Westerns

The Long Riders

/ Colin McGuigan / 13 Comments

I’ve been working my way chronologically through as many films dealing with the James/Younger gang as possible. The last one I’m going to look at for now is Walter Hill’s The Long Riders from 1980. I feel sure that this is Hill’s best western, quite possibly it’s his best film period. All the other films that I have gone through in this little series have basically concentrated on one character, either Jesse James, Frank James or Bob Ford. The Long Riders differs in this respect since the focus is on the gang members collectively – the unique casting decisions playing a significant role here.

The movie charts the last years of the gang and provides little of the background found in other versions. There are, of course, numerous references throughout to the post-war hostility that is usually cited as the reason for the gang’s activities. But there are no images here of innocent farm boys driven, in spite of themselves, towards criminality. Instead, the opening of the film shows the gang as a bunch of seasoned pros coolly holding up a bank. That’s not to say that the characters are portrayed in an unsympathetic light – the script encourages the viewer to root for these men while also hissing at the bungling, murderous Pinkerton agents hunting them. The needless killing of a bank cashier by Ed Miller (Dennis Quaid), and his consequent expulsion from the gang, is meant to show us that these men are not just mindless sociopaths. It is also made clear that the killings of a number of Pinkerton men are forced on them only after those agents have murdered innocent members of their families. There’s also attention paid to the personal relationships of all the gang members, the most memorable being that between Cole Younger (David Carradine) and the tough and sexy Belle Starr (Pamela Reed). This affords Carradine the opportunity to deliver one of the best lines in the movie: “You’ll never be respectable Belle. You’re a whore… You’ll always be a whore…That’s why I like you.” 

 

The film is beautifully shot and paced all the way through and this is most evident in the memorable Northfield sequence. The filming of the raid and the shootout has often been compared to the style of Sam Peckinpah, and I won’t argue with that. This brutal gun battle is the real highlight of the movie with lots of slow motion to emphasise the agonising impact of each and every bullet wound. Sure this a bloody scene but not in the pointless, voyeuristic sense that seems to plague so many modern action movies.

I don’t think the unusual casting method employed here has been attempted anywhere else – all the brothers’ roles are taken by real life brothers. James and Stacy Keach are the James brothers, the Youngers are played by David, Keith and Robert Carradine (would any Jesse James film be complete without the presence of a Carradine?), Randy and Dennis Quaid are the Millers, and Nicholas and Christopher Guest are Bob and Charlie Ford. If I were to analyse each performance I might never finish this piece, so I’ll keep it brief. I feel the acting honours are shared equally between Stacy Keach’s Frank James and David Carradine’s Cole Younger. Carradine’s swaggering and tough Cole, and Keach’s thoughtful and mature Frank are the roles that anchor the film. For the others, they’re mostly as good as their parts allow them – with one exception. James Keach’s portrayal of Jesse is about the worst that I have seen. For a man’s name to have become so deeply embedded in popular mythology Jesse James must surely have been possessed of some charisma. However, the acting of James Keach makes him so wooden and blank that you have to wonder how all those vital characters around him could have acknowledged him as their leader.

So, having gone through a number of similarly themed movies, what conclusions can I come to? Firstly, I would have to say that The Long Riders is my personal favorite of all the depictions of these colorful characters. It also happens to be the one that sticks closest to the historical facts, but I can’t say that this seriously affects my opinion of their cinematic merits. The other thing that I noticed was that the character of Frank James consistently fares best of all. I was never in any doubt that this was one tough, mean hombre but I couldn’t help feeling that he was the most recognisably human figure of the bunch – of course, this may well be a result of the quality of the actors who have played the part down through the years. For myself, I found it interesting to watch the various versions almost back to back and see how they evolved; I plan to do something similar with the Wyatt Earp movies, but not right away.

The Long Riders is available on DVD from MGM in R1 and R2 in a mediocre edition. The transfer, while it is anamorphic, is badly in need of a clean-up. It is also shameful that a film which I regard as a bona fide classic of the genre comes with no extras save for a theatrical trailer. I sincerely hope that MGM sees fit to revisit this title and show it some of the respect it most certainly deserves.

