In a recent post on the Fox MOD program, there were considerable comments on Tyrone Power. In one of those, Blake Lucas called Power’s U-I Western The Mississippi Gambler (1953) “in its art direction and Technicolor photography, as well as romantic melodrama, a definitive 1950s Universal-International movie. Hey, both Julie Adams and Piper Laurie (who has the better female role) are in it.”
The brought up a question I’m sure we can debate for a while — What picture would you dust off to show someone what a 50s Universal Western is?
Well, put me down for ‘Winchester ’73’.
That might be the best one, but I’m not sure I’d name it as the most representative.
The Stewart/Mann Universals definitely, and I’m quite enjoying the Joel McCrea collection–Cattle Drive was the bonus of showing Kane County in Technicolor, and Border River in Moab.
All McCrea’s Universals are cool for one reason or another. The Lone Hand is terrific, but Border River plays as just a really cool 50s Western.
BORDER RIVER makes me think — if THE GAL WHO TOOK THE WEST wasn’t a ’49 film that might be on my short list — love, love that movie, wonderful Yvonne DeCarlo, hunky John Russell, great color Universal look, and very funny, too!
Laura
“Bend of the River” would be my choice. It’s my comfort food movie. I almost look forward to having a cold so I can snuggle under a quilt on the couch with a cup of chicken soup and watch Howard Petrie go nuts.
I think Winchester 73’s a better movie, but with the Technicolor and Julie Adams, this one seems a bit more representative.
I’ve noticed how most of us passing through this blog have a fondness for the Universals. So, for those who don’t have a clue what we’re talking about, what would be a good picture to show them? The way this comes out will certainly influence my choice of chapters for my book.
Tough one; of course the Mann/Stewarts, but also MAN FROM THE ALAMO, HORIZON’S WEST, DUEL AT SILVER CREEK, RED SUNDOWN, RIDE CLEAR OF DIABLO, and APACHE DRUMS. Also Jack Arnold’s modern western, MAN IN THE SHADOW.
This topic could go on forever. It must be practically impossible to choose just one Universal International western. For me I have to go with the films that have stood the test of time since my Dad took me to see them in the 1950s. So I go for Bend Of The River (U.K. title Where The River Bends), The Battle At Apache Pass; Apache Indians and cavalry, what more could a youngster want. Van Heflin’s Tomahawk (U.K. title The Battle Of Powder River). Then another Apache film, Apache Drums, with the disturbing night attacks of the Indians, well I thought them disturbing at my young age.
Finally, a good Audie Murphy western from the beginning of his career, and I go for The Cimarron Kid.
NIGHT PASSAGE and GUN FOR A COWARD are both well above average.
One of the first movies I remember seeing at a drive-in was DRUMS ACROSS THE RIVER with Audie Murphy. That and RIDE CLEAR OF DIABLO are two of my favorites.
Probably impossible to pick one, but if forced to chose, I’d echo Caftan Woman re: BEND OF THE RIVER. That’s probably my sentimental favorite of the Mann-Stewart westerns, though I’d peg THE MAN FROM LARAMIE as probably the best. Have never seen THE MISSISSIPPI GAMBLER and hope to rectify that soon.
How about “Quantez” or “Red Sundown”? They’re both a notch below the Mann Westerns (then again, what isn’t?) but they’re still excellent movies – cheaply made but well executed, dark, exciting, with great stars (Fred MacMurray and Rory Calhoun) and supporting players. To me, they’re very representative of the Universal output.
Two excellent films.
Along with No Name On The Bullet, these are my favorite Universal Westerns of the 50s. The Manns, in my opinion, exist outside U-I’s normal cowboy output.
I love MAN WITHOUT A STAR which is both modern and sexy (for 1955)
but also is very traditional with its standard range war plot.
I also love the Mara Corday interview over on Boyd Magers site.
She plays a “Saloon Gal” (thats the polite term) in the film and one day
she and the other gals voted to see who out of the male cast had the
nicest butt! They chose Richard Boone,and according to Mara, Kirk
got REALLY upset!
A really great unheralded Universal Western is A DAY OF FURY.
A Day Of Fury is a very good one.
I love John Dehner.
First, Toby, thanks for this thread–which I hope can be here for awhile because it’s a lot of fun–and also I’m flattered you were inspired to it by a comment of mine.
