Reeling Backward: "The Far Country" (1954)

James Stewart and director Anthony Mann made eight films together between 1950 and 1955, five of them Westerns that have stood the test of time, with "Winchester '73" probably the best known of the bunch. Though the stories are very different, there are a lot of thematic similarities, with Stewart usually playing an ornery loner who comes to recognize that he can't completely detach himself from society without suffering an ill fate.

His Jeff Webster from 1954's "The Far Country" is a prime example. A doggedly independent cattle driver who throws off any attempt to yoke him to a place or a people, Jeff's credo is, "I can take care of myself." He repeatedly rejects calls to act in an altruistic way, believing that if can look after himself, then others should do the same for themselves.

Of course, in the end he must rely upon others to survive, and in turn is motivated to take up arms to protect them against other gunmen who are much like his old self.

What's truly interesting about "The Far Country" is what's left unsaid. Screenwriter Borden Chase, who also penned the scripts for "Winchester '73" and another Stewart/Mann Western, "Bend of the River," gives his characters a distinctive sense of presence without necessarily an explicit backstory to go with it. That we must fill in ourselves.

We don't know much about Jeff Webster, other than he came from Wyoming, is driving a herd of cattle up to Alaska, and plans to use the proceeds to buy a ranch in Utah with his longtime companion, Ben Tatem, a cantankerous oldster from the Walter Brennan stock of cowboys, miners and soldiers.

Ben walks with a hitch, wear a hat with an upturned brim, speaks in a squawky yodel, can do most anything with his hands but doesn't have a lot of sense. His tendency to amiably gab about most anything repeatedly gets the duo in trouble, most notably his buying of two pounds of coffee grounds the day after buying two more, which raises eyebrows and suspicions that turn fatal.

Why Ben is the only person Jeff seems to have any attachment to remains a total mystery, even after Ben is killed off about three-quarters of the way through the movie. (Sorry, no spoiler warnings after 63 years.) Jeff will even affectionately grab Ben's chin or cheek and light his pipe for him, pledging to protect him and look after him in his doddering years.

Clearly they have history together, but its nature remains doggedly obscured. They actually once owned a spread together, but Jeff got the itch to wander again, and off they want, pursuing the bird in the bush they already had in hand. Jeff took the tinkly little bell that Ben hung over their door and attached it to his saddle horn, which becomes his quirk and calling card.

There's not a lot to the story, which is more driven by character clashes than anything else. Jeff and Ben arrive in Seattle with a small herd of cattle that they intend to ferry up to Skagway, Alaska, and then on to the gold rush town of Dawson. The film is set in 1896, long after the California rushes had played out, but while there was still plenty of color to be had panning the streams up north.

(I'm not sure if there were budget constraints on the film, but Mann struggles to achieve any shots where it looks like there's more than 20 steers.)

There are two cowhands with them who are paid $100 apiece, and clearly want to plug Jeff in the back now that the job is done. It seems two other fellows tried to ride off with part of the herd and Jeff shot them down. They report him to the local authorities, who arrive to arrest Jeff just after the ferry has departed. Jeff hides out in the state room of a wealthy woman, Ronda Castle (Ruth Roman), and a romance ensues that simmers the rest of the movie.

Things go poorly when they arrive in Alaska. The ferrymen try to extort Ben and a new addition, the lawman-turned-drunkard Rube Morris (Jay C. Flippen), out of $5,000 in bogus fees. But Jeff rides the cows right off the boat ramp into town, where they jostle the hangman's gallows the local lawman, Judge Gannon (John McIntire), has built to string up three men.

In short order, Gannon has confiscated the herd as a fine for disrupting the execution. It quickly becomes clear that Gannon is little more than a local robber-baron, using the mantle of the law to confiscate property to add to his growing wealth and influence. It turns out that Miss Castle is his partner, running the Skagway Castle saloon as part of his empire designed to gyp gold miners. For instance, Gannon has a local law that no one can depart town without at least 100 pounds of food, and he owns the only grocery.

