Film review: The Walking Hills (1949)

So far these Western Noirs have been great, and this one's no exception.  A taught little number, at only 1 hour 18 minutes, it wastes no time getting going and hardly stops for breath.  We see a man in a border town being followed by another man, who is egged on by an older man.  They note in particular that the first man lingered in front of a diner and locked eyes with a waitress in there. We later discover that the old man is the father of a man killed by the first man, and the second man is a private eye (of dubious morals) hired by the old man to track down the killer.  But we don't know that until later.  The killer (William Bishop) who goes by various names but is currently known as Shep, crosses over the border and goes into a saloon, where a black man is strumming a guitar to the empty room.  The singer is Josh White (known as Josh in the film) and we get to see a fair number of his songs.  In fact, that's one time the movie takes time to stop and look around, as it were.  It's an effective device: somehow it makes you care more about the characters that the camera lingers on as you hear him singing.  Anyway, it turns out that everyone is playing poker in the next room.  The main parties to this game are Jim (played by the only cast member I'd heard of before, Randolph Scott (now most famous for his relationship with Cary Grant), about 50 at the time), Chalk (so named, presumably, because he is very blond),

grizzled old prospector Willy, and young cowboy Johnny.  Shep joins the game, and then the detective (who, it turns out, is called Frazee (stress on the second syllable)) walks in and also joins.  Shep asks if he knows him and Frazee responds that maybe he does if he was in Denver.  (This is where the man was killed, we find out in flashback later.)  As they are in Mexico, there's an uneasy truce, it seems, and they are quickly distracted as Willy recounts the story of a wagon train of gold that disappeared about a century ago in "The Walking Hills" - giant sand dunes nearby that constantly shift because of windstorms.  Then Johnny recounts that he was riding through there very recently and his horse stumbled on a funny skinny-style wagon-wheel that was sticking out of the sand.  Significant glances all round.  Very quickly they decide that that must be the wagon train and make a plan to go look for the treasure.  Frazee is more keen than anyone: it seems that his lust for this gold trumps his desire for any reward for shopping Shep (and taking the risk that Shep will divulge the story of the gold).  And off they set.  A complication is that Jim has a mare about to foal and he has his native ranchhand Cleve bring her along.  And then when they find what they think is the right location and set up to dig, they spot someone approaching from the distance.  Turns out it's the waitress that Shep was looking at (Ella Raines),

and she was originally a stunt rider in a rodeo, which is where she met Shep.  She and Shep were head over heels in love and she was expecting him in Denver and he never showed.  She also has history with Jim, whom she was with prior to falling for Shep

(whom she knows as Davey.  Yes, it's a little convoluted, but you can handle it).  In true Treasure of the Sierra Madre fashion, tempers flare.  And Frazee is caught signalling to someone in the nearby mountains with a mirror.  What's going on?  Will they find the gold?  And, uh oh, a massive sand storm is coming in, and the old cook recounts how he saw a car after being in one of those and the glass was milky white and the paint was stripped off down to the shiny metal.
Very entertaining.  However, again, not really a noir.  It had plenty of opportunity for a nihilistic ending, but (apart from three of the characters) it's a pretty happy denouement.  And Randolph Scott gets to kick ass pretty well for an older guy.