Westerns in March: Decision at Sundown (1957)

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Every time Westerns in March rolls around, I find myself drawn to one of the Ranown Westerns (seven films director Budd Boetticher made with Randolph Scott). In a few years I’ll have them all reviewed, and then I don’t know what I’ll do.

Decision at Sundown is the third film together and sits somewhere in the middle in terms of my love for it.

Bart Allison (Scott) rides into the town of Sundown with his pal Sam (Noah Beery, Jr.) Sam had been scouting the place out as Bart has been scouring the Earth looking for a man he thinks was responsible for his wife’s suicide.

That man is Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll.) He came to Sundown some time before and has essentially taken the town over. On the day Bart arrives, Tate is set to marry Lucy Summerton (Karen Steele).

At first Bart takes his time scoping the situation out, but he makes it clear to anyone near him that he has no love for Kinbrough. He gets a shave and tells the barber he’s no friend of the man. He gets a drink at the bar, and even though all drinks are being paid for by Kimbrough, he makes a show of giving the bar keep a coin.

Eventually, he’s had enough, and he bursts into the wedding ceremony and announces that before the day is over, he will kill Kimbrough dead.

The townsfolk chase Bart and Sam out, and they take refuge in a livery stable. From there the film becomes a base-under-siege story. But something is happening in the town. The people don’t seem all that interested in capturing our heroes. Oh sure, Kimbrough’s got some hired guns who keep shooting at the stable, and the sheriff (Andrew Duggan) is Kimbrough’s man, though even he seems reluctant to put his life on the line for Kimbrough.

Plus there is that thing that Bart said at the wedding. Did Kimbrough really seduce Bart’s wife, leading to her suicide? Certainly Lucy wants answers to that question.

All of this loosens Kimbrough’s grip on the town. Dr. John Storrow (John Archer) has never liked Kimbrough or his influence on the town. Bart has given him the courage to stand up. Others begin to wonder why they’ve been letting Kimbrough run roughshod over them for so long.

At the same time, Bart learns more information about his wife. Maybe she wasn’t the chaste, loving wife he thought she was. What does that do to his need for revenge?

It all wraps up fairly neatly, though not as happily as you might expect. That’s the thing about these Ranown films: they aren’t afraid to give you a thoughtful, even downtrodden ending. Scott is his usual taciturn self, and Boetticher’s direction is as solid as ever. This isn’t a film that’s going to get counted as the genre’s best ever, but it is sturdy and so well made that it is still worth watching. And then a few years later, watching again. I keep it in regular rotation with all the other Ranown Westerns.

Westerns in March: Valdez is Coming (1971)

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Based upon a book by Elmore Leonard, Valdez Is Coming stars Burt Lancaster as Bob Valdez, a Mexican constable who is tricked into killing an African American by a rich rancher named Frank Tanner (Jon Cypher) and then takes his revenge.

Tanner accuses the man of murder, and his hired gun, R.L. Davis (Richard Jordan) has been shooting his hovel up for quite a while before Valdez shows up. There is a great moment when the accused man’s Native American wife walks out of the hovel and over to a creek to fetch some water. Davis keeps shooting at her (intentionally missing; he just wants to watch her squeal), but she fetches the water with absolute calm.

Valdez figures he might be able to talk the man out instead of killing him. And he’s just about able to. He explains the man will have a better chance if he tells his side of the story instead of shooting it out with those men. As the man begins to agree, he leaves the door open, and Davis shoots at him. The man (and I’m sorry, I don’t think the film actually gives him a name, and I can’t figure out who played him) thinks it’s a setup and starts shooting at Valdez, who then shoots back, killing the man.

Once Tanner takes a look at the dead man, he realizes he wasn’t the murderer but shrugs it off as if it were no big deal. Valdez figures they owe the man’s woman an apology and perhaps a little money for the mistake. When he asks Tanner for $100, he’s laughed at and shooed away. When Valdez insists Tanner get his men to tie Valdez to a wooden cross and drive him into the desert.

He eventually gets himself free and finds his way home. Then he loads up with ammo and finds one of Tanner’s men and tells him to issue the titular warning:

“Valdez is Coming.”

And come he does. He sneaks into Tanner’s complex, kills some of his men, and then kidnaps Tanner’s woman, Gay Erin (Susan Clark.) The kidnapping is sort of accidental. It wasn’t part of the plan, but when Valdez gets into a bit of a jam, he grabs Gay Erin and runs.

I think this is supposed to show that Valdez isn’t the type of guy who usually kidnaps women, but that in these particular circumstances he had no choice. It helps that Gay Erin doesn’t actually like Tanner all that much. A sort of romance eventually develops between Valdez and Gay Erin, though the film is smart enough to not let it fully develop.

