Film review: Day of the Outlaw (1959)

So far we're 4 for 4 in the Western Noirs, because this one was also excellent.  It stars Robert Ryan, last seen as the villain in The Naked Spur, but here much more like his On Dangerous Ground character of stoic hard man.  This one is the noir-est yet, and the most modern of them all.  The down-at-heel town and snowy setting (so unlike the usual studio sets) reminded me of McCabe and Mrs. Miller.  When it begins, Ryan's Blaise Starrett comes off as a heavy, as he's coming into town fixing to pick a (possibly deadly) fight with the farmer Hal Crane, who has bought a huge supply of barbed wire to fence in his farm, thereby preventing Starrett's cattle from roaming free.  (This homesteaders-vs.-ranchers theme seems to be a very common one.)  His sidekick comments that maybe Crane's hot young wife is the ulterior motive for wanting to kill Crane, but it's only after Starrett and said Mrs. Crane (Tina Louise, unrecognizable as Ginger from Gilligan's Island - and as proof, Jami, who was raised on GI, didn't recognize her) are brought together for coffee at the general store that we find out that they had been lovers but Mrs. Crane has decided that she can't live with the duplicity and will stay faithful to her dull husband.  Then, later, Starrett confronts Crane and a gaggle of his fellow homesteaders as Starrett stocks up on kerosene to burn Crane's cart load of wire and Crane insists he leave it.  Things come to such a head the next morning that Crane and two others are about to get into a gunfight with Starrett (he's stipulated that they draw when a bottle rolled along the bar smashes, and it's just reaching the end of the bar) when... the real film begins.  The bottle is stopped by Burl Ives (probably most famous for being a voice behind the Frosty the Snowman animated specials, but should be famous for his amazing eyebrows) as Bruhn, a renegade ex-Union officer who is now leading his ragtag band of outlaws on the lam with $40,000 of stolen money. 

They're being chased by the cavalry, but this town is the end of the trail.  Bruhn's men start by confiscating all the guns and then start salivating over the women of the town.  (Actually, there are only three - Mrs. Crane, the wife of the saloon owner, and the daughter of the General Store owner, a feisty late-teen-early-twenties girl called Ernine (who causes all sorts of problems).)  Two of Bruhn's men are particularly unsavory: a giggling psychopath called Pace, and a deep-voiced brute called Tex.  Just what they would do to the women if allowed is strongly hinted at, and it's genuinely disturbing.  Bruhn reins them in, and even worse, forbids them any alcohol, because he only wants to rest overnight and get a bullet dug out of his chest, before moving on, and he knows that if that lot ever get hold of a drink they'll go berserk.  Immediately, the Starrett-Crane feud is forgotten, and it turns into a Petrified Forest/Key Largo kind of deal.  The first challenge is to dig the bullet out of Bruhn.  This task is foisted on the town vet (it takes place in a room with a calf sitting in the corner) who is terrified.  In fact, he asks Starrett if he should make sure Bruhn doesn't make it, to which Starrett responds in no uncertain terms that Bruhn is the only thing stopping his men wiping the town off the map.  Bruhn does survive the surgery (after revealing a "Mormon massacre" in his past that might explain the end of his military career) but the vet doesn't like his chances.  Meanwhile, the last of Bruhn's recruits, a fresh-faced young fellow called Gene (played by the son of Ozzie and Harriet - lots of sitcom connections in this one!) falls for Ernine, and protects her little brother when Bruhn takes him hostage to keep the townsfolk in line.  There's an attempt to get the women out of town that is foiled,

and results in Starrett getting a beating (but not before he beats up Tex) and then a nightmarish "party" where the women are manhandled

as they get whirled about to a frantic piano until finally Starrett convinces Bruhn that, although it's blizzarding up where they are, there's no snow on the plains and the cavalry are fast-approaching, and that he has to get going up into the mountains.  "There's a way through" he tells him, and to prove it, he will lead them.  There isn't, of course, and he intends to lead all of them to their doom, himself included, until Ernine lets that slip to Gene,

who blabs to Bruhn.  At this point Starrett reveals to Bruhn that he's not going to recover from that bullet, and Bruhn decides to help save the town from his own men, and they head off into the snow.  This last section of the movie is genuinely gripping, and appears to be filmed in real blizzard conditions, with the horses up to their stomachs in the snow. 

