Reeling Backward: "Flight from Ashiya" (1964)

When it comes to war films, I often feel like the kid in "The Princess Bride," his little face screwed up into a perpetual pout -- "They're kissing again."

I don't know why Golden Age Hollywood felt like it couldn't make a war picture without ladling in a huge dollop of gooey romance. Particularly in the 1950s and thereafter. In the years immediately after World War II, there were some great, gritty dramas that focused solely on the combat and existential peril of the soldiers -- like the wonderful and under-appreciated "Battleground." 

But with 1953's "From Here to Eternity" and beyond, it seemed like the movies couldn't separate the fighting men from their dames. A perfect example is "Flight from Ashiya," which is supposed to be a paean to the U.S. Air Force Air Rescue Service, which retrieved military personnel and private citizens from perilous situations. Their motto, as we're reminded several times, is "That Others May Live."

Apparently, the unwritten sub-motto is "That We May Smooch."

Director Michael Anderson ("Around the World in 80 Days") and screenwriter Waldo Salt, working from Elliott Arnold's 1959 novel, use the rescue stuff as the mere backdrop to lovey-dovey stories. The movie actually spends the majority of its running time in flashback to the backstories of the three main characters played by Yul Brynner, Richard Widmark and George Chakiris.

Chakiris was the youngest and least-established of the actors, despite having just won an Oscar for "West Side Story," "Flight" being only his second starring role. As such, his tale as Lt. John Gregg gets the short shrift, focusing on a helicopter rescue attempt some years earlier in the European mountains following an avalanche. After only being able to carry out a handful of the survivors, Gregg insists on a second attempt, but the sound of his rotors causes another downfall, killing the rest. Now he's shaky behind the controls.

His was the first flashback presented, so I was lulled into a sense that the other two men's histories would also focus on their professional exploits. All we know thus far is that Sgt. Mike Takashima (Brynner) is a gung-ho Polish/Japanese-American paratrooper and Col. Glenn Stevenson (Widmark) is a cautious group commander in the South Pacific who was a prisoner of war of the Japanese, and harbors racial animus against them.

"These things run deep," he confesses to Takashima after they have an inevitable run-in.

It's interesting -- Brynner was widely regarded as Asian by American audiences, mostly owing to his most iconic role in "The King and I," both on stage and screen. He was actually Russian, with some Swiss but also Mongol ancestry. Brynner, a notorious teller of tall tales, provided various mythologies over the years about his background, helping elevate the sense of the exotic for his screen persona.

(He also had hair, or at least some, but after "The King and I" made him an international star he continued to shave his head for the rest of his life for the same reason.)

In the framing story set in the early 1960s, the three men are flying in propeller seaplanes to rescue some Japanese survivors of a sunken ship. 

(The film was a Japanese/American co-production, and I guess you could technically argue it's not a war picture since it's ostensibly set in peace time.) 

After the first plane attempts a landing in stormy seas and breaks up, Stevenson has to weigh whether to risk his crew to rescue hated Japanese, with Gregg as his co-pilot and Takashima as the guy who jumps into the drink.

For Stevenson, the flashback -- which must last at least 30 minutes -- involves his romance with Caroline (Shirley Knight), a reporter and photographer covering the Philippines in 1941. He was the owner/operator of a one-man airline delivering needed supplies to the war-torn villages, and she hopped a ride, changing out her skirt for a pair of his borrowed pants. 

Of course, he instantly fell in love and later tracked her down. They married but she died, along with their unborn son, in a Japanese POW camp because the commander refused to share their medicine.

Knight is a coy, intriguing presence. On one hand Caroline is a brave proto-feminist war journalist who, at one point, is ready to ditch Stevenson because neither one is the type to be tied down. But she also displays a sensuous, subservient manner that's closer to breathy Marilyn Monroe than edgy Kate Hepburn.

Brynner's love story takes place in Algeria during the war, where as a volunteer with a French demolitions unit he falls for Leila (Danièle Gaubert), a girl from a strict Muslim family. He instantly falls for her after she removes her veil, then reveals much more by taking him to the beach to cavort around in a black bikini. 

This may seem incongruous behavior, but a helpful café owner explains that in this spot, various cultural impulses of the East, West and Africa tend to collide and mix.

Gaubert isn't really given the opportunity Knight is to create a fleshed-out character, mostly consigned to forlorn glances and such. Leila only speaks French, so she and Takashima have to bother a shop owner to translate for them.

Leila's father and grandfather naturally disapprove, he tries to take her with him when the Axis forces attack, she follows him in a fit of passion and dies in an explosion from charges Takashima rigged himself.

So both of the older men are carrying major torches for dead loves, though Takashima has a barely acknowledged thing going in the present-day story with Lucille (Suzy Parker), who works in the air rescue HQ.

The filmmakers do a pretty good job of making Widmark seem younger during his flashback, the harder edges on his iconically angled face softened by makeup and lighting. Brynner looks exactly the same though, like the bald pate, his seeming agelessness was an intrinsic part of his schtick. 

Eventually the movie wanders back to the story at hand, rescuing the Japanese castaways. After parachuting in and transferring them to an inflatable raft, Takashima instantly bonds with a Japanese boy he names Charlie (Mitsuhiro Sugiyama), who calls him "G.I." 

The obvious sound stage water tank set isn't terribly convincing as a stormy ocean, with wind machines blowing spray past the actors' heads at 30 m.p.h. but the water moving at barely a heavy chop. At one point Takashima dives overboard to rescue Charlie, then nearly drowns himself, which is hamfistedly used as the break point for his flashback.

Of course, as you might guess Stevenson overcomes his caution and racism -- for a bit, at least -- to land the plane and rescue everybody. 

There's some interesting technical stuff that interests me about the movie because of my own family history in aviation. For ocean takeoff the crew attaches booster rockets to the exterior of their Grumman HU-16 Albatross like a schoolboy soda can trick -- something that sounds like Hollywood BS but was a real thing: JATO (jet assisted take off). Variants of the Albatross are still in use today.

