Reeling Backward: "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943)

"The law is slow and careless around here sometimes. And we're here to see it speeded up."

Thus speaks the central villain in "The Ox-Bow Incident," a 1943 prairie morality tale that, in truth, contains no real bad guy. That's because virtually everyone in it is morally compromised in some way. The speaker, a vengeful cowpuncher named Farnley (Marc Lawrence), is simply the most overt about it.

This film is from director William A. Wellman; the more I see his movies, the more I become convinced this largely unheralded figure is one of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers. The screenplay is by Lamar Trotti, whose credits include "Young Mr. Lincoln" and "Drums Along the Mohawk," from Walter Van Tilburg Clark's novel.

It reminded me very much of "12 Angry Men," also starring Henry Fonda, in that it's about the pitfalls of the group mentality applied to a law-and-justice scenario. A bunch of men who are convinced they are doing right eventually come to see that they've been woefully misguided all along. With "Men" it happens before the verdict is rendered, but in "Ox-Bow" the realization doesn't occur until after three men have been wrongly hanged for crimes they did not commit.

The movie is also notable in that the story unspools in more or less real time -- Wellman includes a single fade-out/fade-in to indicate the passage of time. The film essentially only has three scenes: the first where the townsfolk learn of the murder of a local rancher and form a posse; a brief (and mostly unnecessary) interlude where they erroneously chase down a stagecoach; and the confrontation with the accused trio.

At a spare 75 minutes, "The Ox-Bow Incident" has a stripped-down feel, like the narrative has been boiled down to its barest essence.

Interestingly, Fonda is not the central character, nor is there really any protagonist in the story. Fonda plays Carter, a rather surly and hot-tempered local cowboy who gets caught up in the posse mostly out of fear -- he and his partner Art (Harry Morgan) take part because if they did not, they might be suspected of being involved in the cattle rustling and killing of an upstanding rancher named Kincaid.

Carter acts as sort of the nexus of the plot, whose own story is not central to the narrative but a figure around whom all the other characters travel in close orbit.

Carter and Art ride into town, dusty and thirsty, and find not much going on. They sidle up to the bar for some rotgut whiskey, and Carter learns that Rose has suddenly left town. She was perhaps the only unmarried woman in town under the age of 80, and if she was not exactly Carter's betrothed, then certainly he felt promises had been exchanged between them.

Agitated over stories of cattle rustling, Carter starts a fight with Farnley, getting the best of it but then getting knocked out by a bottle over the head from the bartender. Art revives him with a splash of water, explaining that Carter always feels better after a fight, win or lose. Carter grows ill and stumbles into the street to retch his guts out.

Still bent over, he complains to Art: "Holy cow, now I'm gonna have to start all over again!"

Instead, everyone is riled up by the news of the murder of Kincaid and the theft of his cattle. The sheriff is out of town, but the lackadaisical deputy Mapes (Dick Rich) decides to commission a posse. From the beginning it is clear that they're looking for a purpose, a cure for their idleness, more than justice -- that, and the thrill of seeing somebody swing.

The town drunk (Paul Smith) uses a rope to act out a googly-eyed, tongue-lolling imitation of a man being hanged. It's funny the first time he does it, less so the second, and positively chilling when he does it in front of the accused to taunt them.

Perhaps the film's one major flaw is a chance encounter with a stagecoach along the trail. Stupidly, the posse gives pursuit, instigating the stagecoach hands into shooting Art in the arm. After running them down they learn the coach contains Rose and her new husband, a rich and snooty type from San Francisco. It seems like this sequence is setting up the narrative for more developments, but we never see the newlyweds again.

While the scene has its own momentum, plot-wise it's dead weight.

The most enthralling section is the quick capture and long "trial" of the three men, including Dana Andrews as Martin, the leader, and Anthony Quinn as Juan Martinez. Martin insists they bought the 50 head of cattle from Kincaid wish cash, although they lack a bill of sale. After trying to escape, Juan is also found to be carrying Kincaid's fancy engraved pistol. The third member of the accused is a feeble-minded old man.

The posse includes a large cast of characters. Beyond Farnley, the self-appointed leader is Tetley (Frank Conroy), a former Confederate major who still wears his gray battle uniform 20 years after the end of the war. Tetley is imperious, with a thick veneer of polite gentility masking his harsh, uncompromising ways. He mostly comes along as a way to instill some manhood in his gentle-minded son (William Eythe).

Jane Darwell, forever Mrs. Joad from "The Grapes of Wrath," has a disturbing turn as a hard-bitten woman who's as bloodthirsty as any of the men. She has several scenes where she cackles with glee at the plight of the three accused men, and it's positively vile.

The group also includes Davies (Harry Davenport), an elderly store owner who tries unsuccessfully to have the men brought back to town for a trial, and Sparks (Leigh Whipper), a negro preacher who acts as the moral conscience of the group.

