Directed by Harry Keller
Produced by Gordon Kay
Screenplay by R. Wright Campbell
Story by Anne Edwards and R. Wright Campbell
Director of Photography: Carl E. Guthrie, ASC
Music: Herman Stein
Music Supervision by Joseph Gershenson
“The Lonely One” words and music by Frederick Herbert and Arnold Hughes
Film Editor: Fred MacDowell
__________
Whatever your misgivings (namely price) may be about the DVD-R programs in place at a number of studios, you have to admit they’ve put some pretty significant titles in the hands of the geeks who’ve been waiting for ’em. I’m a card-carrying member of that group of geeks, and I’m stoked to have Quantez (1957) in my hot little hands. Judging by comments I’ve received, I’m not alone.
It’d been years since I’d seen it on TV, and I remembered it as a good Universal-International 50s Western, which is plenty good indeed. (That’s about like saying a “good Hammer horror film.”) Seeing it again, in a top-notch widescreen transfer, it’s a much better picture than I remember — and, to me, one of the better Universal Westerns of the 50s.
Fred MacMurray is Gentry, a tired gunman in a gang of bank robbers with a posse in hot pursuit. Riding into the desert, they take refuge in Quantez, a small town they find deserted. Their horses tired and near death, they’re forced to stay the night — with the plan to cross the border into Mexico the next day. The picture is the story of that night.
I won’t spoil things by giving you much more than that. Just know there’s the usual tension and violence that erupt when you place a group of desperate men in such close quarters. And since there’s a bundle of money, a band of Indians and a woman with a past (Dorothy Malone) on hand, things don’t take long to heat up.
MacMurray is excellent. John Larch comes close to being a bit over the top as Heller, the leader of the gang — but he always pulls back just in time. He’s a very bad man. Dorothy Malone is terrific as Chaney, a used-up saloon girl who feels she’s lost her chance to have a decent life. Westerns have never been known for their women’s roles, but this is a really good one, and she makes the most of it. John Gavin, as the kid of the gang (every gang has one), and James Barton as a minstrel who passes through the ghost town in the middle of the night, provide strong support. This is a well-acted film.
Well written, too. The plot isn’t much more than formula (not a criticism), but R. Wright Campbell’s dialogue is crisp and he avoids the expected often enough to keep things fresh. You never think of this as one of those pictures where the small cast is bottled in someplace more for reasons of budget than plot. The story just works. Campbell later wrote plenty of pictures for AIP, including the marvelous The Masque Of The Red Death (1964). He also did Gun For A Coward (1957), another good MacMurray Universal Western (available as part of the Vault Series).
Thanks to Universal’s careful transfer, one of the real stars of the picture is Carl E. Guthrie, whose CinemaScope camerawork does the film a tremendous favor. (Go look at Guthrie’s list of credits sometime. Wow!) Given the mood and the many nights scenes, you might think this’d play better in black and white. But some ingenious lighting — rich blues at night and reds as the sun comes up — gives the picture a very effective look. This is one of the richest-looking Eastman Color films I can remember.
Of course, we have to give director Harry Keller plenty of credit. Starting out as an editor at Republic, by the time he reached Quantez, he certainly knew his way around a cowboy picture. There’s lots of dialogue here, but Keller keeps things moving at a brisk pace. A year later, he’d be one of the contract directors U-I would draft to “fix” Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil (1958).
Universal should be commended for giving Quantez such a beautiful transfer. And while in a perfect world, this would’ve hit video on Blu-ray, the DVD-R (the Universal Vault Series is an Amazon exclusive) looked terrific and played fine. There are no extras, not even a trailer. But who’s to complain when it looks like this?
I watched the QUANTEZ disc a week ago. Fred IS great in it. And it does look wonderful.
This sounds very good! Thanks so much for reviewing it.
I was similarly impressed with the excellent print of Universal’s TOMAHAWK, released in the same MOD program. I’m very glad they’re doing such a good job on the prints released in this series, especially given the price and lack of other extras.
Best wishes,
Laura
I’ve always felt that the best “bonus material” was a really good transfer, and Universal has always done excellent work with their back catalog. Their laserdiscs were often stunning.
If they were to suddenly put a ton of these 50s Westerns out on DVD-R (and they made a slew of ’em), my financial downfall would follow shortly. I can think of an easy dozen that I’m dying to see again.
Tomahawk is a good one. I’m becoming a bigger fan of George Sherman with each of his films I see. Reprisal is really, really good (and someone was really, really kind to make sure I got a copy of it).