When "Flight from Ashiya" actually bothers to focus on the derring-do of Air Rescue Service pilots and personnel, it's a pretty riveting story. The smoochie stuff doesn't really fit, though, and would've better been dropped for weighing down the film's flight profile.

Reeling Backward: "Broken Lance" (1954)

Here's a description I found of Jerome Weidman's 1941 novel, "I'll Never Go There Anymore," unread by me:

This semi-classic Weidman novel places a handful of vibrant characters together for a two week stay at a lonely summer cabin. "A summer vacation thrust him into manhood."

And yet this largely forgotten book was turned into not one, not two but three disparate movies spread out over just 12 years. First was 1949's contemporaneous "House of Strangers" starring Edward G. Robinson as a corrupt New York City banker. For 1954's "Broken Lance," the story was transposed to the wide open country during the late 19th century, featuring Spencer Tracy as a hard-bitten cattle baron. Finally Esther Williams and Cliff Robertson starred in 1961's "The Big Show," set in the world of a traveling German circus.

Talk about artistic license. A summer vacation story gets turned into a film noir, a Western epic and a European flying trapeze romance?

At their hearts, though, all of the stories are about a strong father figure struggling to wrangle his offspring and deal with his own tragic choices. "Lance," directed by Edward Dmytryk, takes on Shakespearean notes at time, with the tale of four brothers vying for the scraps of dad's crumbling domain, while the once-vital patriarch slips further and further into physical and spiritual decay.

Interestingly, the screenplay by Richard Murphy was not nominated by for an Academy Award -- nor did it deserve to be -- but the story by Philip Yordan actually won the Oscar. The Academy has shifted around the writing categories more than any other award area over the years, though they've been pretty stable since about 1970. Prior to 1957 there were separate story and screenwriting awards.

Under modern rules, a "story by" credit means the writer had to have submitted an earlier version of the script, or at least a treatment or some kind of written product. Simply "having an idea" doesn't get you a story credit -- otherwise, a lot of producers would be considered writers.

I thought Dmytryk, a journeyman with many notable credits to his name (including "Crossfire," "The End of the Affair" and "The Caine Mutiny"), does a fine job shooting the rocky vistas, making excellent use of the CinemaScope widescreen format.

I did have one significant complaint, however: the lack of close-ups for Spencer Tracy. Tracy was a famously naturalistic performer, whose subtle facial cues and postures could convey a lot of emotional information with just a centimeter of movement. But Dmytryk keeps his camera at middle distance or further for nearly the entire film. That tends to let the orneriness of his character, Matt Devereaux, play out but not his little moments of self-doubt and reconciliation.

Contrastingly, young Robert Wagner is given many loving close-ups as Matt's youngest (and prettiest) son, Joe. Given a slight color tinge to reflect Joe's "half-breed" Indian status, the camera swoops in adoringly for him again and again.

Joe's a pretty straightforward and uninteresting character, the good son who stands by his father while his brothers all stab him in the back. Richard Widmark plays Ben, the oldest, still resentful over a lifetime of being treated more like a hired cowpuncher than heir apparent. Ben is certainly savvy and probably would make a good next-generation cattleman -- he suggests opening an office in town to negotiate the best prices with the Chicago meat markets.

But Matt is an old-school authoritarian type. He expects his sons to be eternally loyal and subservient. He built an empire with his own two hands, and wants to keep it that way forever. 

When the two dimwitted middle kids -- Mike (Hugh O'Brian) and Denny (Earl Holliman) -- steal a couple of old steers to supplement the meager $40 a month wage the old man gives them, he's ready to send them packing. Matt callously kills the two Mexicans who helped them, as he's done his whole life to rustlers or anyone who tried to infringe upon his land. Tin stars and courtrooms are unnecessary delays in the attainment of justice, Matt figures, strongly prejudiced toward the frontier kind.

Matt doesn't kill the Indian hands who also assisted in the theft, since it's obvious Matt has a tender spot for their kind. His wife, played by Katy Jurado (who got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nod), is addressed by all as Señora, despite being a for-real Comanche "princess" (daughter of the chief). He married her after his first wife, mother of his three oldest, died during the hard early years on the Devereaux ranch.

It's a true romance, but racial prejudice is always loitering just outside the door. Horace, the bendable governor played by E.G. Marshall, owes his position to Matt's pulling the levers of power. But when Joe starts to fall for his own daughter, Barbara (Jean Peters), the governor registers his objections while apologizing for his inability to change with the times.

Matt abruptly ends their friendship just when he needed it the most. A trial is coming after Matt and his boys raided a copper mine that was dumping its waste into his stream, killing 40 head of cattle. Despite the inconsequential nature of the loss -- representing something like 0.08% of Devereaux's massive herd -- Matt sternly orders the mine foreman,  Mac Andrews (Robert Burton), to shut down or be shut down.

When the scores of miners learn their livelihood is threatened by a bossy cattleman and his four sons, they prepare to put an end to the Devereaux clan. But then Two Moons (Eduard Franz), Matt's trusted Indian foreman, rides in with their own men and lay waste to the mine.

Nobody's killed, but Matt is put on trial and his cussed obstinance on the witness stand -- repeatedly threatening the opposing attorney (Philip Ober) with bodily harm -- pretty much puts the nails in the coffin.

To save his dad, Joe claims that he started the fight and gets sentenced to three years in jail. His release from prison acts as a framing device, with Joe now the prodigal son returned to the dusty ruins of the ranch, which is gradually being turned over to oil drilling.

Matt had a stroke after losing his honor by allowing Joe to take the fall, a raging dog confined to his chair with no bite to back up the bark. He foolishly split up the ranch among his four sons as a preventive move in case the court case went against him, but that now means Ben, with the support of the brothers dim, is now in charge.