All of this is the type of thing we’ve seen before. There are plenty of films where a seemingly unsubstantial man gets pushed too far, and it turns out he’s an old badass after all. Valdez Is Coming doesn’t do anything particularly new with this, but it does what it does fairly well. If you can forgive Lancaster for playing a Mexican, his performance is actually quite moving.

I’m a big fan of Elmore Leonard’s crime novels, though I’ve never read any of his westerns. I have a copy of this one and have read the first few pages a couple of times, but it has never grabbed me, and I get distracted. The film has definitely made me want to go back to it. They say the film changes quite a bit and that the book is better (isn’t it always?)

The film is pretty good, so maybe that means the book is great. Time will tell.

Westerns in March: Hour of the Gun (1964)

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Welcome back to Westerns in March. This is my fourth year doing this theme, and I’ve come to really enjoy it. There is something wonderful about this genre with its wide-open spaces, its barroom brawls, and its shootouts. So let’s get started.

Director John Sturges made Gunfight at the OK Corral in 1957 with Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday. It is a darn good film. It ends with the titular gunfight.

Ten years later Sturges revisited the story with this film, a sort of sequel with James Garner in the Earp role and Jason Robards as Holiday. It begins with the gunfight at the OK Corral and then deals with its aftermath.

An opening title notes that “This picture is based on Fact. This is the way it happened” and Sturges did strive for more historical accuracy than is usually told with these stories, though, of course, he still changed quite a bit to suit his needs.

Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan) survived the gunfight (something he did in real life but did not in the previous film) and is now taking our heroes to court. He claims his men were unarmed and had raised their hands in the air when Earp and his men shot them dead.

Clanton loses the court case but sets up his own personal war with Earp, his brothers, and Holiday. Some of them get shot, some of them get killed. Wyatt is determined to stop them, but his moral code demands he do it legally. But his stubbornness makes him bend the law to suit his needs.

Robards is terrific as Doc Holiday. This is a very different performance from Val Kilmer’s portrayal in Tombstone, but it’s still real good. I never really buy James Garner as Wyatt Earp. I’m so used to him playing rascally wiseacres that it is difficult to buy him as the deadly serious man he’s playing here.

Robert Ryan barely has any screen time, and when he does, he isn’t nearly menacing enough. He’s the main villain, and he’s far too tame to be threatening. Which is a weird thing to say about Robert Ryan, who is usually so good at playing scary dudes.

Sturges’s direction is steady but not memorable. Ultimately, the film is worth watching for Robards’s performance and if you are interested in what happened after the famous gunfight.

Westerns in March – Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)

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Actor Randolph Scott and director Budd Boetticher made seven movies together, all westerns. I’m a big fan of all of them and this weekend while looking for another western to watch I landed on this one. Mostly because I knew it to be lighter fare than the others and my wife tends to not like dark and serious films.

Buchanan Rides Alone is the silliest of the films they made together, and probably my least favorite. Scott plays Tom Buchanon a drifter returning from Mexico with a lot of money in his pocket. He’s headed home where he’ll buy a plot of land and finally settle down.

He stops at a strange little border town called Agry where he quickly learns everything – a glass of whisky, a room for the night, a well-cooked steak – costs ten dollars exactly. He sits down with a bottle only to have it taken away from him by a drunk named Tom Agry. Moments later a young man named Juan (Manuel Rojas) charges into the bar and kills Tom.

The Sheriff and several other men round Juan up and beat the living tar out of him. Buchanan steps in to lend a hand. Naturally, this lands him in jail.

Nearly everybody of importance in the town is named Agry. The leader of the family Simon runs the town with a tight fist and is also a judge.

There is a trial, and a breakout, and lots of gunfights. It is all light-hearted and fun. There are a few attempts to be actually funny, but mostly it is just breezy and slight. Most of the other films Scott and Boetticher made together are much more serious in nature and have something to say. This is pure entertainment.

It isn’t bad at that, but I can’t help but compare it to films like The Tall T and Ride Lonesome (both of which I reviewed here), and this film just doesn’t compare.

Westerns in March: A Reason To Live, A Reason To Die (1972)

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This movie is basically a Western version of The Dirty Dozen with James Coburn playing disgraced Col. Pembroke who surrendered Fort Holman to the Confederate Army without a single shot being fired. We’ll eventually find out why, but as the film begins he’s disgraced and considered a coward.