 

The True Story of Jesse James

/ Colin McGuigan / 4 Comments

 

Almost twenty years after scoring a hit with Jesse James Fox tried to repeat their success in 1957. With a screenplay based on and crediting Nunnally Johnson’s 1939 effort, the studio tagged ‘The True Story’ onto the title and director Nicholas Ray was handed the task of trying to offer a fresh perspective on this oft-told tale. So, does this one actually tell the true story? Well, not exactly since the time-line is more than a bit suspect, although it does get quite a few things right which the earlier version didn’t.

The film pitches the viewer straight into the action as it opens during the raid on the Northfield bank. After the dramatic escape of Jesse (Robert Wagner) and brother Frank (Jeffrey Hunter) the film proceeds to narrate events via a series of flashbacks which lead up to the climactic and doomed heist. The True Story of Jesse James, as I said, manages to correct a few of the errors of the earlier version. In this film the James gang are, more accurately, shown to be driven towards a life of crime as a result of the conditions that prevailed after the Civil War. The treatment of the other characters is also a good deal closer to reality. The 1939 film had the James home being bombed by railroad agents, resulting in the death of Jesse’s mother. Nicholas Ray’s movie has the attack being carried out by Pinkerton men (referred to here as Remington agents) and causing not the death of the old woman but the loss of her arm – again this is pretty much as it happened. It is no bad thing either that the Younger brothers are actually portrayed here, although the emphasis on them is slight.

 

The biggest weakness of the movie lies in the casting, and particularly that of the lead. While earlier incarnations showed Jesse James as a lovable rogue (Tyrone Power) or a saintly, avuncular type (Reed Hadley), here he has evolved into more of a trigger-happy glory seeker. The trouble is that Robert Wagner just doesn’t have the necessary edge or grit to carry this off successfully. Although he does give a pleasant enough performance he is simply too lightweight. Jeffrey Hunter, on the other hand, is excellent as Frank; so much so that it seems a pity he wasn’t given the lead. Agnes Moorehead adds some class as the mother but her scenes are few. Even though Alan Hale’s Cole Younger is played mostly for comic relief it lends a touch of realism to see the character appear and be shown as a figure of some influence within the gang. John Carradine turns up again (how many  movies did this man make?), not as Bob Ford but as the preacher who baptises Jesse.

While I generally enjoyed this movie there were a few things that did get up my nose. These mostly involved the inclusion of footage from the 1939 Henry King film. The train robbery sequence blends in fairly seamlessly but another example proved especially distracting to me. During the well filmed Northfield raid, as the lead flies and men are falling all around, Frank and Jesse take the time to ride into an alley and divest themselves of their long dusters. Why, you might well ask, would two men caught in a firefight pause to do this? Well, the answer is that we’re about to see recycled footage of Power and Fonda riding through a plate glass window and later jumping their horses off a cliff – and our heroes hadn’t been wearing dusters in the ’39 film! Now those scenes were great the first time round but it smacks of a certain cheapness to wheel them out here again. Another problem I had was at the end of the film. You know that Bob Ford is going to shoot Jesse as he stands on a chair to straighten that picture. Well, here Ford gives it to him in the back of the head at point blank range – and instead of dropping to the floor like a sack of potatoes, Jesse swivels around to glare reproachfully at his assassin before succumbing to his wound. Bah!

The True Story of Jesse James is available on DVD from Fox in R1 and Optimum in R2. I watched the R1 and the presentation of this scope film is excellent with no major faults worth mentioning. I can’t comment on the quality of the R2 disc but I would imagine that it has been cut by the BBFC for the aforementioned scene of the jump off the cliff – I understand one of the animals was killed during the filming of that stunt. So, despite some quibbles, I would say this is not a bad movie – just not a great one.

I Shot Jesse James

/ Colin McGuigan / 18 Comments

jesse_james0

Sam Fuller made his directorial debut in 1949 with this take on the old story. I Shot Jesse James, as the title suggests, keeps the focus squarely on Bob Ford (John Ireland) and shows him in a more sympathetic light than usual. Like most film representations of these characters, there are some elements of the truth woven into the story. This film comes a little closer to reality in depicting the demise of Bob Ford than was the case with The Return of Frank James; here the name of the killer, the location and the means are broadly correct. Where the story drifts off into total fiction is the inclusion of the romantic triangle as the centrepiece of the drama.