In perhaps the film's best scene, Matt begs Ben not to sell off part of the ranch to oilmen, and is haughtily refused. Widmark and Tracy really go at each other, two men who are two alike to ever really get along with each other. Matt confesses that he couldn't stand his own father's stern yoke and rode off to seek his fortune, and it's clear that he would have preferred Ben follow suit.

Really, this is what the movie should have been about. The lackluster Joe character and the needless romance aspect should all have been given the dusty boot.

At 96 minutes, "Broken Lance" aspires to be an epic Western but just doesn't have the narrative sweep and distinctive characters to go any higher than it is: a serviceable story of fathers and sons, squabbling on the squalid plains.

Reeling Backward: "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964)

I was surprised by how inert and ineffective "Cheyenne Autumn" is. I've been meaning to catch up with it for years and came away quite disappointed from the experience.

The film is seminal for a couple of reasons: it was John Ford's last Western, and it was pretty much the first deliberate attempt by Hollywood to cast American Indians in a positive light, showing how they were ill-used by the American government as it expanded into the West.

It's based on a real bit of history, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-79, during which hundreds of native people left the harsh, arid reservation land that had been set aside for them and traveled more than 1,000 miles north to their ancestral home. There were several skirmishes with the U.S. military along the way, and newspapers of the day portrayed it as a rampaging army of Indians on the warpath.

In truth, they were largely elderly, women and children, and posed no threat to anyone unless their trek was opposed.

The movie was actually based on two novels, "The Last Frontier" by Howard Fast and "Cheyenne Autumn" by Mari Sandoz, though only the latter received a screen credit. Screenwriter James L. Webb had recently won an Oscar for another Western, "How the West Was Won," of which Ford directed one of the five sequences. They ended up reusing a lot of the same talent for this picture, including stars Richard Widmark and Carroll Baker, Webb and Ford.

"Cheyenne" can't quite decide who is its main character. Its heart seems to lie with the Indians, particularly Little Wolf and Dull Knife, the two main leaders of the Northern Cheyenne tribe. They're played by Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland, respectively, both actors of Mexican heritage. Italian-American Sal Mineo plays Dull Knife's hot-headed son, Red Shirt. Most of the other Cheyenne are played by Navajo, and speak in their own language during the film.

But Widmark is put front and center as Capt. Thomas Archer, a fictional Army officer assigned to make them stay put, and later pursue them after they begin their exodus. He's a sympathetic figure torn between his military obligations and his own recognition of the suffering of the Cheyenne. Baker plays Deborah Wright, a Quaker devoted to educating the Indian children who ends up tagging along on their quest.

Their tepid romance is barely sketched in the early part of the film, then quietly tucked away for the rest. There isn't even a big reunion scene and kiss at the end. They have a little cheeky repartee, addressing each other as "Friend Deborah" and "Friend Thomas" in the Quaker way.

The movie's pacing staggers this way and that, an occasional fight scene between the Cheyenne and Army with lots of talking in between. Archer tries to convince his superiors to show the Cheyenne more respect and restraint, but it falls on deaf ears. Eventually he takes his case directly to the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson).

Karl Malden has a small but vigorous role as an Army officer who imprisons the Cheyenne on orders, leaving them to freeze and starve to death in a warehouse because he's too afraid to take other action without authorization. The character refers to himself as a Russian, though his accent sounds more German to these ears. Perhaps we'll be generous and say Malden was going for Prussian, and leave it at that.

Patrick Wayne, son of John, has a small part as an impetuous young officer Archer has to continually reprimand. John Carradine turns up in Dodge City as a gambling gentleman.

The music by Alex North is quite good, but often too obtrusive. There's an opening piece and an intermission that is probably unnecessary.

By far the biggest problem with the film is the Dodge City sequence. It arrives just before the intermission, and completely rips the audience out of the story of the Cheyenne.

It stars Jimmy Stewart as Wyatt Earp and Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holiday, portrayed here as peevish, aging gamblers who have taken up the offices of sheriff and deputy simply to allow them to sit in the saloon and play cards all day. They want nothing to do with the Cheyenne "horde" passing nearby, and Earp even contrives to lead the ad-hoc force of vengeful vigilantes in a different direction.

It's a weird, weird sequence that belongs in another movie. It's completely comedic in tone, right down to a saloon wench losing her dress and some vagrant cowpunchers getting one-upped by the wily Wyatt. One wonders what Ford and Webb were thinking including it in the film, especially seeing as the original cut was creeping up on three hours -- Ford's longest movie.

Indeed, after being initially released in theaters the Dodge City section was cut out, and wisely so. Most modern versions on video include it, to the detriment of the overall experience. This is where the "chapter skip" button comes in handy.

"Cheyenne Autumn" is undeniably a magnificent-looking film, shot largely in Ford's beloved Monument Valley with widescreen and lots of vivid colors. Cinematographer William H. Clothier deservedly received the film's sole Academy Award nomination.

At the time of its release, John Ford publicly declared "Cheyenne Autumn" to be an elegy for the Native American. It says something of the man that during his lifetime he came to recognize that his own work bore a great deal of responsibility for the popular depiction of Indians as whooping savages, and it was something he regretted.

He tried to get the movie made for years without success. When he finally did, it was his longest and most expensive project, and one of the few that was a commercial failure. Ill health and a lack of confidence from the studios resulted in Ford only completing one other feature film.

It's such a shame that one of the greatest movie directors ended his career on such a sour note. John Ford's song of regret for the Indian, while noble in purpose, is a discordant and dull affair.

Reeling Backward: "How the West Was Won" (1962)

By 1962 Hollywood knew the jig was up.

Audiences, with expanding options of quality programming on television, would no longer automatically show up to the cinemas for whatever fare they had thrown together. Actors and directors were tired of being workhorses for the studios, told to go here and do that, and wanted the power to pick their own projects. Certain quintessentially American genres, notably the musical and the Western, were increasingly seen as creaky and worn out.

The Golden Age, for good and naught, was waning -- and everyone knew it.

