Swing, Baby!

Film: The Glenn Miller Story
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

One of the problems I tend to have with movies made in the earlier days of film is that actors frequently played a lot younger than their real ages. With movies that take place over a long period of time, it becomes less and less of an issue as the film progresses, but it makes things a little harder to take. With The Glenn Miller Story, this is a problem that does go away eventually, but when we start out, our “a couple of years out of college” stars are 46 (James Stewart), 37 (June Allyson), and 39 (Henry Morgan). It’s a little rough to take.

No shock what this is about—we’re dealing with the important years in the life of bandleader Glenn Miller (Stewart), from his early days in 1929 to his death over the English Channel in 1944. Much of the early part of the film concerns Miller finding a way to translate the sound in his head to the page and then finding a way to put together a band to make that sound come to life. This is going to be mostly a warts-free biography and I think that’s okay.

In Training

Film: The Tin Star
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

When I did the 1001 Movies list, I knew there would be some duds. I figured the same would be true watching films off a list of Oscar categories. I was right; there are definitely some hills and valleys. It’s easy to get discouraged by films that I hope are good and turn out to be cruddy. Every now and then a film like The Tin Star shows up and it makes the whole thing worthwhile. I’m not a die-hard fan of Westerns and don’t choose them often given a free choice, so I’d likely have never watched The Tin Star on my own. That would have been a shame. While there are some real issues with the screenplay (despite that being its nomination), there’s a lot more here that more than makes up for any problems.

Morgan Hickman (Henry Fonda), former lawman and current bounty hunter, rides into a stereotypical Western town with a body strapped to a second horse. This earns him nothing but scorn from the local residents, who like to have their criminals brought in alive. Morgan discovers that the sheriff of the town is Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins), who looks barely old enough to shave, let alone shoot. We’re also soon introduced to Bart Bogardus (Neville Brand). Bogardus runs a stable and is the cousin of the man Morgan dropped.

Mann and Stewart

Film: The Man from Laramie
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on Sue’s Mother’s Day gift.

Roger Ebert died today, which is completely shitty. I kind of didn’t want to post anything because of it, because we’ve truly lost a giant and a real inspiration. Would I have started reviewing movies without Ebert? In the long sense, no. It was Ebert along with Gene Siskel who made me think that being a geek for movies was okay. They made it socially acceptable to nerd out over this stuff. But then I thought I should put up a review. Ebert worked pretty much until the day he died. Reviewing a film today is the best way to honor the man who has been an inspiration to me and almost every reviewer and critic I know.

Evidently, director Anthony Mann and James Stewart collaborated a total of eight times, five of them Westerns. The Man from Laramie was the last of their collaborations, and according to the text on the back of the DVD case, the best of them. Going in, I had my doubts; a Western needs to be more than just well-made to rank above Winchester ‘73 in my books. This is a pretty standard horse and saddle picture, in a lot of respects. We’ve got cattlemen and people trying to keep more land than they need, bullies, natives, and a revenge plot. What more could a picture ask for?

Tales of the New West

Film: The Naked Spur
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

The Western is a genre I still find something of a mystery. It’s a genre that perhaps more than any other has evolved over time. Aside from the setting, there is very little to connect a classic Western from the ‘40s (say, Destry Rides Again) to those of the modern era (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Early Westerns tend to be idealized in many respects, particularly in the characters. Winchester ‘73 changed all of that. The Naked Spur picked up a few years later right where the first film left off.

In fact, the ‘50s were something of a landmark decade for Westerns that didn’t fit the traditional mold. The Naked Spur fits in with this idea as well as any other. Saying that it follows in the footsteps of Winchester ‘73 is not just saying that—Anthony Mann directed both, and James Stewart stars in both, making this film the natural son of the other.

As with a lot of Westerns, the plot is pretty straightforward, with the only real twists and turns coming from the fact that the genre was starting to change. This big change is the idea that heroes aren’t specifically heroic in all things, that they are real people who aren’t completely idealistic or morally perfect. Howard Kemp (Stewart) is a man on a mission; he’s looking for an outlaw named Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan), wanted for crimes committed in Kansas. Before meeting Vandergroat, he encounters a couple of other people who will be important in the plot.

First is an unlucky prospector named Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell, who was also prominent in Winchester ‘73. Howard hires the prospector for $20 with an eye toward catching his fugitive. Jesse immediately assumes that his new riding partner is a lawman, and Howard does nothing to change this idea. The pair then come across Lieutenant Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker), recently discharged from army for being morally unfit. The reason, implied with force, is that he carried on with the daughter of a native chief.