The story opens with a botched bank robbery that leaves Bob Ford wounded and forced to lay up at the James home in Missouri. As he recuperates, he has the opportunity to visit the love of his life Cynthy Waters (Barbara Britton) who is an actress in a travelling theatre company. This meeting lays the groundwork for all that is to follow. When Ford arrives to see his woman he also meets a man called Kelley (Preston Foster) – a prospector who is clearly smitten with Cynthy. And thus the aforementioned triangle is set up. Cynthy begs Ford to abandon his outlaw ways and settle down to a decent life, thereby providing the motive for the subsequent murder of his friend. The rest of the movie is a portrait of guilt and a man trying to make good on his promise to go straight, yet foiled at every turn by his past and a love destined to remain unfulfilled.

In many ways I Shot Jesse James is a slight film, no more than a B movie really. What makes it notable is the way it tries to show Ford as a real person and not the greed driven caricature of earlier versions. I can’t say I was bothered by the playing around with historical facts since the reason for this was clearly the need to provide the character of Ford with a motive that might be understood. John Ireland does a pretty good job in showing us a man who is left bewildered when his actions draw not only the scorn of strangers but drive away the very woman whose heart he’d hoped to capture. Barbara Britton is good enough too as her character goes from love for Ford, through disgust at his actions, and finally to fear of what he has become. Preston Foster, as Kelley, isn’t called on to do much more than be the strong, dependable, moral anchor but he does it capably enough.

Sam Fuller would go on to make more famous, and better films than this but there are some memorable scenes. The climactic shootout has Ford framed in inky blackness – maybe signifying the moral void he now inhabits. There’s also a great scene in a saloon where Ford listens to a travelling minstrel sing about the murder of Jesse James. This was mirrored in the recent film by Andrew Dominik, but I prefer the way it was done here. After introducing himself, Ford insists that the singer complete his ballad as he stares implacably at him. You can almost taste the man’s fear as he chokes his way through the song, and struggles to utter the words ‘the dirty, little coward’ to Bob Ford’s face.

Criterion put this out on DVD in the ‘First Films of Samuel Fuller’ set, and it’s not available separately. This is part of the Eclipse line, and hasn’t had the careful restoration commonly associated with Criterion releases. However, it still looks good enough and I didn’t find the damage marks present to be particularly distracting. All in all, I Shot Jesse James is an interesting, if minor film.

 

The Return of Frank James

/ Colin McGuigan / 1 Comment

 Titles

It is, and always has been, common for a highly successful film to spawn a sequel. In 1939 Fox produced Jesse James and, riding on the wave of the reinvigorated western genre, found themselves with a hit on their hands. Of course, it’s a little difficult to continue a story when you have just killed off your main character. However, Hollywood rarely finds itself at a loss for long and the solution was to pick up the story where the first film left off and concentrate on the surviving brother, Frank James (Henry Fonda). The only problem was that, after Jesse’s death, Frank’s life wasn’t the stuff of dramatic, action-packed blockbusters. Therefore, the truth needed to be manipulated to present audiences with a story of revenge and redemption.

In the aftermath of the ill-fated raid on the Northfield bank Frank James had gone to ground. We find him living under an assumed name and it would seem that he has renounced his outlaw ways. On receiving news of the death of his brother he is content to let the law run its course, believing that Bob and Charlie Ford will be tried and duly hanged for the murder. It is only when he learns that, despite their conviction, the Fords have been granted a full pardon that he decides to take matters into his own hands and straps on his guns again. There follows a pursuit across the country to Colorado as Frank attempts to track down the Fords and mete out the justice he feels the courts have denied him. By the end of the film all the loose ends have been tied up and we get a traditionally happy ending. The problem with this is that the production code of the time dictated that a killer should not be presented as the hero – or at the very least that he should be punished for his deeds. The way around that issue was to present Frank James as an essentially honorable man hounded into infamy by circumstances and big business. So while the Fords get their comeuppance it is not Frank who is shown to kill them (which is historically true at least). In fact, the film is at pains to point out the innocence and decency of our hero throughout – even having one of the characters declare indignantly that Frank James never killed anyone. All of this is vaguely unsatisfactory since a man setting out on a mission of vengeance should, to my mind, be allowed to achieve some measure of it directly.