Bruhn lasts long enough to get Gene off the party so he can trudge back to town (and Ernine) before keeling over, whereupon the savages cut loose.  Will Starrett make it?  Will there be a final shootout?  Let me just say that the two people you want most to get theirs do indeed get theirs, but in surprising fashion.  Think Jack London.  All in all, a gripping, surprisingly brutal little number - maybe my favorite Western Noir yet, although I've thought that after each one...

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.

Film review: Blood on the Moon (1948)

This is an excellent little flick, although not especially noir (it's also in the "Western Noir" collections).  I imagine it got so classified (a) because of the title (which is pretty much irrelevant), (b) because it has Robert Mitchum, and (c) because of the cinematographer, who also worked on the pretty-much-perfect Mitchum film noir Out of the Past, and who favors a lot of inky shadows.  In fact, sometimes it's hard to see what's going on. 

Mitchum plays a proto-version of an Eastwood Man With No Name drifter type (who, in fact, says several times that he will drift, as in move on), and has a great entrance, backlit at night in the pouring rain.  He sets up camp but is promptly overrun by cattle, who drive off his horse and trample his fire and boots, which he'd just removed to empty the water out of.  Their driver appears, and after challenging him brusquely, takes him to his camp, where we meet the leader of one of the two factions of the film, Cattle rancher Tom Tully.  He explains his situation: he used to keep his cattle on the Indian reservation, and sell his beef to the Indians, but a new government go-between (the weasly Jake Pindalest) has just informed him that his beef is no longer any good, and furthermore he has to get his cattle off the reservation by a certain date.  But when he tried to move them to nearby grazing lands that he used to use before the reservation, he finds that they have been settled by homesteaders, who are being organized by the other main faction, Tate Riling (played, in an early role, by Robert Preston, who would go on to fame as the titular Music Man).  What's worse, Riling has been recruiting hired guns, which explains why they were so wary of Mitchum's Jim Garry.  Tully tries to recruit Garry, but he says he'll drift instead.  But he does agree to deliver a message to Tully's daughters on the way into town.  When Garry tries to cross the river, somebody shoots at him.  He sneaks round behind them and discovers that it's a young woman (played by Barbara Bel Geddes, who would go on to play the matriarch "Miss Ellie" in Dallas, and is quite recognizable). 

To teach her a lesson, he shoots her boot heel off - oddly, something that happened in yesterday's film The Naked Spur.  Was this a thing?  When he arrives at the Tully place, of course he finds out that she's one of the daughters, but she arrives after he's given the note to the other one.  Then he goes into town, and after some shenanigans where a hired gun, who thinks Garry works for Tully, tries to pose as Riling, little knowing that Garry knows Riling, Garry and Riling are re-united, and Riling explains why he summoned Garry.

Turns out, the whole "organizing the downtrodden homesteaders to protect their rights" thing is a sham: he and Pindalest have cooked up a deal where Pindalest drives Tully off the reservation and Riling stops him leaving, so that he will have to offload his cattle for a song (to avoid forfeiting them for nothing) at which point Riling will sell them to the government for the usual price, and Riling and Pindalest (and Garry, if he helps) will make out handsomely.  (No kidding: Tiling offers Garry $10 grand to help -  that would be small fortune in those days.)  Garry doesn't like the idea, but he's desperate: he tried ranching but all his cattle died of a fever.  What's more, Tiling has been seducing the non-shooting Tully daughter, and she passes on the note that Garry delivered, which says where Tully will be crossing the river (to get his cattle off the reservation).  Garry sees her do it, though.  And what's more, when Tiling and his men show up there, Tully has faked them out.  It's not clear whether he expected Garry to read the note or if he knows his daughter is leaking info, but Riling's men eventually manage to stampede Tully's cattle back on to the reservation.  But (if you're still with me), Garry decides that he can't take Riling's evil any more and, after a fight with Riling, switches sides.  There are more twists and turns - it's a very tightly plotted film, which is part of what I like about it.  Oh, and it also has Walter Brennan, he of the archetypal old-geezer-in-a-Western voice, so what are you waiting for?  Check it out!

