Westerns

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.

Garden of Evil

/ Colin McGuigan / 9 Comments

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Look at her! Taking four men like us to a mountain of gold.

So says Richard Widmark’s Fisk, and in so doing he about sums up the plot of the movie. In a nutshell, a desperate woman (Susan Hayward) hires four men (Widmark, Gary Cooper, Cameron Mitchell and Victor Mendoza), who are all hanging around a dead-end Mexican town, to accompany her into the badlands on a mission of mercy; her husband is lying trapped in a mine deep in Apache country. What follows is an adventure tale that ties in some weighty themes such as, loyalty, greed, lust and infidelity. There are also some fairly explicit religious-moral allusions with the only features visible in a lava covered town being the church steeple and the entrance to the gold mine. Why, there’s even a crucifixion!

However, the film is never heavy-going and there is more than enough action to satisfy genre fans. The climactic chase and battle with the Apache is especially well-handled by veteran director Henry Hathaway. In fact, the whole thing moves along at a good pace and, at a little over an hour and a half, never outstays its welcome.

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I love these early scope films from Fox, and this a great looking picture. Hathaway makes fine use of the widescreen process to show off the Mexican locations; some of the photography on the high mountain pass is simply stunning. The score is a bit of an unexpected one, by Bernard Herrmann no less. Herrmann, being Hitchcock’s composer of choice, is not a name you’d automatically associate with westerns. Nevertheless, the combination of soaring and ominous tones fits the mood of this movie perfectly.

There is, though, one very odd aspect to this film. Now, I won’t claim to be highly knowledgable of American Indians but the Apache we see here are the strangest looking bunch I’ve ever come across – surely the Apache never had Mohican haircuts!

That aside, I highly recommend this movie. How can you not love a western with Gary Cooper and Richard Widmark. I think both men give excellent performances, although I may be a little biased since I’m a huge fan of Coop. He gets to deliver the last line of the film while squinting into the sunset –

The garden of evil – if the earth was made of gold, I guess men would die for a handful of dirt.

Great stuff!

Station West

/ Colin McGuigan / 12 Comments

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What an oddball little western this is. It opens with Dick Powell’s stranger riding into town and checking into a hotel run by a guitar strumming (and uncredited) Burl Ives who just happens to be singing about a stranger riding into town. At this point we’re not seeing any western conventions being stretched. However, as soon as this slight figure crosses the street, enters the saloon and starts to throw out the kind of wise cracks and casual insults that would surely earn anyone the ass-kicking of a lifetime, we can be sure this is no average oater.

Powell is not really your average western hero, and here this is explained by his being an undercover army intelligence officer. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that Powell isn’t tough enough to be a westerner (a brutal and well photographed brawl with Guinn “Big Boy” Williams leaves that in no doubt) but he doesn’t sound like a cowboy. In truth, this is a lot of what makes the picture so entertaining. If you are familiar with Powell’s role in Murder, My Sweet then this film will conjure images of Marlowe riding the range.

Another thing the movie has going for it is the cast. In addition to Powell we have Jane Greer, playing another dangerous vamp, who seems to own the whole town. Agnes Moorehead is Powell’s contact with the army, and Raymond Burr is the town lawyer with a gambling problem – all wide-eyed weakness and far removed from Perry Mason. The aforementioned Williams doesn’t have much to do here except look mean, but (as with Ward Bond) I find something reassuring about the presence of his familiar mug in a film. Burl Ives’ small role as “either the town poet or the village idiot” is also most welcome.

 

The plot revolves around hijacked gold shipments but, in a Chandleresque way, it doesn’t seem so important. The real joy here is the fusion of hard-boiled noir dialogue with western locales. If you are seeking an authentic and gritty representation of the Old West, then look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you are a fan of westerns and noir and want to see the best elements of both working in tandem, then Station West is worth a look.

The film is available on DVD from France in a transfer that is just adequate. It’s an RKO picture so it may get a R1 release from Warner one day, although the company seems to show little appetite for westerns right now.