A grim Frank James (Henry Fonda) watches Bob Ford re-enact the murder of his brother.

As I said, Henry Fonda plays the lead very much in the style of the classic romantic hero. Throughout his long career Fonda was most frequently cast as the everyman who was the very epitome of human virtue. Almost thirty years later Sergio Leone would give Fonda the opportunity to finally play a character (also named Frank, as it happens) of pure evil in Once Upon A Time In The West. Gene Tierney (in her debut role) provides some eye-candy and romantic interest as a newspaper reporter, but not much else. Much of the rest of the cast is filled out with actors from the previous film, with John Carradine reprising his part as Bob Ford. Once again, Donald Meek is the conniving railroad boss and Henry Hull chews up every piece of scenery in sight as the editor of the local paper and friend of the family. Hull’s best scenes come towards the end of the film in a flamboyant courtroom defence of Frank on a charge of murder. This scene mirrors reality, where Frank James stood trial for robbery and murder and whose character was attested to by an old Confederate officer. In truth, the film spends a good deal of time on the lingering animosity between north and south in the years following the Civil War. All in all, director Fritz Lang’s first foray into the western genre is a pleasant and entertaining one.

Fox’s DVD release of The Return of Frank James is an improvement on the transfer of Jesse James, but not by much. The image is a good deal more consistent here but darker scenes are still quite murky and washed out. Generally, the outdoor scenes fare the best with stronger colour and sharpness. 

Jesse James

/ Colin McGuigan / 5 Comments

zjdoxsb

Having recently seen The Assassination of Jesse James, and having enjoyed it immensely, it occurred to me to go back and revisit some of the other movies based on the legendary outlaw. Along with William Bonney the name Jesse James has become an integral part of the myth of the west. For both of these men, questions of who and what they were and why they acted as they did have been endlessly explored and no truly satisfactory answers have emerged. But does that really matter? To me it doesn’t since the movies are and were, at heart, an entertainment and storytelling medium. It seems naive in the extreme to seek the whole truth in a dramatic form – if you want the real facts you need to look elsewhere. Henry King’s 1939 version of Jesse James certainly bends the truth more than a little, but that doesn’t mean the film is a poor one.

This movie opens in the years following the Civil War and portrays Jesse (Tyrone Power) and brother Frank (Henry Fonda) as peace loving farmers in Missouri. That’s the first of many inaccuracies, for the truth is that the brothers had already strayed into lawlessness during the war – Frank riding with Quantrill and Jesse with another group of guerrilla raiders. There is no doubt, right from the beginning, that the true villain here is the railroad and more specifically it’s representatives. The railroad, as in many westerns, is shown to be the product of the greedy and corrupt east. It is the actions of one of the railroad agents (Brian Donlevy) that causes the James bothers to turn their backs on the law. From this point on their fates are mapped out for them and further dissembling on the part of the big businessmen serves only to provide more justification for the brother’s criminal activities.

The movie is full of some fine set pieces such as the early train robbery with Jesse riding up to the rear, hauling himself aboard, and then proceeding along the roof for the whole length of the locomotive until he reaches the engine. The famous raid on the bank in Northfield could have been given more time but it does contain some great action shots – Jesse and Frank riding their horses through a store window to escape and then following that up with a dive off a cliff into a river below.

Power and Fonda play the brothers as essentially romantic and heroic figures, but the film is not above pointing out the less honorable aspects of Jesse’s character. At one point Randolph Scott’s sympathetic lawman makes it clear that Jesse’s initial justification has been superceded by simple, inexcusable criminality. Another scene, on the eve of the Northfield raid, shows Jesse to be a man on the verge of losing control and only the efforts of his more rational brother haul him back. Scott’s supporting role doesn’t offer much and I get the feeling that it was only included to show that all authority figures are not scheming back-stabbers. The notorious Bob Ford is played by John Carradine as a craven scoundrel with whom the viewer can feel no sympathy whatsoever. As a portrait of cowardly betrayal it’s well done but, as with all the villainous parts, remains one dimensional.