But first want to make clear whatever I’d consider the representive 50s U-I Western to be, it wouldn’t be “The Mississippi Gambler” even though what I said accurately reflects my view of it. I have to say this because I do definitely consider this movie a Western–in fact, it’s an honorable third on my 1953 Western list after the towering masterpieces “The Naked Spur” and “Shane”–but it’s just not a very characteristic one. Settings, costumes, and even stories tend to be different than one’s first thought of a Western in these New Orleans-set stories, which are on one level melodramatic romances within the Western. The movie is satisfying in both respects–but I singled it out before most for the studio aesthetics, which could be so beautiful even though their films were relatively tightly-budgeted in relation to some of the other studios, while many of the movies are also deceptively unambitious. And that being the case, it’s very heartening to find so many fans for the studio here, beginning with our host, who knows two or three things about this subject.
So, I’ve been thinking about what I’d choose as one representative Western for the studio in the period and it’s really tough. Like others here, I find it hard to think of just one–and I would personally consider many of those already mentioned and especially liked what Andrew said about “Red Sundown” and “Quantez.” Almost anyone here will think of the Mann/Stewarts first, because they are the greatest (even if we all might line up a personal favorite or two with them), but although “Winchester ’73” is a seminal film (and look at the cast–the first of only three U-I movies that has both John McIntire and Charles Drake!) both for the studio and, in story and engagement of the revenge theme, for the Western in the 50s more generally, it’s also uncharacteristically in black-and-white. Whether they are actually better or not, and it could be argued all day, I think both “Bend of the River” and “The Far Country” are more representative and I might choose either one of those.
But on reflection I think what some others have intimated is true–there is an edge of genuine ambition in the Mann/Stewarts, like all of Mann’s Westerns with and without Stewart throughout the 50s–if there is one definitive director for the whole range of what the genre does in the 50s, it’s Anthony Mann. Since that’s not typical, I’d want to go to something that is more or less still unheralded. That also lets out Raoul Walsh’s two (both of which I love) and “Man Without a Star” directed by King Vidor, which I also love–these are more likely to be noticed and credited with some artistry.
It’s just that so many of the others from “Saddle Tramp” in 1950 to “No Name on the Bullet” and “The Wild and the Innocent” in 1959 have that artistry too. And also to be considered is that different movies might be most representive in different phases. For example, last week I watched “The Battle of Apache Pass” again, already mentioned upthread–I love that one and it’s very representative of the pro-Indian cycle of the first half of the decade, but this is less pronounced later. In the last dozen films 1957-1959, except for “Joe Dakota” which explicitly addresses anti-Indian prejudice, Indians are more marginal, there to play a specific, functional role–in “Quantez” for example, though we are aware of their presence outside the town through most of the film, they play a part in the resolution almost like a Deus Ex Machina, there to help bring a fast, eventful end to how the relationships and fates of the main characters play out.
While every year to some extent has its own individual character–as the genre itself does in the 50s–there are perhaps two key years for me. One is 1954, and this involves stars. A cycle of six Joel McCreas ends with “Black Horse Canyon” and a few months later “Dawn at Socorro” with Rory Calhoun comes out. McCrea’s persona, no matter the film, is most characteristically relaxed, easygoing, genial, non-neurotic, easy to like, while Calhoun is much darker, loaded with complexes, unsettled, divided and most of his roles for the studio (especially the first two “Socorro” and “Four Guns to the Border” and in 1956 “Red Sundown”) reflect that. And that tends to be more the kind of hero one finds in the second half of the decade. Fred MacMurray is a mature version of it, thriving in the role of the existential hero/weary gunman of “Quantez” while the last male star of Westerns to arrive Jock Mahoney seems quieter and less volatile than Calhoun but can easily suggest complex layers beneath a range of characters and play an unexpected range of moods very well. Through the whole decade, and into the 60s, Audie Murphy is of course the constant–but even in all those early outlaw roles among the conventional hero roles one is encouraged simply to like him; the last years of the 60s see an acknowledgement of his actual range, so that in 1959 he easily moves from the knowing, thoroughly unsentimental Mephistopheles-on-the-range of “No Name on the Bullet” to the guileless, essentially gentle country boy of “The Wild and the Innocent” with ease, equally good in both roles.
The other is 1956, when, at the same time, the Calhoun/Mahoney kind of movie is starting to take the center, the Indian film reaches a very interesting point (and this is true generally of the Western in this year–the titles I’m thinking of should readily come to anyone’s mind). George Sherman, who had made more postwar U-I Westerns than anyone, and contributed mightily to the pro-Indian cycle, was now free-lancing but “Comanche” early in the year closes what he had done with the earlier films while later in the year he has “Reprisal”–which we mentioned earlier–bringing the the small-town, less historical and intimately focused prejudice drama that becomes important in this phase of the Western. In this context, U-I has two wonderful movies, both also closing the more expansive historical Indian movies but in a different way. “Pillars of the Sky” and “Walk the Proud Land” take up the question of what will happen to the Indian after the Indian wars are over, and both engage this with a lot of feeling and without glossing over it; Sydney Chaplin’s character has a wonderful speech in the middle of “Pillars” (he plays an Indian scout for the cavalry) in which he argues with great passion that if the Indian is to survive in the world of the white man he must “follow him.” A powerful, resonant moment to which we might react with a lot of ambivalence–most of the Indians in “Pillars” are Christianized by the way, for those who many not know it yet.