Film review: The Naked Spur (1953)

The Criterion Channel has just unveiled a collection called "Western Noir" consisting of post-war Westerns influenced by Film Noir (duh).  This is one of several collaborations between Jimmy Stewart and the director Anthony Mann.  I liked it - it throws you into the action without explanation and just runs with it, no flashbacks or anything like that.  The film begins with a closeup of Stewart's spurs (which will feature at the climax) as he rides up to old (the actor was just 50 at the time!) grizzled prospector Jesse Tate and holds him at gunpoint. 

After he finds out Jesse is harmless, Stewart's character, Howard Kemp, offers him $20 to help him track down the man he is seeking, who is in the area.  The area is the Colorado Rockies (this film has some amazing scenery) and Kemp has been tracking the man, Ben Vandergroat (the granite-featured Robert Ryan, last seen in On Dangerous Ground, but here playing a total heel, who spends far too much time laughing at his own jokes) since Kansas.  Howard lets Jesse believe he's a law man, and shows him a wanted poster with the bottom ripped off, but this doesn't fool a dishonorably discharged Union soldier they run into

(Roy Anderson, played by Ralph Meeker, probably best known for playing the oafish Mike Hammer in the amazing atomic-age noir Kiss Me Deadly, and equally unpleasant here, albeit all-but-unrecognizable, perhaps because of his mustache) who cottons immediately that Howard is a bounty hunter and there's money to be made.  Indeed, after Roy and Jesse help Howard capture Ben, who, it turns out, is accompanied by the daughter of a partner-in-crime who died on the job (Janet Leigh, dressed in men's clothing and with a very anachronistic haircut),

Ben reveals the complete wanted poster, and it turns out he's worth $5,000.  So all five characters (who, apart from some nameless Indians, comprise the entire cast) set out for Kansas, with Ben plotting to set the other three men off against each other and Roy and later Howard lusting after Janet Leigh.  The Indians show up fairly soon because they've been chasing Roy (who, apparently, got up to shenanigans with the chief's daughter - there's a reason his discharge papers have "immorality" on them).  Howard and Jesse would be happy to let them go by and chase Roy, but Roy conspires to have our party fight the Indians, and Howard gets shot in the leg.  After that it's a slow boil to a shocking conclusion.  Nobody comes out looking good, although Howard (who used to know Ben, even playing cars with him on occasion) has an excuse because while he was off fighting in the war, his betrothed sold his farm and ran off with another man, and Howard wants the reward to buy back his property.  Will anybody get out alive?  Well not all of them will, I'll tell you that for nothing.  And watch for those spurs!

Latest lake swimming

I got a new waterproof case for my phone, so I bring it along when we swim now.  This is Wildwood Lake, one of the lakes in Holly Recreation Area, yesterday:

And this is Big Seven Lake, part of the Seven Lakes, today:

Film review: Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

It's very confusing: there's a film starring Warren Beatty called Heaven Can Wait that came out in 1978.  I know I've seen at least parts of it at some point, and I remember the basic plot, and I also knew it was a remake.  So a while ago, I found that there was a 1943 Heaven Can Wait on the Criterion Channel, so we watched it.  But it has very little to do with the Beatty film.  Now I find that the real original version is called Here Comes Mr. Jordan.  But, just to be extra-confusing, it's based on a play called... Heaven Can Wait.  Anyway, you probably know the plot, but just in case: contending boxer Joe Pendleton is in training for the fight-before-the-title-fight but decides to fly there.  His trainer, Max Corkle, wishes he wouldn't, but as Joe says, (1) he isn't called "the flying pug" for nothing, and (2) he'll have his lucky sax along with him. 

Sadly, this isn't enough to save him: he's playing it while flying when some cable snaps and his (one man) plane goes into a nosedive.  Next thing he knows, he's standing on a cloud and a fastidious fusspot is telling him that he's dead.  He refuses to believe it until he's taken to a Mr. Jordan (played by the only actor I recognized, Claude Rains) who is overseeing a bunch of passengers from places like Australia and Finland boarding a large 'plane, which is parked on the cloud. 