Fox issued the movie on DVD last year and the presentation is a good deal less than might have been hoped for. Frankly, the print is in poor condition and this is particularly evident for the first half hour or so where the age of the film becomes painfully obvious. Things do improve as it goes on but issues with the colour occasionally arise. The film clearly needs restoration work but, despite it’s shortcomings, I’m still very happy to at least have it in my collection.

 

Western Union

/ Colin McGuigan / 6 Comments

pxsblta

If you mention Fritz Lang’s name to most film fans they are most likely to think of expressionism, thrillers, and films such as M and Metropolis. It is not so typical to associate the German director’s name with classic Hollywood westerns but he did make a handful of these. To be exact, he made three westerns: The Return of Frank James (1940), Western Union (1941) and Rancho Notorious (1952). I think it would be fair to say that Western Union is the least known of them, but perhaps it deserves better. It is quite representative of 1940s westerns in that it tries to avoid some of the more juvenile aspects of the previous decade’s output but lacks the psychological depth that would come in the 50s. Although it may not bear the hallmarks of classic Lang, it does contain those of the classic western.

It’s not for nothing that the building of the railroad has figured so prominently in so many great westerns, from Ford’s The Iron Horse through to Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West. It was this massive undertaking that at once opened up the west and also signalled the closing of the frontier way of life. For some film-makers it represented the advance of law, order and civil society; for others it stood only for the gradual encroachment of the corrupt influences of the east. Western Union deals not with the railroad but that other piece of progress that would drag America into the modern world and relegate the Old West to the realm of mythology – the laying of the transcontinental telegraph wire.

The film opens with outlaw Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott) attempting to outrun a posse and happening upon telegraph boss Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger). Creighton has been injured and is barely able to move with a busted ribcage. Shaw is desperate to evade capture and is on the point of taking Creighton’s horse and leaving the stricken man to his fate. However, his conscience pricks at him and he decides to take a risk and bring the helpless man along. That proves to be the turning point for Shaw, for when he later finds employment with the telegraph company as a scout it is Creighton who offers him the chance to go respectable. The other main character is the dandified easterner, Blake (Robert Young). Blake has come west to work for the telegraph, and soon enters into a rivalry with Shaw over Creighton’s sister. The movie, like the characters themselves, has a lot of ground to cover and is played out against the back-story of the Civil War. It includes a well-staged battle with some drunken Indians and a confrontation with a gang of renegade confederate raiders led by Shaw’s own brother.

£2

Randolph Scott is excellent as a man torn between a lingering loyalty to his brother and the old ways, and a desire to turn over a new leaf. If you’re under the impression that Scott would not come into his own until a decade later in the films of Budd Boetticher then think again – this is definitely one of his better performances. Dean Jagger’s part doesn’t call for much more than stoic determination and he does that just fine. As for Robert Young, he’s never been an actor that I’ve cared much for and this showing did little to change my opinion. The support cast features some great and familiar faces, not least Barton MacLane (who seemed to appear everywhere in the thirties and forties) as Scott’s thoroughly good-for-nothing brother. Add in an impossibly young looking Chill Wills as a tobacco-chewing (and spitting) telegraph man, and John Carradine as the company doctor and there’s not much to complain about. As I said above, there isn’t much to distinguish this as a Fritz Lang film, but he still delivers a polished, professional picture and does include a few typically dark moments – particularly the ‘shock’ climax.

The film is out on DVD in R2 from Optimum in their Western Classics line. The transfer is mediocre at best and has clearly undergone no restoration, with the colours looking quite washed out. Having said that, the movie is worth seeking out, but I can’t help wishing that Fox would see their way to releasing it in R1 with an improved transfer.

 

Ride the High Country

/ Colin McGuigan / 7 Comments

poster19_zpsa03d6774

Generally, when I’ve knocked out my thoughts on a film, I’ve tried to avoid those productions which have already been analyzed to death. Such is the case with the work of Sam Peckinpah, which has had more than its fair share of examination and re-examination. However, I have decided that I’m not going to ignore the movie that both provides the title of my own blog and also happens to be my favorite among Sam’s films. Made in 1962, Ride the High Country was the director’s second feature – although this piece by John Hodson helps to explain why the previous year’s The Deadly Companions isn’t a real Peckinpah picture. This film contains the elements that have come to be typically associated with Sam, namely the passing of the Old West, the nature of friendship and loyalty, and a reflection on one’s past deeds.