Not too long after this meeting, the trio meets up with their quarry and discover that he’s not traveling alone—he’s riding with Lina Patch (Janet Leigh), the daughter of his former partner. Lina is convinced of Ben’s innocence. It’s also at this time that we discover a few important things. Howard Kemp isn’t a lawman; he’s just someone looking for the substantial bounty on Ben Vandergroat.

We discover more as we go on. We learn, for instance, that Roy is running east because he is being pursued by members of the native tribe. When the tribe catches up, he sets up an ambush during which the natives are killed; during the fracas, Howard is shot in the leg. It’s here that we learn the truth of his story—he went to fight for the Union in the Civil War, and deeded his ranch to his fiancée while he was gone. During that time, she sold the ranch out from under him and ran off with another man. We also see some of the intense anger in Howard as he pistol whips a native to death when his gun runs dry.

Really, the five main characters already mentioned are the ones who carry the whole film, and there’s not much need for any others. The film becomes a mental game between the four men in particular. Ben tries to play the three off each other, telling each that if there were fewer bringing him back, each share of the reward would be greater. In particular, he works on Roy and Jesse, telling them that Howard can’t buy back his ranch without the complete reward. Through all of this, Ryan plays Ben as a man in the middle of a joke he’s very much enjoying. Any dissention in the group causes him the greatest pleasure. He knows he’s headed for a rope, a short drop, and a sudden stop, but he’s still plainly convinced he can get out of it one way or another.

Stewart carries the picture, of course. It is he that we are essentially forced into sympathizing with. His sudden bursts of anger and his frustration serve not to make him less of a hero, but more realistic and believable as a character. He’s not so perfect that we are forced to root for him (and in many ways, Jesse is a more entertaining character), but he is a character who is completely believable. Just as worth watching here is Robert Ryan, who is joyfully malevolent and vicious. There’s a sadistic pleasure in him that is surprisingly entertaining to watch.

If I have a complaint, it’s that at least some of the conclusion is foregone as soon as we are introduced to all of the characters. This isn’t to say that there aren’t a few surprises, particularly at the end, but it’s hardly a spoiler to suggest that Lina will end up falling for Howard and vice versa. That is, after all, how the genre goes, even in cases that attempt to break the mold.

Having grown up with James Stewart in films like It’s a Wonderful Life, Harvey, and Vertigo, it always surprises me just a little when I see him in the lead role of a Western. I don’t know why this is, because he’s always worth watching in the genre, no less here than anywhere else.

Why to watch The Naked Spur: The continual refinement of the Western genre.
Why not to watch: It’s still a bit formulaic in places, although less so than you might think.

Sagebrush and Sadism

Film: Man of the West
Format: DVD from Bettendorf Public Library through interlibrary loan on kick-ass DVD player.

Something there is about a Western that loves the touch of melodrama. Most of them, and especially the early ones, have that sense of good versus evil going on, but it’s more than just that. While cattle rustlers, land barons, and shady railroad companies exist in abundance, there is a particular naivety that goes with the old Western. Good guys win because they’re good guys and bad guys lose despite any lowdown sneaky tricks. Classic Westerns aren’t so much about realism but about reinforcing that idea of two-fisted honor.

Westerns changed, of course. One need look no further than directors like Peckinpah and Leone to see films in the genre that didn’t hold to those clichés. Films like Winchester ‘73 made strides into bringing the genre heroes into places more akin to reality, but I’m going to nominate Man of the West, Gary Cooper’s last great role and one of Anthony Mann’s best films as a starting point for stories that might not be so appropriate for kids in the genre.

The story is a simple enough one, and fairly standard fare for Westerns. Link Jones (Cooper) is an ex-outlaw who has reformed his ways. He boards a train headed for Fort Worth with a sack of money intended to be used to hire a schoolteacher for his little community. Also on the train is Billie Ellis (Julie London), a singer leaving town for greener pastures and a gambler named Beasley (Arthur O’Connell).

Sadly for everyone involved, the train is robbed, and our trio is left behind when the train rides off. More to the point for Link, his satchel of money is missing. With no other option, Link, Billie, and Beasley start walking down the track until they come to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It turns out that this is the hideout of the trainrobbing gang. More seriously for Link, the gang is the old gang he used to ride with, led by his Uncle, Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb). We learn quickly that this is not a simple gang of outlaws and bandits, but a group of sadists. Of these, the most particularly nasty is a man named Coaley (Jack Lord of Hawaii 5-0 fame under a couple of pounds of dirt and without the famous pompadour).

The plot hinges on Dock wanting to believe that Link is back in the gang and Dock’s dream of knocking over the wealthy bank in Lassoo. Things are complicated by the arrival of Claude (John Dehner), the last member of the gang and Link’s cousin. Claude doesn’t trust Link and thinks he’s up to something. And then there’s the problem of what to do about Billie. Link claims her to keep her safe, but there’s no protecting a pretty woman from deviants out in the middle of nowhere, is there?