Still, those last dozen films 1957-1959 are where I feel I’d want to go for my choice of the representative Western. The themes most dear to me in the genre–of self-renewal, redemption, reconciliation–tend to play through these films, as they do other films of the period, but however serious, it’s done without a trace of pretension, which is one thing that is so great about Westerns. Rarely are they pumped up with self-importance (and that definitely includes the Manns, which are revered as eternal now but were only respected at the time and never won any awards), and on rare occasions when they are, it tends not to be a virtue.
I haven’t meant to write an essay here. I just love the subject–and I’d be happy with any of the films I’ve named as representative for Universal in its 50s U-I phase and others I haven’t as well. But I will say my representative title, one I’ve meditated on for several days since this started. I want to name one I myself believe is great, as others have, but feel the studio would be best represented by something less heralded than the Mann/Stewarts,
more superficially modest even if it ireally isn’t.
As a model, I thought of the Western as a whole in the 50s and what I’d choose. It wouldn’t be “The Searchers”–even if it is the greatest; instead, I’d choose “Seven Men from Now” or “Ride Lonesome.” The reason is that even their makers, no matter how much they put into the films, did not expect the Ranowns to be taken as great by anyone; they themselves knew these would be no more than programmers, usually co-features and might simply be considered “B” movies. Yet in the fullness of time, it’s now acknowledged these are great movies–they yield nothing to any film of any kind on any level. And that’s the real measure of how great the Western ultimately became in maturity.
In that spirit, I choose Sherman’s “The Last of the Fast Guns” which I think is similarly a great film, although in this case still one mostly unacknowledged. In Los Angeles it opened as co-feature to Blake Edwards’ comedy “The Perfect Furlough” a very good comedy but definitely second best to the Western here. I haven’t researched it yet as I intend to, but as Sherman had been free-lancing and returned to Universal for this, I’m guessing that he found David Harmon’s original screenplay (first called “The Western Story” and filmed under that title) and because he’d had a good relationship with the studio before was able to find a home for it there, go to Mexico and find awesome locations worthy of any A film and make this profound and moving parable-like story about what happens to the title character, with Mahoney perfectly cast and Gilbert Roland no less as a co-star, as a beautiful production that fully has the feel of the studio aesthetic yet also stands out as individual work.
Small correction: In context of my whole sentence, I assume it was clear that I meant to say acknowledgement of Audie Murphy’s actual range came in the last years of the 50s (not the 60s).
A great thread which I’m going to need to revisit at greater length! I need to jot down some of these titles. Would sure love to see MISSISSIPPI GAMBLER.
For my pick, it’s a tough choice between SADDLE TRAMP (’50) and BEND OF THE RIVER (’52). BEND OF THE RIVER might be the most representative of the ’50s in terms of the cast and look. SADDLE TRAMP is a childhood fave that helped hook me on Westerns and Joel McCrea, while BEND OF THE RIVER is a film I came to as an adult and have come to love more with each viewing. Caftan Woman describes it so well — truly a “comfort” movie! “You’ll be seeing me…”
Best wishes,
Laura
Bend Of The River made my short list since it’s the most Universal-y of the Mann/Stewart pictures. The color, the music (some of which was reused in The Creature From The Black Lagoon), the cast.
Looks like I’m going to have watch “The Last of the Fast Guns”…
One guy who should have made more than only one Universal Western
is John Payne. OK I am the first to admit that RAILS INTO LARAMIE
is not great but it is a whole lot of fun.The army send Payne to sort
out big trouble in Laramie. The town is controlled by Dan Duryea,
Myron Healy and Lee Van Cleef so you know things are pretty bad.
Also James Griffith is the VERY laid back sheriff.
This third teaming of Payne and Duryea falls short of the classic
SILVER LODE and the brilliant Noir LARCENY which has Duryea and
Shelley Winters at the top of their game.Cannot understand why Universal
have never released this one.
Universal seem gleefully unaware of the importance of their Fifties
Westerns,with their 100th anniversary this year I would have thought
they would have released a whole stack of them already.