The whole thing revolves around the two leads, Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. These two men are old friends and former partners who have come together one last time,  for one last job. McCrea is the very epitome of honour and personal integrity, whose only wish in life is to enter his house justified. His idealism hasn’t brought him any material rewards, his shabby suit in the early scenes being proof enough of that. Scott, on the other hand, has come to question the value of holding on to principles that lead only to poverty and a poorly attended funeral. And so it’s a question of whether McCrea’s quiet nobility or Scott’s cynical pragmatism will ultimately triumph. The guarding of a gold shipment will test the strength of their friendship to the full, but it is the climactic showdown with a family of degenerate rednecks that brings closure to all the moral issues that precede it.

Both Scott and McCrea play off each other beautifully and it’s a genuine pleasure to watch these two old hands clearly relishing what they must surely have recognised as the roles of a lifetime. Both men had spent the previous decade acting almost exclusively in westerns and that experience adds immeasurably to the authenticity of the film. For Scott and McCrea, Ride the High Country was to be the last hurrah; McCrea would make a few more movies and Scott, wisely I think, called it a day and bowed out with what is arguably his best role. Maybe it’s just my sentimentality, but I always get goosebumps when Scott speaks his final lines in cinema and tells McCrea “I’ll see you later..” – it’s a lovely understated way to bid farewell to a long and distinguished career. Randolph Scott is one of the reasons why I enjoy the western genre so much (I suspect I’m not alone, if that gag in Blazing Saddles is anything to go by) – when I was a child it seemed as though no Saturday afternoon was complete without a television showing of one of his films, so he was and is the personification of the western hero for me.

Ride the High Country is a marvelous looking picture due to Peckinpah’s direction and Lucien Ballard’s wonderful cinematography. The movie is full of memorable scenes, not the least of which being the climax, as Scott and McCrea stand shoulder to shoulder and walk out to confront the murderous Hammond clan and fate itself. Peckinpah would offer up a more elaborately staged and celebrated ‘walk’ in The Wild Bunch, but this one packs just as much punch for its simplicity.

Ride the High Country may have become overshadowed by the films that would follow from Peckinpah, but I don’t feel that that should be the case. Is it his best movie? Many would argue that it’s not and point instead to The Wild Bunch or Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, but it is the one that I have a special affection for, and the one that I find myself returning to most often.

100 Rifles

/ Colin McGuigan / 4 Comments

100Rifles_Poster

1969 saw the release of two westerns that featured Americans dabbling in the Mexican revolution. Both pictures involved hijacked arms shipments, trains, advancing technology, European military advisers and elaborately staged shootouts with the Federales. One, of course, was Sam Peckinpah’s seminal, genre-defining masterpiece  The Wild Bunch – the other was Tom Gries’ popcorn entertainment 100 Rifles. Since copious amounts of scholarly writing has already been devoted to the former, I’m going to look at the latter.

A year before, Tom Gries had directed the thoughtful and elegiac Will Penny – his next project was a distinct departure. 100 Rifles tells of Lyedecker, an American lawman (Jim Brown), who ventures south of the border in pursuit of Yaqui Joe (Burt Reynolds) who has stolen a consignment of weapons – the hundred rifles of the title. The guns are to be presented to the Yaqui Indians to assist them in their struggle against the Mexican authorities. Naturally, the Federales – led by a thoroughly sadistic Fernando Lamas – are keen to acquire these rifles for themselves. And there you have it. Will Lyedecker carry out his sworn duty and bring Joe back for trial? Will he be seduced by the plight of the Yaqui? Will the Federales beat them all to the chase? By the time the movie hurtles along to its grandstand climax all those questions have been resolved.