The reaction from Tinseltown, at least for awhile, was to deliver things TV couldn't: color pictures, big action spectacles, widescreen formats, stereo sound, 3-D imagery and so on. One of the big ideas was Cinerama, which stretched an extremely wide image across a huge curved screen, so the audience literally felt like the movie was wrapping around their field of vision.

To get some perspective, the aspect ratio of most films today is 1.85 to 1, width to height. Modern flatscreen TVs are 1.78, so when movies are played on them you only get a little bit of black bar at the top and bottom. (Rarer) widescreen movies are usually 2.35, so the bars are much bigger. Cinerama was 2.59, so when I watched the film on my set the film only occupied the middle third or so of the screen.

Only two major feature films were made using this process, which involved shooting with three separate 35mm cameras and then using a trio of projectors in the theater.  "How the West Was Won" was a big success, the second highest-grossing film of that year, but it was too expensive to outfit more than a handful of theaters with the setup.

When shown as a single image on a flat screen, the three pieces tended to not match up well, with noticeable lines during bright scenes. Since most theaters didn't undertake the upgrade, this is how most audiences saw it. Despite its early success, Cinerama died a quick death.

MGM undertook a restoration of the movie in 2000, and new Blu-ray editions include a version that simulates the curved Cinerama look. I've included two stills of the same scene above so you can see the marked difference in presentation.

Filmmakers didn't like the logistics of shooting in Cinerama, either, since it required them to position the actors and backgrounds in such a way that the performers might not even be looking at the person they were talking to in the scene. John Ford, who directed one of the film's five sequences, complained that you couldn't shoot closer than the waist up, which limited the ability to give audiences an emotional connection with the characters.

Much like the green screen technology of today, the final result could be fabulous, but required a talented and attentive cast and director to preserve the performance aspect.

The visual look of the restored "How the West Was Won" is often breathtaking, with glorious vistas of the American fields, rivers and mountains. Narratively the story spreads over 50 years, from 1839 to 1889, covering the settlement of Ohio, the gold rush, the Civil War, the building of a transcontinental railroad line and the height of the outlaw era. It's all told through the eyes of a single family, as subsequent generations grow up and move on further West.

The final movie was a languid 164 minutes, but includes lengthy musical overtures (by Alfred Newman) at the beginning, middle and end that probably consume at least 20 minutes on their own. Everything about the film telegraphs that it wants to be seen as an old-school epic, but really it's several small, barely interrelated stories strung together.

In a gimmicky move, different directors were hired for the five sections, though Henry Hathaway helmed most: the first, second and fifth. Ford directed the third and shortest section on the Civil War, which is really more of a vignette than a true standalone story. George Marshall oversaw the fourth and probably best sequence on the often merciless drive to connect the railroads from east to west.

It was nominated for a bunch of Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won three for Sound, Editing and James R. Webb's screenplay -- thought it did not get a nod, notably, for directing.

The film also has the prerequisite "All Star Cast," though most of them have very fleeting parts. John Wayne is in it for about two minutes, along with Henry Morgan, playing great Union generals Sherman and Grant during the Civil War section. Jimmy Stewart has a bigger part as a frontier trapper who falls for one of the daughters (Carroll Baker) of cantankerous pioneer Zebulon Prescott (Karl Malden) in the first sequence. Stewart gets stabbed by some river pirates (led by the great Walter Brennan) but survives to win the girl.

Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark turn up in the railroad section as, respectively, a fiercely independent scout and the hardcase overseer of the building operation, who's willing to break the treaty with the Arapaho Indians and start a war if it'll mean shaving a few days off his schedule.

Gregory Peck plays a gambler who courts, then deserts, then nabs again one of the Prescott daughters, played by Debbie Reynolds, who wants to marry a rich husband and move back East but ends up as a saloon showgirl instead. Robert Preston plays the wagon train master who pitches his own woo at her, telling her about the matching suitability of his huge ranch and her ample child-bearing hips, but she's looking for a little more romance. Thelma Ritter plays an over-the-hill female pioneer who desperately wants to get married; I kept thinking she would hook up with the Preston character.

Eli Wallach turns up in the last sequence as Charlie Gant, a particularly nasty outlaw who avoided jail years ago and is back to torment the lawman who killed his brother. They each put lead into the other they still carry, so there's no love lost. It seems like a clear precursor to Wallach's Spaghetti Western roles later on.

Really the biggest star in the picture in terms of screen time is George Peppard playing Zeb Rawlings, the son of the Jimmy Stewart and Carroll Baker characters. He's the main character in the last three sequences. In the Civil War he's a scrappy young recruit who becomes disillusioned by the senseless killing. In the railroad section he's a U.S. Cavalry officer charged with keeping the peace, who continually butts heads with the Widmark villain. Finally he's the marshal, now with a wife and kids of his own, who faces off with Charlie Gant, as Debbie Reynolds returns as an aged doyenne of San Francisco who wants to spend her last years on a ranch.

Spencer Tracy narrates the tale with openings to each sequence, plus a flowery speech at the end about how the suffering and triumphs of those Western pioneers allowed us to have all the great stuff we have today. It's a little disconcerting as the airborne camera swoops over the vistas, which gradually become more and more occupied with the mark of humanity, including highways and smoke-belching factories. I suppose in 1962 those things were seen as hallmarks of progress rather than urban sprawl.

I guess I like the idea of "How the West Was Won" more than the totality of the movie itself. It's generally quite entertaining, and even grand at times. But it feels more like a lot of haphazard pieces washing down the current of history than a coherent film.

Reeling Backward: "No Way Out" (1950)

I first became aware of "No Way Out" because it shares the same title as a largely forgotten 1987 political thriller starring Kevin Costner, Sean Young and Gene Hackman that I am particularly fond of. Then I found out it was the first film appearance by Sidney Poitier, and also starred the great Richard Widmark in one of his inimitable villain roles. I knew I had to see it.