After he breaks out of Fort Holman, where he is being held as a prisoner of war, he makes his way to another Union Fort and makes a deal with its commander. He’ll take a handful of men and retake the fort, reclaiming his good name. The commander figures if Pembroke actually accomplishes this then he’ll get a promotion and if he doesn’t then good riddance. For his team, Pembroke rescues a group of deserters and cutthroats about to be hanged. This includes Eli (Bud Spencer) who he already knows.

As soon as the men are on their way they begin to grumble and plot to ditch Pembroke and regain their freedom. Pembroke has his own reasons for going back (and it isn’t just to clear his name) but he tells the men there is hidden gold and if they succeed then they will all be rich in Mexico.

The Fort is considered impenatrable (which is all the more reason Pembroke is considered a coward for having surrendered so easily) but naturally our heroes find a way in. Telly Savalas plays the new commander. There is a big battle with lots of explosions. Some of our heroes die, but only the ones you don’t really care for.

It is pretty paint-by-numbers and it really does borrow a lot from The Dirty Dozen. The action is well done and it moves along rather quickly. Coburn is good as is Bud Spencer (whom I only know from that Robert Altman take on Popeye). Savalas sometimes attempts a Southern accent, but mostly feels like he’s playing in some other movie. I read somewhere that he wanted to portray the character as gay (which was still a big no-no in 1972) which may account for his odd mannerisms.

All in all it is a decent film, worth watching if you like westerns or Coburn, but still a bit of an oddity.

Westerns in March – Hombre (1967)

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As it is March the 15th and I haven’t written about a single western I’ve clearly been remiss at tackling my Westerns in March theme. My apologies for that. It has been quite a month, but I’m gonna try and make the back half of March full of cowboys.

Westerns have always struggled with their depictions of Native Americans. For decades they were generally depicted as nameless savages out to rape the womenfolk and massacre the men. Even when Hollywood started to be more sympathetic they often chose white actors to portray the Native American characters with more than a few lines.

I had all that in mind when Paul Newman shows up in Hombre with tanned skin, long hair, and dressed like an Apache. My immediate thought was, “Oh no. Not this again.” But Hombre has something different in mind. Newman plays John Russell a white man who was stolen and raised by Apaches. But he was treated well enough that when his real father found him as a teenager and took him home he ran away to join back with his tribe.

As the film begins he is living on a reservation. A Mexican man comes to tell him that his father has died and left him his boarding house. The man suggests that Russell should clean himself up and live a nice life as a white man. He does clean himself up, gets a haircut, and puts on white man clothes (makes himself look like Paul Newman) but he has no intention of living at the boarding house. The lady who runs it, tries to make him a deal, says she’ll still run the house that he won’t have to do anything and he’ll make a nice living. But he decides to sell it. He takes the money and joins a stagecoach out of town.

There are a couple of fancy-pants riders on the coach, one of who used to be the US Indian Agent for the reservation (Fredric March). Since Russell now looks like Paul Newman the Agent (and especially his wife, played by Barbara Rush) takes a shine to him, but once they learn he used to live on the reservation as a native they immediately force him into riding up top with the driver.

There is a lot of that in this film. Paul Newman was one of the most handsome men on the planet, and with his blondish hair and blue eyes, one of the whitest. But the moment anyone finds out his character lived with the Apache they hate him, and they treat him like garbage.

For his part, Russell doesn’t play the Indian with a heart of gold. He’s full of righteous anger. The story inevitably leads them to a situation in which Russell has to save the racist white people but it plays out in unexpected ways. It isn’t a perfect film and I can’t say that all of its racial moralizing works, but it sure is interesting. It is also a fine bit of genre filmmaking as well. I’ve made it sound like more of a morality play than it really is.

That situation I alluded to finds one of the coach riders with a box full of (stolen) cash and some outlaws trying to steal it. The film takes all of that stuff and makes it quite thrilling to watch beyond the fascinating takes on Native Americans and how the white man treated them.

Highly recommended.

High Noon (1952)

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High Noon changed the way I understood Gary Cooper. I think it was the first film I’d ever seen by him. I knew who he was even when I was a little kid. He was the strong, silent type. I thought that meant tough and mean. I wasn’t expecting someone so sensitive. Tough yes, but also caring.

He’s now one of my favorite actors. You can read my full review of the Blu-ray here.

Devil’s Doorway (1950)

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Obviously, I love a good Western. For the last two years, I’ve dedicated the month of March to the genre. A great Western is transcendent. Even a bad one can be a lot of fun. But there is no getting past the casual racism that is found in a great many Western. This is especially true in Westerns from the 1930s into the 1940s. Hollywood thought nothing of making Native Americans nameless, blood-thirsty savages who wanted nothing more than to rape the women, kidnap the children, and murder the men.