All the main players give amiable performances here with likable heroes and hissable villains. Burt Reynolds may not be the greatest actor in the world, but it’s hard not to like him on screen. Jim Brown is merely passable and Fernando Lamas is suitably vile. Dan O’Herlihy is always watchable as the railroad boss with shifting allegiances. But the real standout here is Raquel Welch as the revolutionary, Sarita. The scene where she stops a whole trainload of Federales as she takes a shower under a water tower is reason enough to see this film on its own!

OK, so this isn’t the best western you’ll ever see but its heart is in the right place, there’s more than enough action to satisfy, and Jerry Goldsmith’s score suits the mood of the piece perfectly. Available in a great looking anamorphic transfer from Fox in R1.

 

Night Passage

/ Colin McGuigan / 23 Comments

pound8_zps0j825if3

Two brothers, one an outlaw and the other a former railroad troubleshooter in disgrace, square off. That’s the basic premise of  Night Passage.

Jimmy Stewart is the honest man who is now reduced to scratching out a living as an accordion player after letting his no-good sibling Audie Murphy escape five years previously. He gets a last chance to redeem himself when his ex-boss hires him again. The railroad payroll has been repeatedly robbed by a gang of outlaws led by The Utica Kid (Murphy) and Whitey Harbin (Dan Duryea) – Stewart is assigned to see that the next one gets through. So the stage is set for a showdown.

Night Passage is the Anthony Mann western that never was. Mann was slated to direct Jimmy Stewart once again but pulled out at the last minute. His replacement was James Neilson (a debut director) and he managed to produce a serviceable movie, but fails to properly use the edgy quality that Mann always seemed to extract from his lead.

There are a number of weaknesses present, not least the overuse of Stewart’s accordian playing! The plot tries to pack in too many ideas and never really develops any of them sufficiently; Murphy and Stewart’s battle for the soul of Brandon De Wilde could have been expanded upon. It is shown early on that Stewart’s old flame is now married to his boss, but again nothing much is made of this.

Nevertheless, there are lots of good things here. The cinematography of William H. Daniels shows off the Colorado scenery to breathtaking effect in some beautiful shots and Dimitri Tiomkin provides one of his great trademark scores. I’ve heard it said that his music is sometimes too overpowering and in-your-face but I can’t think of any examples of his work that I didn’t like. Murphy is good in the role of the black sheep; he always seemed to give better performances when playing anti-heroic characters (No Name on the Bullet and John Huston’s The Unforgiven come to mind). There’s also a fine array of familiar support players in Jay C. Flippen, Jack Elam, Olive Carey, Hugh Beaumont and Paul Fix.

The film is available on DVD from Universal and looks very nice indeed in anamorphic scope – I have the R2 but I imagine the R1 uses the same transfer. Recommended.

 

The Last Hard Men

/ Colin McGuigan / 13 Comments

Sometimes the title of a movie is almost prophetic; James Coburn and Charlton Heston were probably among the last real tough guy actors. But everything must change and be replaced, and that’s the underlying theme of this 1976 end-of-the-trail western.

In the early years of the 20th century Zack Provo (Coburn), along with a half dozen others, escapes from a chain gang and goes on the run. News of the breakout reaches retired lawman Sam Burgade (Heston) who realises that Provo will come gunning for him. It was Burgade who ran Provo to ground and he knows that old scores will have to be settled. With the abduction of Burgade’s daughter (Barbara Hershey), the chase is on – ending only after an orgy of sub-Peckinpah slow motion violence.

James Coburn

The movie was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and, like most of his work, promises more than it ultimately delivers. McLaglen, an apprentice of John Ford, always knew how to film a landscape and offers some pleasing images here. The main problem is that he seems to be trying to remake Big Jake in the style of Peckinpah, and it never really comes off. However, we’ve seen all this before, and seen it done better. Heston tosses out some lines about how the times are changing, but it doesn’t feel like it has any real conviction. Jerry Goldsmith provides a rousing score but again there’s nothing original – it is the same one he produced for 100 Rifles a few years before. All in all, not a bad movie but not a great one either. If you’re a western fan, or a Heston or Coburn completist like me, you’ll want to check it out – just don’t expect too much. 

The film is widely available in continental Europe, though not in the UK yet, from Fox. The transfer is a solid one, with a sharp anamorphic scope image and strong, bright colours.