I note that Sidonis are going to release the aforementioned GAL WHO
TOOK THE WEST next month along with RIVER LADY.
After that they seem to be honing into United Artists releases.
The only one on their schedule not on DVD so far;to my knowledge
is George Shermans COMANCHE. I wonder if that means that they
are finished with the Universal series? Also what has happened to
THE SAGA OF HEMP BROWN?
Mike Kuhns,I am amazed that your copy of SEVENTH CAVALRY
was subtitle free,mine certainly was not!
Laura,good too see you mention John Russell,this guy was an asset to
every film he was in and is incredibly underrated.
I was surprised as well. It was shrink wrapped and supposedly new, with the dvd case enclosed in a cardboard outer sleeve, definitely a legit Sidonis release. When I played it, it went directly to the movie rather than the menu and played an English soundtrack with no subtitles. I even checked the menu as it played, and it was ENGLISH and Subtitles OFF. When the movie finished, it then went to the MAIN MENU, but there were only options (in French) for playing the movie, chapters, and bonuses (a commentary). There wasn’t the usual menu option for picking languages and subtitles. Strange.
Wonderful comments throughout this thread. I hope more people will be inclined to chime in. It’s so great to know so many of these movies, almost completely neglected for years except by those of us who love the studio or love Westerns or both, have this kind of appreciation.
I was remiss when I made my own post in blithely referring to “Raoul Walsh’s two” without saying the titles for those who may not them by his name–those two are “The Lawless Breed” (1952) and “Saskatchewan” (1954).
Hmm, IMDb says 1953 for “The Lawless Breed” and I believe that’s more accurate. In any event, this is on DVD, and also Walsh’s one other U-I movie, not a Western but adventure movie with Gregory Peck as a enterprising boat captain, “The World in His Arms” (1952 definitely) and that may actually be the best of his three for the studio, still a wonderful memory for me of my moviegoing childhood and maybe the first Walsh movie I ever saw. I’m one who loves the last phase of Walsh in the 50s to 1964–when he went to color he really took to it so there’s a vibrancy through all those films. And of course, lots of good Westerns.
I love the later Walsh stuff, too. Lawless Breed is crummy history, but it sure makes for a good picture. A lot of people give Gun Fury a hard time, but I really like it, too.
When I’m going off topic, I never know whether I should post in the newest thread or one where there’s more activity.
I watched the MGM MOD release of NOOSE FOR A GUNMAN (1959) last night. I’d never seen it before and was surprised to find that it was a remake, with a few variations, of TOP GUN (1955), with Jim Davis in the Sterling Hayden role, Ted DeCorsia in the John Dehner role, and Walter Sande in the James Millican role.
I know that THE QUICK GUN (1964), with Audie Murphy, is also a remake, so this makes at least three versions of the same story within a nine year period. DeCorsia repeats his role from the 1959 feature, although the character has a different name. Walter Sande here takes the role covered by Barton MacLane in 1959.
I checked IMDB and see that Steve Fisher was credited with the story for all three films, but TOP GUN screenwriting credit went to Richard Shayer while NOOSE FOR A GUNMAN and THE QUICK GUN were credited to Robert E. Kent. There are set pieces and bits of dialogue in all the features that are interchangable.
Watched “Last of the Fast Guns” (the French DVD), which I’d had somehow forgotten I’d even ordered. Liked it a lot (I always like Gilbert Roland) and thought Sherman’s direction was excellent. It reminded me a lot of “Vera Cruz”, probably because of the Mexican locations and the way it was shot (CinemaScope, with lots of interesting camera angles).
Nice choice, Blake:-)
I like Gilbert Roland, too. His brother was Chico Day, the great assistant director at Paramount. The brothers look a lot alike. In photos of Chico on the set of One-Eyed Jacks, he looks lot like Roland in The Furies.
Another ’50s movies with nice locations is ROBBERS’ ROOST (1955). I don’t know where it was filmed, but the ranch setting and the town scenes were in locales that I couldn’t place seeing in other westerns, although they may have been used before. I really hate studio exteriors, painted backdrops, and stock footage that doesn’t match. It’s nice to see widescreen color films that were shot out of doors in interesting settings.
Mike,I believe ROBBERS ROOST was filmed in Durango.
I agree the locations are stunning. I had a pretty good off-air copy
but I am very glad I went for the upgrade with the recent MGM/MOD
DVD.Also the DVD is in lovely widescreen. One of George Montgomerys
very best IMO.
Not sure what would represent a typical Universal western but Taza, Son of Cochise, Horizons West. The Far Country, Lawless Breed are among my favourite films of any genre.