Slowly, Hollywood changed. By the 1950s they sometimes (but not always, not even all that often) made films that depicted Native Americans with an ounce of empathy. Devil’s Doorway is a film that points to the realities of how Native Americans were treated by white folk. Even ones who fought valiantly in the Civil War.

Unfortunately, the lead Native American is played by a decidedly white fella.

Were the film really good, I might be able to forgive that lapse in judgment. But as it is, the film isn’t great and so that bit of indiscretion stands out like a racist thumb.

You can read my full review here.

Westerns In March: The Great Train Robbery (1903)

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If you’ve never watched a Western before you’ve still probably seen scene from this one. An iconic moment shows a dusty old man with a hat and massive mustache stare at the screen, then point his gun at the audience and shoot. Any discussion of film history will bring up this scene.

It is a scene that has no real place in the film. It was shown either at the beginning or the end of the movie, depending on the projectionist’s whims. It is just a cool little moment. Sometimes it is said that audiences watching that moment, unfamiliar with cinema as they might have been in 1903, actually ducked for fear of actually being shot. This seems to be apocryphal, made up to show what rubes people used to be.

It is also sometimes called the very first Western movie, or the first film that told an actual story. This, also is pure nonsense as there were many Westerns that came before this one, many of which told a real story. The Wikipedia article on the film is pretty funny as the editors over there seem to be actually angry over these errors.

What The Great Train Robbery actually was, what in fact most likely caused it to be called all of those superlatives, was really popular. It was a huge box-office success. It is also rip-roaring fun to watch.

The plot does exactly what it says on the tin, and with a run time of just 12 minutes, it does nothing more. Some outlaws board a train, rob it at gunpoint, and then are captured by a posse of lawmen.

While it might not have significantly influenced or advanced the Western as a genre (as Wikipedia notes with a certain amount of glee) it still uses the tools of the time most effectively.

It uses wide shots, camera pans, and matte paintings to great effect. While on the train in the foreground, we see the outlaws doing their thing but in the background, through an open door, we see the mountains whiz by, making incredible use of rear projection.

There is also a great use of smoke and some hand colorization of certain items which I always find amazing.

The film is in the public domain and as such is widely available all over the Internet, including YouTube. It is well worth watching if you are a fan of cinema history. I’m surprised it took me so long to get to it.

Westerns in March: Vera Cruz (1954)

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In my review of Blood on the Moon I talked a little about how the Western slowly changed from a genre about moral absolutes to one that sometimes lived in the grey. That film does have some grey tones to it. Robert Mitchum’s character is someone with a dark past, who contemplates destroying a family for money. But ultimately he chose the path of righteousness, and if we’re being honest, we always knew he would.

Anthony Mann and James Stewart would team up for five westerns (the first and probably best – Winchester ’75 came out in 1950) that explored the darker sides of men living in wild, lawless times. As the 1950s rolled along the genre changed in other ways too. They became more violent and dirty. Oh, Westerns had always lived by violence – gunfights and brawls are staples of the genre – but for decades the violence had been rather bloodless. But as times changed, as the culture changed, this violence became more explicit, more real.

Vera Cruz is often cited as a lynchpin for this change. All of its characters are amoral, cynical, and aggressively violent. At one point Burt Lancaster’s character threatens to murder several children if he doesn’t get what he wants.

Set just after the Civil War, Vera Crus follows Ben Trane (Gary Cooper) and Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster) as they look for work. Both fought during the war and now they aren’t cut out for much more than that. They head to Mexico because they’ve got their own war going on (the Franco-Mexican War). Ben has at least some sense of a moral code, those he’s still willing to kill for money, whereas Joe (and his band of cutthroats) is willing to do just about anything if the price is right.

They are recruited by both sides of the war – the Juarists and Emperor or Miximillian – but they get with Maximillian since he has deeper pockets. They are charged with escorting Countess Duvarre (Denise Darcel) to the city of Vera Cruz. Naturally, there are complications including the discovery of gold hidden in her stagecoach.

It is a dirty, cynical, violent film and both Cooper and Lancaster are good in it, but something about it just didn’t hit with me. I suspect part of the problem is the way it sits somewhere in between the Classic Western and the Revisionist Westerns that would follow in its wake. It has a classic structure to it, and while it is certainly more violent than those films, and its characters are more morally reprehensible, it never goes quite fully into those darker motifs. As such it feels a little out of sorts.

Or something. I really don’t know exactly why I didn’t love it, and to be honest I watched it a couple of weeks ago and its already faded in my memory banks. I’d say it is worth watching if you are a fan of the genre or those two actors. But it isn’t necessarily a must-see for everyone.