TCM is celebrating what would’ve been Nicholas Ray’s 100th birthday with a month of his films — every Tuesday, to be exact.
Included in that lineup are a couple of terrific Westerns — Johnny Guitar (1954, see Ray with Joan Crawford below) and The True Story Of Jesse James (1957). Others not to miss are The Lusty Men (1952, a modern-day Western and one of Ray’s best pictures) and Bigger Than Life (1958). Really, you can’t go wrong with any of them.
I recently posted a piece of The True Story Of Jesse James, a picture that’s much better than its reputation and production history would indicate.
Have you seen “Lightning Over Water” by Wim Wenders. Ronee Blakley was married to Ray at the time and does the soundtrack. Thanks for posting this!
A careful look at the TCM listings shows they tried hard to be close to complete. Of the films in Ray’s (for want of a better word) “Hollywood” period–”They Live by Night” (1957, but released 1949) to “55 Days at Peking” (1963), the only two of twenty that are missing are the two Paramounts.
Unfortunately (especially to say here) these include his other Western, the quietly memorable “Run for Cover” (1955)–a movie that may just miss being a masterpiece for exactly the thing that most distinguishes it. It is the one major Ray film where the hero (James Cagney, absolutely superb in this role) is not a neurotic or alienated individual but a centered, mature man who has actually has a measure of inner serenity despite hard experience. He does have an unreasonable “streak” about his weaker younger friend (John Derek) which animates the story, but that just makes him all the more human (and the relationship anticipates that between Jim and Plato in Ray’s next film “Rebel Without a Cause”). Somehow, the more settled and serene quality of the Cagney character carries into the film–it makes it distinctive and this is a Western I’d recommend to anyone, but it also makes for a film of less intensity than Ray’s greatest ones.
The other Paramount is a great Ray–the truly amazing Eskimo movie “The Savage Innocents” (1961, though release dates vary from U.S. to Europe), not a movie like this one ever and it absolutely entrances me and will most Ray fans I am sure. Some flaws from the kind of production difficulties that Ray often seemed to encounter (a lost reel of film, or was it several?) had to be redone on a soundstage but Ray made this work–the stylization of his films is always complex.
These films are not impossible to find so if you like all the ones they do show, I’d suggest seeing if you can run them down somewhere. Meantime, I won’t play any favorites here but would recommend seeing any Ray film–a handful are definitely lesser but there’s good reason even to see these I believe, while the majority are outstanding, no matter which one you like best. So I highly recommend just getting them all recorded (at least the ones you haven’t yet seen)–and then watching them over time but not five a night.
One more word because I’d like to single out a movie they are showing (other than “Rebel”–the one most anyone has seen already). So just to say something in context of 50 Westerns from the 50s about “Wind Across the Everglades”: This movie about the feather craze and feather pirates around Miami at the turn of the century is not a Western, though it has affinities in the hero representing the law and the outlaw antagonists with whom he interacts. And I don’t claim it even marginally as a Western (though I guess someone might). Yet it has an impressive, seldom-commented on aspect that does tie it to 50s Westerns. This is the character of Billy One-Arm (Cory Osceola)–not only is the role played, as that of his wife (Mary Osceola), by a real Seminole Indian–but the character himself is probably the freest from any cliche about Indians that has ever been done in films. The stuttering, uncertain, initially abject character (he is aligned with the outlaws but in a shift of consciousnes that changes his allegiance becomes tragically heroic) is a completely fresh characterization and shows just how much movies can free themselves from stereotypes (positive or negative) with a little caring creativity.
“Wind Across The Everglades” is one of Rays finest films;even
though he was very unhappy with the final edit. The main problem
was the writer was also the producer. In any event its still a stunning
film and its eco concerns were decades ahead of its time.
Chris Plummer and Burl Ives never better IMO.
Their duel;by who can consume the most Moonshine is a classic.
The recent French DVD on the Wild Side imprint is an excellent
(full screen) transfer but it does have,unfortunately “forced” French
subtitles on the English language version. (what is it with the French:
why do they keep doing this?)
The DVD does come with an 84pp Hardbound book (in French)
crammed with press ads and lobby cards and a telling letter from Ray
to Warners stating how unhappy he was with the final cut of the film!
Wild Side are planning to extend this de-luxe treatment to two great
Westerns next year namely “Ramrod” and “Run Of The Arrow”.
If only they could sort something out about those darn subtitles.