Like I said, it’s pretty standard Western fare in a lot of respects. Where it is different is in not the execution of its simple plot, but in how far it goes. Billie is always a couple of moments away from complete degradation at the hands of Dock and Coaley. In fact, the moment she walks into the cabin, Coaley can’t contain himself and demands that she strip for his pleasure. The forced striptease—complete with Coaley holding Link hostage using a knife at his throat—is ugly and brutal. Just as brutal (and a real coming of age moment for the genre) happens when things finally spiral out of control between Link and Coaley. They fight, an extended beating for both men that ends with Link standing over the beaten Coaley and stripping him of his clothes, enacting his revenge by forcing him to live through what happened to Billie. There’s a real sense of justification in this, but also of sadism. As for what happens to Billie when Link isn’t around, it’s easily imagined, and while films today obviously go much further, even the implication in 1958 is pretty shocking.

Mann’s film was poorly received when it was released, and I’m not really that surprised. Like other films that break genre or push boundaries a good distance (Peeping Tom comes to mind), people simply weren’t ready for this. There’s a far cry between what Gene Autry did and Unforgiven, and Man of the West takes some pretty big steps in bridging that distance.

Mann was smart enough to go as far as he could, though. Late in the film, one of Dock’s men shoots a woman in Lassoo really for no reason other than that she was holding a gun and was nervous. Later, as Link rides out of the town, her husband appears and discovers that she is dead. Mann lingers here, and as Link rides away, we hear him shouting his wife’s name and crying over her body. It’s a moment that forces the audience to remember that even though this encounter for Link was about thinning the herd of Dock’s gang, other people with lives were affected by it. Link isn’t as innocent in this as he might want to believe. Even the minor characters have feelings, and their lives can be just as crushed by Dock Tobin’s savagery and sadism as anyone else.

If it goes too far anywhere, it’s in the character of Dock Tobin. I like Lee J. Cobb, but I didn’t really like him here. He’s far too scenery chewing. The man never talks in anything quieter than a dull roar. Coaley is far more menacing, even though he’s meant to be nothing but a thug. He’s much more evil and much more disturbing, and perhaps would have been a better villain rather than the drunk, vaguely demented old man.

This is a smart film, and an edgy one for its release date. I’m glad to have seen it.

Why to watch Man of the West: It’s far more badass than you expect a 1958 Western to be.
Why not to watch: Dock Tobin is an annoying asshole.

The Rebirth of the Western

Films: Winchester ‘73, The Searchers
Format: DVD from personal collection on big ol’ television (Winchester ’73)DVD from DeKalb Public Library on itty bitty television (The Searchers).


Several times in cinematic history, the western has been proclaimed dead. The same plot over and over gets tiresome, and there were a lot of westerns that recycled that some tired plot again and again. In the late 1940s, the western was dead according the Hollywood, good only for B-movies and fading stars, a few cheap thrills and a quick buck in the theater.

Fortunately for a movie-going public that had come to love the tales of the Wild West, some very smart directors and writers got it into their heads to make a different sort of western. The old school western had good guys who were all good and bad guys who were all bad. No one had conceived of a western that featured a hero who was anything other than the noblest paragon of virtue, always fightin’ fair and always coming out on top with nary a scratch on him, no matter what the bad guys did.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that Anthony Mann's Winchester ’73 led to something of a revival of the western, and most of that in the character of Lin McAdam (James Stewart). The film follows not the man himself but the gun of the title, and Winchester 1873 model known as a One-in-a-Thousand. This gun was rare, a fortuitous fluke of the production line. Essentially, it was a gun so good that it was nearly flawless; fewer than 150 of them came off the line no matter how many Winchesters were made.

The gun is offered as a prize in a shooting contest in Dodge City, and McAdam shows up with his riding partner High Spade Frankie Wilson (Millard Mitchell). The gun is a rich prize, but the real quarry is a man named Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally). Brown killed McAdam’s father, and McAdam is after him to bring him to justice, preferably at the business end of a Winchester.

In Dodge, everyone has to give up his gun by order of the sheriff, Wyatt Earp (Will Geer). It’s also here that Lin first encounters the film’s femme fatale, Lola Manners (Shelley Winters). She’s on her way out of town, by order of Earp. At the shooting contest, it comes down to McAdam and Brown, who battle it out. McAdam wins with a bit of fancy shooting, but Brown and his gang steal the gun and ride off.