Once the interrogation gets underway, there's a doomed, haunting feel to the movie, as the audience surely knows how things will end. Martin tries to reason with his captors, then pleads with them, and finally begs them. This draws a sharp retort from Darwell's character to "take it like a man."

The film ends on a bit of a false note, as Carter reads the letter Martin has written to his wife and children, asking them to forgive the men who murdered him in the name of justice. The language is rather highfalutin for a humble farmer, and it's doubtful any man not a living saint could summon that sort of big-hearted perspective a few minutes before is to die for a crime he had nothing to do with.

Still, "The Ox-Bow Incident" is a riveting story about how right and wrong are sometimes hard to distinguish, and why laws are necessary to keep justice out of the eager hands of the unruly mob.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Wing and a Prayer" (1944)

"Wing and a Prayer" would be little remembered as a rather standard World War II propaganda movie, except for a couple of things. The first is the absence of an obsessive focus on a disparate cast of characters with predictable geographic backgrounds and personalities -- the tough guy from New York, the laconic Texan, the All-American Midwesterner, etc. I've written before about my fatigue with the whole "swell bunch of guys" thing in war pictures.

What stands out more about this 1944 movie directed by Henry Hathaway is its innovative battle scenes. It combines some convincing footage of real planes photographed on an aircraft carrier with stock battle footage. For once, the stock stuff is actually blended well into the action, so the cutaway moment isn't totally obvious like it usually is when using canned stuff.

Even better are several scenes where Hathaway juxtaposed actors in the foreground against a background of battle footage. Though the combination isn't seamless, it was still impressive for its day -- perhaps one of the first uses of a "green screen" type of technology.

I was also impressed with a tactic employed by Hathaway during the climactic battle. Since it would have been unfeasible to depict a battle between American planes and Japanese carrier fleet while the war was still ongoing, the director cuts away to the captain on the bridge listening to the radio byplay among the pilots and their crewmen. He orders this piped through the ship's P.A. system, so we watch as the sailors react to the pilots' exultant shouts after shooting down a Zero, their screams of pain and their shouts suddenly being cut off.

At first I thought it to be a corny cost-saving measure, but Hathaway expertly manipulates the verbal diaspora so the audience feels like it's in the middle of the action, despite no corresponding visual element. One exchange is particularly memorable, as a pilot learns his gunner is paralyzed and cannot bail out as their stricken plane careens toward the ocean. "Guess we'll take this last ride together..."

Of course, it was probably not technologically possible to beam the entire radio transmissions of a flight of bombers throughout an aircraft carrier, and even if it was I seriously doubt a naval commanding officer would do so. But as I said, it makes for an effective narrative ploy.

"Wing and a Prayer" got its title from a hit song that came out in 1943, and its plot from a fictionalized version of events leading up from Pearl Harbor to the Battle of the Coral Sea and eventually the Battle of Midway. Sometimes subtitled "The Story of Carrier X," the film follows a single carrier as it runs a series of maneuvers meant to distract and misinform the Japanese high command into thinking the American Navy is dispersed and disorganized.

Their orders are simple: fly missions to look for the enemy, then run away as soon as they're spotted. Needless to say, the pilots are dismayed at fleeing from the enemy. Eventually, of course, they get to have their big fight.

An interesting thing about "Wing and a Prayer" is how subservient characterization is to the plot. If the theme of this movie, like many of its ilk, is that "we're all in this together," then it's underscored by having no one character stand out.

Dana Andrews is ostensibly the lead playing the redoubtable commander of the pilots, though a close second is Hallam "Oscar" Scott, a callow young pilot whose cocksure nature is not matched by his prowess at the plane's controls.

In an interesting ploy, Scott (William Eythe) is supposed to be a movie star who joined up to fight. He got his nickname from the Academy Award statue he won and carries with him in the cockpit as a good luck charm. The rest of the crew beg him for stories of kissing Betty Grable and other big Hollywood stars, and in one scene they watch one of her movies, "Tin Pan Alley."

The third lead is Bingo Harper, the taciturn flight commander played by Don Ameche. It's an unrewarding part, as Ameche scowls his way through the entire movie, his character's stubbornly by-the-book ways earning no adoration from the rowdy pilots. In the end he's portrayed as an honorable man of duty who sublimates his emotions to protect the entire ship.

Also notable in the sprawling cast is Charles Bickford as the grizzled captain, Kevin O'Shea as a veteran ace battling the shakes, Richard Jaeckel as an underage gunner and the inimitable Harry Morgan as a loudmouth ensign.

The planes used in the movie were SB2C Helldiver bombers and TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, sturdy little ships with a crew of three. Curiously, I noticed that the pilots fly almost the entire time with the glass cowl of their cockpit slid back, exposing them to the wind and elements. I suppose this must be historically accurate, since a contemporaneous movie made with the cooperation of the Navy surely wouldn't get such an important detail wrong.

3 stars out of four