The movie was directed by Golden Age giant Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also co-wrote it along with Lesser Samuels, and the two men shared an Oscar nomination for their original screenplay. It's a taut potboiler that accomplishes its narrative goals while also being quite brazen in its tackling of racial animosity circa 1950.

The word "nigger" gets bandied almost as much as your average Quentin Tarantino feature, along with a host of other racial epithets like coon, darkie and so on. Poitier, whose screen presence was defined by intelligence and grace, shows prodigious quantities of both as Luther Brooks, a first-year intern at the large county hospital who is on the receiving end of nearly all that vileness. Just 22 when the film was shot, Poitier is boyishly handsome and painfully thin.

On his first night working the prison ward, a pair of brother bandits from Beaver Canal are brought in with serious but non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. The elder, Ray Biddle (Widmark), leers and taunts at Dr. Brooks -- outraged that a black man is putting his hands on his brother. When Johnny Biddle (Dick Paxton) dies during a spinal tap because Brooks suspects he is suffering from a brain tumor, it turns into an all-out war of wills between the two men.

If Poitier is celebrated for his smarts, then perhaps no actor accessed anger as well as Widmark. In the right role -- like Tommy Udo in his screen debut in "Kiss of Death" just three years earlier -- hatred and resentment just emanated from Widmark like waves of a radiation from a nuclear meltdown.

Something about his rawboned face, the way his skull seemed to want to pop right out of his skin, set off by those enormous sapphire eyes, gave him a jackal's ravenous charm. Many of his characters, including Ray Biddle, drip with poisonous strain of humor that's funny only to them. He laughs at you, but the dead glint in his eye lets slip that he's kill you as soon as sneer at you.

Some predictable stuff happens -- Ray breaks out of the hospital prison ward, with the help of his "deef and dumb" other brother, George (Harry Bellaver), who can read lips and acts as a sort of spy for the family, visually eavesdropping on the conversations between the doctors and policemen who guard the prisoners.

Insisting that Brooks is responsible for Johnny's death, Ray whips up a race riot, rounding up his lug friends to stage an attack on the African-American part of town. The black men in the community get the drop on them, though, learning of the preparations and sending an even larger force to beat them to a pulp.

This results in perhaps the film's most singularly powerful moment, in which family members of the injured men crowd inside the hospital as their loved ones are brought inside. One woman can't stand to see Brooks treating her guy, and spits in his face. The stunned doctor simply walks away, fleeing out into the night.

Notable aside: screen icons Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee turn up in supporting roles as Dr. Brooks' brother and his wife. Though they did not get a screen credit, these are far meatier roles than the usual sort of background screen cameos you saw in this era. The husband leaves their shared home to go join the fight, talking about going for a walk. When his wife tries to stop him, his mother quietly admonishes the younger woman to let the man make his own choices.

I was expecting the Davis character to turn up dead or gravely injured -- that's how these kinds of movies normally go -- and was glad to see the film avoid the usual tropes. 

The film wastes some time and energy on Johnny Biddle's ex-wife, Edie (the sloe-eyed Linda Darnell), who gets sucked into the story. Ray refuses the doctors' request to perform an autopsy on his brother, ostensibly because he doesn't want to see him cut open but really because he fears Dr. Brooks was correct in his diagnosis of a brain tumor. So the chief resident, Dr. Wharton (Stephen McNally), and Brooks track her down thinking she's the next of kin.

Edie has escaped Beaver Canal, just barely, living hand-to-mouth in a tiny apartment with a job she hates. She goes to see Ray at the hospital, and here it's suggested they had an affair behind Johnny's back while she was still married to him. Ray, who has a brute's sense of cunning, stokes Edie's nascent racial resentment and convinces her to help him.

Her heart gets turned around, however, by Dr. Wharton's warm-hearted maid, Gladys (Amanda Randolph), who nurses her back to health after a drunken bender. Things wind up with Edie helping Dr. Brooks against Ray -- whose shield of raging machismo comes crashing down when his shot-up leg starts pumping blood all over.

I respected the way the filmmakers give depth and breadth to even the smallest characters, such as Lefty Jones, a black orderly played by Dots Johnson. Lefty has an angry scar down the side of his face, compliments of the likes of Ray Biddle. He and the other orderlies view Dr. Brooks as something of a personal hero, and are angry when he shows restraint at all the racial taunts. Their alignment is underscored by the similarities in the white outfits worn by the orderlies and Brooks' doctor kit.

It's a pretty bold thing for a movie in 1950 to show the righteous anger of the black man -- Lefty and his fellows don't even appear to get arrested for their assault on the Beaver Canal gang. "No Way Out" is one of those good movies that gets better the more you think about it.

Reeling Backward: "Time Limit" (1957)

"Time Limit" was the only film directed by Karl Malden, and it's probably better for everyone that he spent the rest of his career in front of the camera instead of behind it. I say this not as an insult to his filmmaking skills, which were adequate, but in praise of his inimitable power and intensity as an actor.

Malden himself seemed to agree, writing in his autobiography that he "preferred being a good actor to being a fairly good director."

"Time Limit" is an effective if rather stodgy and stagey legal drama that could've been directed by just about anyone. It only has three locations, and if you left instructions for where the cinematography should set up the cameras, similar edicts for lighting, props, etc. and a word or two for the actors, the film literally could've directed itself.

Unsurprisingly, it's based on a play by Henry Denker and Ralph Berkey, with Denker doing the screenplay. Some stage-to-screen adaptations gain power through a confinement of space, time and characters -- "12 Angry Men" being the classic example -- but others like this one wind up feeling crimped.

It's the sort of picture where characters inevitably make big, stentorian speeches about the fallibility of mankind and such -- always while standing. Have you ever noticed people in movies never deliver a key soliloquy sitting down? Personally, I think better off my feet.

Richard Widmark, who starred in and was a producer of the film, was the one who recruited Malden to direct. No doubt he was thinking of Malden's masterful speech from "On the Waterfront" a few years earlier, and hoping the actor who delivered that could help him craft his own performance.