Castle is sent ahead to Dawson to establish a base there, with Jeff and Ben's cattle as grubstake. Castle hires Jeff as driver of his own herd, along with add-on cowboys (including Harry Morgan.) There are dangers and arguments along the way, including an avalanche where Jeff initially refuses to help those trapped.

Acting as his conscious is Renee Vallon (Corinne Calvet), a strong-headed French/Canadian ingenue who also sets her adoring gaze upon Jeff. The love triangle continues throughout the rest of the story, with Jeff manfully displaying absolutely no interest in either one of the women.

(I'm sure a critic writing from a queer perspective would have a field day with this film.)

Things go fine for a while in Dawson, with Jeff stealing back his herd from Castle, and her then buying it back for him, outbidding the local hash house run by three tough older gals: Hominy (Connie Gilchrist), Grits (Kathleen Freeman) and Molasses (Connie Van). With the hastily put-up Dawson Castle serving steaks and the trio of ladies stuck with bear stew, Gannon quickly has a foothold.

Soon he'll show up himself in his top hat and mortician's suit, laying claim to gold claims that aren't his. He rounds himself up some muscle, including Morgan and google-eyed Jack Elam, and personally guns down good-natured miner, Dusty (Chubby Johnson), when he tries to stand up to him. He also backs down Rube, who has been tapped as marshal (after Jeff refuses the job).

Jeff parlays his cattle proceeds into a prosperous claim of his own, planning to split town as soon as he and Ben have enough gold for their Utah dreams. Gannon's men are staking themselves outside town to jump departing miners at Two Mile Pass, but Jeff has a plan to take a secret Indian route along the river. But then Ben blabs about the coffee, he's killed and Jeff is shot up.

Nursed back to health by Renee, with a little assistance from Castle, Jeff finally sees the error of his ways and opts to take on Gannon in an obligatory showdown.

The relationship between Gannon and Jeff is rich with subtleties. They take an instant like to each other, despite the consistently oppositional nature of their encounters. They are closely aligned in skillset and their belief that people should rise or file by dint of their own willingness to stand up for themselves and claim what's theirs.

The difference is that while Jeff is a pure individualist, preferring to "find his own trails," Gannon uses the pioneer code as cover to mask his malevolent manipulations. Despite his title of Judge and position as the law, he really thrives on chaos and bullying. Gannon represents the evil that prospers when good men like Jeff do nothing, concerning themselves with themselves.

(Screenwriter Chase doubtlessly based Gannon on legendary Western con man "Soapy" Smith, who operated in a number of places including Skagway, where he was eventually gunned down in a dispute over a bag of stolen gold flakes. Though Soapy preferred to have lawmen on his payroll rather than wear a badge and a gun himself.)

"The Far Country" is really a tidy morality tale that acts as counterpoint to the classic John Wayne type of Western, where a man's gotta be a man, and womenfolk stay put in the background -- preferably the kitchen.

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

Reeling Backward: "Yellow Sky" (1948)

"Yellow Sky" is one of those movies that is about much more than the superficial story on the screen. Ostensibly it's a Western about a group of desperadoes who stumble upon a gold miner and his tomboy granddaughter in the remote desert, setting up a standoff in which the bandits make designs on a fortune in gold dust.

But the film, directed by William A. Wellman, is more about lust -- lust for gold, lust for sex, and most every other type of yearning mortal man can conjure. Each character in some way lusts for something or other that they cannot have, and only by giving up their avarice can they hope to find any peace.

Gregory Peck, in one of his rare villainous roles -- well, he starts out bad, anyway -- plays "Stretch" Dawson, leader of a gang of seven thieves. The opening sequence pretty well defines their M.O.: They ride into a town, belly up to the saloon bar and inquire about the marshal's whereabouts. Determining he's away on business, they casually saunter over to the bank and rob it.

It seems like easy pickings, but the cavalry soon gives chase, picking off one of the gang. Desperate, they ride into the nearby salt flats to escape. The men are fearful about crossing 70 miles of barren desert, but Stretch insists "it's just a place. It can be crossed."

Though hardly important narratively, the desert sequence is highly evocative in fleshing out the members of the gang. Stretch is taciturn and stern, and is most concerned with protecting his status as leader. "I don't like voting," Stretch says repeatedly whenever they talk about letting democracy rule their actions.