From there, the gun changes hands multiple times: to Indian trader, to chief, to rancher, to criminal. That criminal, Waco Johnnie Dean (Dan Duryea) is waiting on Dutch Henry to pull off a dramatic crime. McAdam and High Spade finally catch up to Dean, Brown, and the gun, and everything comes to a head for the final showdown. The chief isn’t to be missed; it’s Rock Hudson under a lot of makeup.

So what makes it different? Essentially, the biggest difference is that Lin McAdam isn’t a Boy Scout. At several times in the film, he seems very much on the edge of losing control of himself, something that audiences hadn’t seen in the hero of a western film before, and hadn’t seen much from Jimmy Stewart, either. While essentially a heroic character, he is not in control of himself, a significant break from the typical western. It also comes out in the course of the film that McAdam fought for the South in the Civil War, a fact that for many audiences may change the opinion of the man.

This film almost certainly ushered in a new era for Stewart. People were certainly used to seeing him be passionate on the screen; there’s no shortage of emotion in films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life, but here he is a man truly on the edge of losing himself, and that’s something new for him. Following this film, Stewart went on to take on a number of challenging and nuanced roles.
















It also wouldn’t be much of a stretch to suggest that without Winchester ’73, The Searchers may not have been made, or may not have been made in the same way. The Searchers could be the greatest film of John Wayne’s career. It was unquestionably one of his favorite films, considering the fact that his son, Ethan, was named after Wayne’s character, Ethan Edwards. The simple story is helped immeasurably under the direction of the great John Ford, a veteran of the western genre.

In The Searchers, Ethan Edwards (Wayne) returns home from the Civil War to his brother’s ranch in Texas. Shortly after his arrival, the ranch is raided by the Comanche, who kill most of the Edwards clan, but run off with the two daughters, Lucy and Debbie (Natalie Wood). Ethan sets off in pursuit, accompanied by Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), the 1/8 Comanche adopted son of Ethan’s brother. The two men pursue the girls and the Comanche tribe for five years, dealing with privation. For Martin, the biggest problem is living without Laurie Jorgenson (Vera Miles), the woman he loves.

Like Lin McAdam, Ethan Edwards is a seriously flawed character. Ethan’s issue is rampant racism against the Comanche in general, and the tribe of Scar (Henry Brandon) in particular. Ethan, in fact, is so overtly racist against the Comanche that he can barely stand to be around Martin most of the time. After a few years of the search, the question becomes not whether or not Ethan and Martin will find Debbie, but whether or not Ethan will kill her when he finds her because she has become assimilated into the tribe.

A few of the more interesting performances come from minor players. One, Charlie McCorry (Ken Curtis), is played as the foil to Martin for the affections of Laurie. McCorry is oddly comic and evidently slow, but has the advantage of being home and available, unlike Martin. Another comic performance comes in the character of Mose Harper (Hank Worden), who is sort of a court jester to the deadly seriousness and earnestness of Ethan.

***HERE THERE BE SPOILERS***

The most telling shot of The Searchers is the final shot when Ethan brings Debbie back home to the family farm. Martin and Laurie enter the house happily, finally together with the remnants of Martin’s family while Ethan stands outside and turns away as the door closes behind him. Ethan, while certainly a member of the family, is forever on the outside looking in. Whether this is due to his intense racism and the fact that he nearly killed Debbie twice or something else isn’t known, and really isn’t important.

However, his hatred of the Comanche is understandable. Lucy is killed almost immediately by the Comanche after being ravaged by them, and Ethan’s family is destroyed as well. It’s evident from the start of the film that Ethan has feelings for his brother’s wife, and she is brutally killed. Additionally, in an almost throwaway, a gravestone by the family homestead indicates that his mother was killed by the Comanche as well.

Ethan’s racism, while always evident, comes to the fore when he encounters a group of soldiers who raided the Comanche and came away with a few white captives. These women are clearly insane, at least by the standards of the white men, particularly the two young girls who do little but grin maniacally at Ethan while he attempts to determine if one of them might be Debbie. Hard to say if the film is suggesting their time among the natives drove them crazy, or if there was some other cause. It might be argued that the women are shell-shocked after a fashion, but in Ethan’s world, they have ceased being white, and are now nothing more than, as he says, “Comanch.”

***THUS ENDETH THE SPOILERS***

Can it be argued that the western became what it did by the influence of these films? I think so. Films like Unforgiven might have never come about without the idea of an imperfect, flawed western hero who was still worth rooting for. Both films are excellent, and both are still worth watching, even for those who aren’t fans of the genre.

Why to watch Winchester ‘73: It was the original gritty reboot for an entire genre.
Why not to watch: It’s not that gritty by today’s standards.

Why to watch The Searchers: Proof that The Duke could act and a plot that still resonates.
Why not to watch: In your world, John Wayne only played John Wayne.