn’t advise anyone to seek it out as the enhanced picture isn’t going to make an essentially lousy film any more pleasurable. Not recommended.

Broken Arrow

/ Colin McGuigan / 22 Comments

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The 1950s were the heyday of the western. You can look at almost any other decade and find plenty of examples of exceptional westerns, but none can compare to the 50s in terms of the sheer number of intelligent, high quality productions. Broken Arrow (1950) was, to the best of my knowledge, the first western to portray the Indians as more than simple caricatures. This film doesn’t demonise them, nor does it present them as the mystical, tree-hugging hippies that our increasingly politically correct world seems to insist on. Instead it presents a people with their own way of life and their own system of values.

Tom Jeffords (James Stewart) is a former army scout who stumbles upon a wounded Apache boy and nurses him back to health. In doing so, he starts to regard the Apache as real people who think and feel, and who are not just inhuman killing machines that must be eliminated at all costs. When he is subsequently captured by a raiding party, his act of kindness, though viewed with suspicion, leads to his being spared. However, he is forced to witness three survivors of an ambush tortured to death; this is a war of attrition with no quarter given or asked for from either side. The point is made that these are a people with a strong sense of honor but there is no shying away from their capacity for brutality. Jeffords’ return to white society gives an insight into the cruelty and brutality on both sides, as the town’s residents display  both  shock and incredulity on hearing that he failed to take the opportunity to kill a wounded Apache. Sickened by the endless cycle of tit-for-tat violence, Jeffords takes it upon himself to seek out a meeting with Cochise (Jeff Chandler) in order to try to find some middle ground. The meeting does produce some limited results, and also brings him into contact with a young Apache maiden (Debra Paget). As Jeffords finds himself falling in love, so he seeks to broker a peace deal between Cochise and the army. The racism prevalent on both sides is shown clearly and the film, to its credit, doesn’t try to lecture the viewer on who was right and who was wrong. It assumes that adults are capable of making up their own minds – seems such an odd concept these days, doesn’t it?

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James Stewart gave one of his usual solid performances, and by the end of the movie you can see director Delmer Daves draw on some of the disillusioned bitterness that Anthony Mann would later exploit so successfully. Jeff Chandler’s portrayal of Cochise earned him an Oscar nomination (eventually losing out to George Sanders), and he is convincing in the role. Generally, the acting is fine all round with good work from Paget, Will Geer, and Jay (Tonto) Silverheels as Geronimo. Delmer Daves is a director who seems to be very underrated these days, but I feel he turned out some great movies (especially in the western genre) in the 50s. One criticism that could be levelled at him is that his endings were frequently a bit of a cop out, however, I don’t feel that it applies in this case.

Broken Arrow is a great example of a 1950s western and, if you have even a passing interest in the genre, it deserves a place in your collection. I watched the R2 DVD from Optimum which is far from a perfect disc. The colors vary from faded to strong and the image is generally soft. Having said that though, it’s by no means a terrible presentation and is certainly watchable throughout. There is a R1 release from Fox but I don’t own this and can’t comment on the transfer.

 

If anyone has been wondering where I’ve been, I just decided to take a little break from posting. As others have mentioned, you can reach the point where you post so often that it starts to feel like an obligation rather than a pleasure. As such, I’ve decided to post when I feel like it rather than try to fulfill some notional quota I’ve set myself. So, until the next time…