Widmark is good in it, as a conscientious military lawyer investigating a former POW accused of treason, though I've always found him more interesting in villainous or ambivalent roles. Something about his face, a set sternness of expression, a certain mania behind the eyes, lends itself to frightening rather than reassuring characters.

Major Harry Gargill (a solid Richard Basehart) has been accused of collaborating with the enemy while a prisoner of war during the Korean conflict. He gave speeches to his fellow soldiers urging them to embrace communist ideals, made radio broadcasts falsely admitting to Americans using germ warfare against the North Koreans, etc.

It seems the proverbial open-and-shut case, with all of Cargill's fellow POWs testifying against him, and Cargill declaring himself guilty, refusing to offer any kind of defense for his action.

To top things off, General Connors (Carl Benton Reid) has ordered the investigating officer, Lt. Col. William Edwards (Widmark), to hurry up his recommendation for court martial. The general's own son died in the same POW camp, so he has a personal interest in the outcome.

But Edwards can't let the case go, and keeps digging further. He even visits Cargill's wife (June Lockhart), who offers her own affecting song of despair about the sad man who has returned to her from war -- but no concrete information.

It's up to Edwards to see if the truth lines up with the facts.

Martin Balsam is a hoot as Edwards' conniving sergeant, who offers advice and scuttlebutt from the career Army office pool. He warns the colonel that his career is in danger if he doesn't bring in a judgement quickly -- stamped with the right recommendation. Dolores Michaels assists as the wily secretary with a background in law; she and Edwards are implied an attraction.

A very young and virtually unrecognizable Rip Torn, in one of his earliest screen roles, turns up as young Lieutenant Miller, who provides damning testimony and a suspiciously easygoing manner.

Eventually, a peek of light appears in the carefully constructed wall of lies. It seems a lot of very bad things went on inside that POW camp, briefly seen in a trio of flashback scenes. Lots were drawn, vows were made, dark deeds committed.

Caught between the ethos of General Connors and that of Major Cargill, Edwards has to weigh the merits of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons versus the right thing for the wrong reasons.

"Time Limit" is one of those well-meaning films that wears its good intentions a bit too too openly on its sleeve. It's also burdened by that awful, generic-sounding title. It refers to the idea that a man can be heroic his entire life, but eventually pressure and circumstance can force anyone to break. Do the limits of his willpower negate any prior good done in a man's life?

I do applaud the movie for its willingness to embrace ambivalence, and honor military ideals while questioning if they can be applicable even to the foulest of circumstance. The film ends with Cargill headed to certain court martial, with Edwards promising to personally defend him. Sometimes asking the right questions is more important than obtaining definitive answers.

Reeling Backward: "Kiss of Death" (1947)

"Kiss of Death" is a movie that's well-remembered, but mostly for the wrong reasons.

Like "From Here to Eternity," it's a film that's come to be summed up in the popular gestalt for a single scene, even though that scene isn't particularly representative of the movie around it. It's like putting an unexpected ingredient in the middle of a sandwich, say a chocolate bon-bon inside a turkey on rye.

It doesn't matter if the sandwich was bland or wonderful; people are going to remember the bon-bon.

For "Eternity" it was the beachside kiss. For "Kiss of Death," it's a soulless hood pushing a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs to her demise.

Like many people I'd seen snippets of the wheelchair scene, but not the whole movie. Having recently viewed "Kiss of Death," it struck me that within the context of the story, it's a rather brief, almost throwaway scene. It exists not because the woman is important -- we're introduced to her moments before she dies -- or that her death plays a pivotal role in the story. It's simply intended as a shocking moment to depict how despicable the villain, Tommy Udo, really is.

To audiences in 1947, it surely must have been quite a surprise to see a disabled woman ("crippled" they would have said in those days) killed by a giggling lunatic for no good reason at all. But it's a shame that people more readily recall that act of depravity than the character behind it, or the actor who created him.

Truthfully, "Kiss of Death" is a rather flat and unengaging example of early film noir, a crime story that's meant to underscore the value of upright citizenship. But its real thrill is luridly exposing the audience to a wildly charismatic villain.

For my money, Tommy Udo should be right up there with Keyser Soze and Hannibal Lecter on the list of greatest cinematic villains. He's a jittery, shivery figure who makes you feel like bugs are crawling all over you whenever he's onscreen.

It was the first film role for Richard Widmark, who'd mostly been known for his stage work, and would earn him his first and only Oscar nomination. It also set the tone for his career, in which he largely played men who easily turn to violence during his younger years, and corrupt cops or misguided soldiers as he got older. Even his heroic roles like "Warlock" are shot through with moral ambiguity.

After Tommy Udo, straight heroics were out for Widmark.

Widmark's look and mannerisms in the film are highly stylized and memorable. He always wears dark shirts with a light-colored tie, the mark of an operator. He moves in a languid style, almost as if the world around him bores him. When he's talking to someone he tends to stare them straight in the eye, virtually without blinking, a rictus smile seeming to split his skull horizontally. His teeth somehow seem malovelent.

He speaks in a nasally Noo Yawk pattern, warping his vowels and swallowing his consanants, to the point where it can be hard to understand what he's saying. At one point on a train he announces that it's his birthday, but it comes out something like, "Ehz meeh boithdoy!"

If Widmark's Tommy Udo seems evocative of a certain other character, that's because he is. Widmark was reputedly fascinated with the Joker in the Batman comics of that era, and patterned his look, smile and laughter after the famed psychopath who would later be portrayed by Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and others.

The only difference is there's no joking to Udo, despite his nearly non-stop laughter. That giggle seems to escape out of him like noxious gas out of cesspool, unable to be contained. According to biographer Kim Holston, Widmark would be approached by strangers for years afterwards asking him to reproduce the famous laughter, or even record it for them.