Joe is convinced there has been a mistake, though, and on checking the lists, Mr. Jordan discovers that he's not supposed to be there until 1991 (then 50 years in the future).  Turns out that the fusspot is new on the job and snatched Joe from his 'plane just before impact, when he would've been able to pull out of the dive at the last minute.  They take him back to find his body but not only has it been removed from the wreckage, it's been cremated.  So they have to find a new body for him.  He is very particular, because, as he says, he was "in the pink" and he wants a body that can compete for the title.  However, Mr. Jordan is no fool and suggests the body of a rich man called Farnsworth, who was just then being drowned in his bathtub by his wife and secretary.  Joe didn't want to do it until he witnesses a beautiful woman, Bette Logan

(played by an actress I was unfamiliar with, Evelyn Keyes, whose main claim to fame other than this film was playing Scarlett's bratty sister in Gone With the Wind, but who later found fame with some very racy autobiographies detailing her many famous affairs) pleading with the wife and secretary to save her father, who has been set up by the deceased Farnsworth to take the fall in some scandal of his own making.  So Joe takes over Farnsworth's body and sets to work setting things right and training for the fight.  He also falls for Bette.  But alas, the wife and the secretary are not done plotting his demise...

Very entertaining.  The best character is probably Max,

whom Joe manages to explain his predicament to (he is convinced when he hears the now Farnsworth playing his favorite tune on Joe's saxophone and mangling it just as Joe always did).  Bittersweet ending, though, especially if you subscribe to a Lockean theory of personal identity...

(Incidentally, apparently the main actor, Robert Montgomery [whom we decided looked and sounded like a much less handsome Tony Curtis] was not only a well-known leading man, he usually played suave sophisticates, so his pug-from-Brooklyn act was really an act (and got him an Oscar nomination), he was also the father of Samantha from Bewitched.  Oh, and Evelyn described him as a "cold fish" in her scandalous memoirs, so obviously he was one of the few who was immune to her charms.)

Film review: The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)

Another one that's leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of the month.  It was (misleadingly) billed as a Western take on It Happened One Night (one of my fave movies) but turned out to be much milder on the comedy and dialing up the romance.  Gary Cooper, playing a rodeo cowboy called Stretch (and looking it - very skinny and looking twice as tall as everyone else) plays it a bit buffoonish at first (very monosyllabic and aw shucks), while Merle Oberon (another in a line of English actors in the 30s movies who are supposed to be Americans but make no attempt to disguise their plummy English accents) is the rich daughter of a presidential hopeful who is supposed to be staying out of trouble out of the spotlight down in Palm Beach.  She persuades her two maids to take her out on a triple date to meet cowboys and tries their numbered system to hook a man, number 3 of which is tell him a sob story.  So Stretch thinks the girl he's fallen for (and who has fallen for him) is actually the sole breadwinner supporting her deadbeat father and four young sisters, when in fact she's the daughter of the owner of the fancy house he thinks she's a servant in.  There's a romantic boat trip from Palm Beach to Galveston and a ship-board wedding, and Oberon gets to show she can do slapstick trying to clean out Stretch's tent in Galveston and getting wrapped up in the fly-paper.  But then she gets called back to Palm Beach, Stretch asks her to meet him at his home in Montana, and her deception starts to break down.  Cooper's best moments are up at the ranch in Montana, teasing "Ma Hawkins" (who doesn't appear to be his actual mother but is clearly a surrogate) by perpetually untying her apron strings when she's not looking, and getting everyone to go along with his play acting in his as-yet-unbuilt house. 

The ones that do most of the comedy heavy-lifting, however, are Stretch's cowboy pals (including Walter Brennan), the two maids (most notably Patsy Kelly) and Oberon's kindly uncle Hannibal (Harry Davenport), who is a Bad Influence because he thinks his go-getter brother keeps her cooped up too much.  A bit slow in places, but a pleasant diversion.  First Merle Oberon film I've ever seen and it prompted me to look up her life story.  Now THAT should be a film - and in fact, was going to be, I think.

Today's lake swim

Who is this man with the broad shoulders with you?