His number two is Dude, played by Richard Widmark. Widmark was one of those actors who bounced between playing authority figures and villains, and was always most interesting as an evil-doer. Something about his large forehead, slitted eyes and prominent cheekbones gave him the appearance of a death's head -- particularly when he smiled. Richard Widmark smiling is one of the most unsettling things you'll ever seen in a movie.

Dude dresses like something of a dandy, but has no taste for women. As he reveals to Stretch in a quiet moment, he used to own a ranch and have a girl, but when he was shot and robbed she left him. With only one working lung, Dude is incapable of physical labor. He wants to become so rich he'll never have to sweat again -- and rub it in the face of the people who same him descend into failure.

Harry Morgan, forever Col. Potter from "M*A*S*H*," has a small role as Half Pint, an undersized cowpoke with a quick smile and an affinity for animals. Lengthy (John Russell) is the hothead of the bunch. Bull Run (Robert Arthur) is the youngest bandit, because it is an unwritten rule in Westerns that when more than three people throw in together, one of them must be a tenderfoot.

Charles Kemper has a memorable role as Walrus, the tubby, bearded older cowboy who serves as both comic relief and ready-made pragmatist, ready to blow with the wind.

In the desert Walrus is threatened with death, because he filled his canteen with whiskey back in town. He offers to trade some booze for water, plaintively begging that he will die soon without it, but no one will give him a drink. Stretch seems unbothered by the idea of Walrus dying of thirst, relegating it as a simple matter of a man living with his own poor choice.

They make it through the desert, and come across the ghost town of Yellow Sky. Once booming with money from silver mines, things dried up awhile ago. But an old man (James Barton) and his granddaughter Mike (Anne Baxter) are still around. After slaking their thirst, the thieves' minds quickly turn to questioning why two people would stick it out alone unless they had something to show for it.

The overt sexuality of the movie is pretty striking by 1948 standards. All the men except for Dude quickly take a shine to Mike (Constance Mae is her real name), with animosity brewing as they vie for a place at the front of what they clearly believe will become a line.

Stretch orders them to leave the old man and girl alone, but doesn't follow his own orders. In one creepy scene, he tackles Mike and pins her down, forcibly kissing her. He gets up and quips something about just wanting to show her what he's capable of, but it clearly was the beginning of a sexual assault.

Mike, though, is a deadeye with her rifle, and parts Stretch's hair with a well-aimed bullet as warning/retribution. Inevitably, though, Mike finds herself drawn to Stretch. She's lived alone with just her grandpa since she was a girl, and Baxter's portrayal of a young woman's unmet raging desires surely brought a blush to audiences' cheeks back in the day.

Even the old man has desires. He's been mining gold dust mote by mote for more than 15 years, and has $50,000 worth saved up -- not for the wealth, but so he can revive the town of Yellow Sky again. Once the bandits' motives become clear, he offers to split the take with them, which Stretch agrees to out of sheer convenience, and perhaps because he's taken a shine to Mike.

Dude isn't having any of it, though, and usurps the leadership of the gang. Bull Run is killed in the ensuing melee, and Walrus and Half Pint don't really have a stake one way or the other, simply following the leadership of whoever seems to be in the strongest position at any given moment.

Stretch's transformation into a well-meaning fellow who sticks by his word isn't terribly convincing, nor is the seemingly pasted-on happy ending, where Stretch and what's left of his gang return the money they stole from the bank. Old habits die hard, though, and Stretch forces the bank workers and customers to hold up their hands at gunpoint, before realizing how silly this is.

The screenplay by Lamar Trotti was based on an unpublished book by W.R. Burnett. According to the film's Wikipedia page, the story is loosely based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest," but it must be pretty loose indeed. The old man in "Yellow Sky" has no sorcerous powers, unless you count his affinity with the local Apache.

The cinematography by Joseph MacDonald is terrific, with a lot of bright whites and high contrasts that make the scenes seem parched and arid.

"Yellow Sky" is a solid Western, but it's even better when considered for its subtext.

3 stars out of four