Udo laughs at those around him, whom he divides into two categories: "squirts," the everyday folks who deserve only to be browbeaten and murdered, and a "big man" who carries himself above the rest.

The only other person in the movie Udo regards as a big man is protagonist Nick Bianco, played by Victor Mature in a performance that can only be described as bored. Nick's a thief who gets shot by the police during a jewelery heist in the opening sequence, and eventually gets squeezed into being an informant for the assistant district attorney (Brian Donlevy).

The first half of the movie is utterly tedious, apart from a brief couple of scenes where Nick first meets Tommy in jail. It's basically a morality lesson where Nick tries to play the part of the proud criminal who refuses to become a snitch. But then his wife kills himself over being left destitute with two young daughters, and he sees the error of his ways.

That sets up the pursuit of Udo, which doesn't go very well when he's acquitted by a jury and comes after Nick. Or, more accurately, Nick -- now living under an assumed name -- seeks out Tommy to settle things between them once and for all.

That doesn't really make much sense, since it's doubtful Tommy could have even found him. But it's all part of the nitwit plot concocted by screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, based on a story by Eleazar Lipsky.

It's a decent-looking film (directed by Henry Hathaway) though it doesn't have much of the extravagant juxtaposition of light and dark that other noir films would use so expertly. The movie also opens with a strange scrawl assuring the audience that everything they see was shot in the actual location where it happened -- odd, considering it is a fiction film.

Interestingly, Widmark was not considered by the studio to be any big shakes when they were marketing the movie -- his name does not even appear on the poster. Coleen Gray, who was also making her film debut playing Nick's nanny-turned-new-wife (ick!), got the glamorous "and introducing..." treatment.

Frankly, if it weren't for Widmark's wonderfully off-putting Tommy Udo, "Kiss of Death" would have been a completely forgettable film -- even with the wheelchair push.

Reeling Backward: "The Bedford Incident" (1965)

Here's something that occasionally happens, and I'm not sure if it speaks well or ill of me. I'll start watching a movie, usually a classic one, that I think I've never seen. After a while -- sometimes as much as halfway through -- I'll start to realize that I have watched it before, and somehow banished the experience from memory.

Usually, of course, that means that I didn't particularly appreciate the movie the first time around, otherwise it would have stuck in the mind.

That was my experience with "The Bedford Incident," a 1965 Cold War cautionary tale that warns against the dangers of deterrence and mutually assured destruction, the two principles that largely guided U.S. foreign policy toward the Soviet Union and its other adversaries. An overly aggressive destroyer captain played by Richard Widmark pushes an enemy sub into a desperate situation where nuclear weapons are eventually unleashed, and everyone on both vessels are killed.

This line of argument is what's known in Latin as reductio ad absurdum, i.e. an attempt to show a line of thinking is faulty by following its implications to an absurd conclusion. It's generally a silly exercise that proves very little, other than presupposing some exceedingly unlikely outcomes.

Captain Eric Finlander (Widmark) clearly is supposed to be a modern Ahab, chasing his white whale with obsessive zeal. Of course, one doesn't generally rise far in the military by repeatedly disobeying orders and bending the rules, but that's exactly the sort of commander Finlander is. Recently passed over for promotion to admiral, we wonder how he ever made it past ensign.

"Bedford" is based on a book by Mark Rascovich, with a screenplay by James Poe. This was the first directorial credit for James B. Harris, who had been Stanley Kubrick's producer for a number of years before they had a falling out. Kubrick would go on to make "Dr. Strangelove" in 1964, an absurdist comedy with similar themes about the Cold War.

If you've never seen "Fail-Safe," you should check it out. It's a virtual carbon copy of the plot of "Strangelove," about a rogue plane erroneously sent on a mission to drop a nuclear bomb on Russia, and the American president must decide whether to shoot down its own plane. Except, of course, it's a straight, dour drama.

"Bedford" is a close cousin to "Fail-Safe," and about as effective in a stodgy sort of way. It's notable for Widmark's performance as a twisted man who sees himself as heroic, a bully who squashes other in the name of duty. In terms of dramatic tension, though, it's something of a bust.

The film starts with the arrival of two people on the U.S.S. Bedord: the new ship's doctor, Chester Potter (Martin Balsam), a long-retired reservist recalled to active duty; and Ben Munceford (Sidney Poitier), a famous newsmagazine journalist. Potter is excited about returning to ship duty, but it's soon quashed by the indifference and contempt of Finlander, who sees no purpose in even having a doctor aboard his ship. After all, his men are too cowed to ever report to sick call, and the aluminum construction of the Bedford makes it unlikely to survive long in a firefight, anyway.

The role of Munceford in the story is hard to fathom. Given the star power of Poitier in 1965, one would think he's set up as the protagonist with Widmark as the heavy. In execution, though, Munceford is a rather passive character who mostly just hangs around in the background, snapping photographs and taking notes. He and Finlander have a couple of blow-ups early in the movie, then an "interview" that's fairly adversarial. But most of the time, he's below decks or out of sight and mind.

Finlander rarely lets his guard down, and rides his men hard. He's particularly brutal toward Ensign Ralston (James MacArthur), a green young officer who was a star athlete. Finlander believes he must be chopped down to size in order to improve, but ends up turning the kid into a quivering mistake waiting to happen. Indeed, Ralston dooms them all while working the weapons control and mistakenly hears Finlander order him to "fire one."

Strangely, the one seaman whom Finlander does appear to coddle is a nerdy, skittish type named Queffle (Wally Cox) who's his best sonarman. Queffle expertly tracks the Russian sub for 24 hours straight, until his brain finally overloads and he has to be taken to sick bay.

Also notable is Eric Portman as Wolfgang Schrepke, a German WWII U-boat commander who's aboard as an adviser to Finlander, who clearly regards him with some level of hero worship. He acts as the captain's Svengali, whispering in his ear and attempting (unsuccessfully) to moderate his thinking and actions.

I'm not sure why "The Bedford Incident" did not make an impression on me the first time I saw it. It's a well-acted drama that's never really dull, even if it feels utterly predictable. Still, Widmark's a treat in his role, so lovably hateable.

2.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Warlock" (1959)

"Warlock" exists in that nether region between classic Westerns and revisionist ones, the period where the idea of two men staring each other down in the street with six-guns was beginning to seem less like grand adventure and more like a morally ambiguous bloodbath.

It's an ambitious film, lacking a clearly heroic figure -- and even the would-be villains have more than a single dimension, more than simplistic motivations.

It reminds me very much of "Unforgiven," Clint Eastwood's late-era masterpiece, so much so that I wonder if this movie played any role in inspiring it.

Henry Fonda is ostensibly the star, playing Clay Blaisedell, a notorious gunman who makes a living going from town to town. Officially he's a rent-a-marshall, but his real job is to kill outlaws ... or whoever it is that's currently stirring up trouble in the area. As he patiently explains to the town council of Warlock, eventually they'll grow fearful and resentful of him, at which point they'll have had full satisfaction from each other, and it will be time for him to leave.

He actually makes most of his money as a gambler, bringing games of chance and an entire saloon operation to town. Blaisedell even travels with a sign for "The French Palace," a bit of self-appointed royalty that he takes wherever he goes.

"The 400 dollars a month I get from you would hardly pay for the ammunition I use up in practice. Fortunately, as a faro dealer I'm an attraction. Things work out very well," Blaisedell intones.

Blaisedell is accompanied by his best friend and right-hand man, Tom Morgan, who runs the saloon and watches out behind Clay for "back shooters" sneaking up on him. Tom, who has a club foot and is nicknamed the Black Rattlesnake of Fort James, is a real piece of work. He loves Blaisedell fervently, seeing himself as his protector -- not just his life, but his reputation. Anthony Quinn plays Morgan with a slithery sort of braggadocio, and carefully hides the deep-seated resentment Morgan has toward Blaisedell.

The real protagonist, in my view, is Johnny Gannon, a member of the local gang of troublemakers, known simply as the San Pablo cowboys. Johnny only throws in with them to protect his headstrong 19-year-old brother, Billy. In an unlikely turn of events, Johnny takes up the empty job of the local deputy sheriff, which ends up putting him in between Blaisedell and Abe McQuown, the powerful cattle baron who leads the cowboys.

Johnny, if not exactly a lowlife, hasn't led a very respectable life, at one point admitting that he participated in the cold-blooded murder of 37 Mexicans who trailed McQuown's gang after they had rustled their cattle. But he takes his job as deputy seriously, even if it means sacrificing his life.

Director Edward Dmytryk makes a deliberate contrast in appearance between the hired gunslingers and Johnny. Blaisedell and Morgan are always dressed in fine waistcoats and ties, with expensive hats and groomed hair. Blaisedell is famous for his pair of gold-handled pistols, though he never actually is seen with them until the final showdown.

Meanwhile, Johnny is scruffy and unkempt, sporting a denim jacket most of the time. He upgrades his wardrobe a bit after donning a badge, but then McQuown nearly cuts off his fingers during a confrontation, so he spends the latter part of the movie looking rather pathetic, holding his bandaged hand in a timid manner.

I think it's an attempt to mix up the conception of heroes and villains, of the brave and the craven, with Johnny mincing up and down the dusty street in an unmanly gate, while Blaisedell strides slowly and purposefully in classic Western fashion. The renowned gunslinger relies more on his reputation, not to mention his back-up man, than his guts. And the reformed thug-turned-lawman is willing to stand up to 20 armed men while barely being able to hold his gun.

"When you stand to win, you gotta stand to lose, too," Johnny says.

Things inevitably build to a showdown between Blaisedell and Billy, who asks Johnny to stand with him. "I ain't backin' him, because you're my brother, and I ain't backin' you, because you're wrong," he responds.

I'm quoting so much of the dialogue from "Warlock" because it's so consistently good, screenplay by Robert Alan Aurthur, adapted from the novel by Oakley Hall. It's not the naturalistic sort of exchanges you see in later films like "Barbarosa." But it's not the dull claptrap you often found in Westerns prior to this film.

Here's one terrific piece in the only significant exchange between Blaisedell and Johnny, and probably the most words Blaisedell has ever spoken in an unbroken string in his entire life:

I remember when I first killed a man. It was clear and had to be done. Well, I went home afterward and puked my insides out. I remember how clear it was. Afterwards, nothing was ever clear again. Except for one thing. That's to hold strictly to the rules. It's only the rules that matter. Hold onto 'em like you were walking on eggs. So you know yourself you've played it as fair and as best you could. But there are things to watch for ... in yourself. Don't be too fast. When there are people after you, you know it and you worry it. Then you think, "If I don't get drawn first and then kill first--. You know what I mean?"

Here, the icy Blaisedell allows a bit of self-doubt that he never shows to the public. What if he twitched during a gunfight and actually drew a split-second earlier? Then he would have shot first, and found himself bereft of the rules he clings to as both cloak and shield for his killing.

It's a tiny sliver between murder and upholding the law, it would seem.

I should also mention that DeForest Kelley, forever Bones from Star Trek, has a delightful role as a Southern-drawling member of the cowboy gang whose loyalties are constantly in flux.

"Warlock" isn't a perfect movie. There's a pair of female complications that seem completely unnecessary to the plot. Dorothy Malone plays Lily Dollar, an old girlfriend of Morgan's who bears a death wish against Blaisedell for one of his previous exploits. And Dolores Michaels is Jessie, a pure-hearted townswoman who finds herself attracted to Blaisedell's dark sense of honor.

Both women's mushy scenes have enough momentum on their own, but in context with the story's high-minded themes, taking continual breaks for some kissy time just saps the movie of some of its narrative strength.

Still, "Warlock" is a minor masterpiece, a forgotten relic that doesn't fit easily into notions of the Western.

3.5 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