(MAYBE A FEW SPOILERS THOUGH DON’T SAY EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS)
This may be the first serious appreciation of QUANTEZ I’ve ever read. I don’t know why it’s been so underrated–it’s a haunting Western. MacMurray’s character retains a touch of mystery even when we finally come to know who he really is, and the redemptive final page of his life is perhaps even more affecting because of that aura of mystery. The way MacMurray looks when Barton sings the ballad is classic cool, his cards so close to the vest. And the other characters play into his fate in interesting ways. Also, I personally love the way the climax, once the first of the main characters is killed suddenly and violently, moves so fast but powerfully to the end. The film seems appealingly slow through the long nighttime interaction and then that sudden rush of action to bring it to a close–just beautiful.
I always love black and white. Directors and cinematographers know they need to work with it and generally do. With color, they don’t and it can get dull, and in most recent films it is. But when both black and white and color were common, the filmmakers worked with color, and I’m glad that this film is in color and Toby is right to single out Carl Guthrie. The color values are well-chosen and there are a lot of shadows, too, which are different with color than with b & w. The art direction is also outstanding.
I haven’t seen the film in a long time but my several viewings from 1957 on in CinemaScope left a great impression on me–it’s just the kind of Western I love. So one more thing about its visual quality–it’s my memory that while the opening and closing are filmed on location in real landscapes, the long nocturnal center is all done on soundstage exteriors and interiors or exterior studio sets. Given the relationships of the characters and the action, and especially MacMurray’s place in it (but the others too), this makes most of the film seem kind of like a dreamscape that crystallizes different possibilities of this kind of life, with the opening and closing as a kind of defining reality around it. At least that’s my sense of it. Again, color and composition play a vital part, along with the performances and Keller’s inflections in Campbell’s very imaginative screenplay. It’s this kind of thing that can make a 50s Western so great–and yes, I must say again, this studio especially should be prized for the way it creates its worlds in its 50s films–and not only its Westerns, but definitely for that genre it worked so steadily and so hard. Most of the time, when the films were made and released, it all went unnoticed. Hopefully, that is changing–and they’ll get their due. I too hope to see more DVD-R releases like this one and don’t care about the extras at all if the transfers are good. And in this case, Toby’s words have made me all the keener to get this ordered and see it again–something to look forward to.
Since watching this picture and banging out my review, it keeps coming back into my head. Haunting indeed. Isn’t that one of the signs of a good film?
Sticks with me like the best of the Boetticher/Scott pictures, which this resembles in tone if nothing else. I love Westerns packed with a heavy dose of Redemption.
The beginning (Lone Pine?) and end were shot on location, with the middle interiors and exteriors on a soundstage. The middle seems to benefit from the stylization that comes from sets, and certainly from the better control of lighting.
Been thinking about the idea of formula here, and I think many of the best-written Westerns use and play with our familiarity with those formulas. MacMurray is right there with every gunman wanting a way out we’ve ever seen — The Gunfighter, Man Of The West, Ride The High Country, etc. We almost instantly know this man, which lets the picture get a good running start — and Campbell and Keller seem to enjoy playing with our preconceptions. Other characters (namely Gavin and Malone) work the same way. Used properly, formula is NOT a bad thing.
Blake, I’ve come around to your thinking on the last reel. I appreciate how the eruption of violence is just that, an eruption. The movie shifts into high gear and doesn’t let up. The shift in pace and tone is jarring, aided by the switch to location photography, and it works.
The more I think back on Quantez, the more impressed I am with the performances. MacMurray is so good!
When I started this blog (and book) almost two years ago (how time flies when you’re watching a lot of cowboy movies), my goals were to provide some backstory to a few well-known classics and offer up some terrific, more obscure titles. The second part is where my real interest lies these days, and Quantez is a perfect example. More people need to see this movie!
I watched TOMAHAWK the day after I watched QUANTEZ. I really enjoyed it as well.
I’m a mark for the 1950’s U-I westerns. They all have a certain “feel” to them, and U-I 3-strip Technicolor has its own distinct look.
Thanks for confirming my impression as regards opening and closing location work and the long middle all being done on sets. “Stylization” is exactly the right word to describe what happens and what I wanted to talk about so thanks for providing it. Too often, people say “confined to sets” as if that is somehow an inevitable negative. I believe art should be stylized, Westerns no less than anything else. The best location Westerns, whether Lone Pine or Monument Valley or Sedona or some of those rugged places Raoul Walsh found for some of his great movies, stylize the natural settings and render them as an artistically expressive part of the whole.
I want to offer something constructive because I know it’s going to come up here again and again. The word “formula” is also often used in a demeaning and negative way (Toby, I know you don’t mean it that way), so for me “conventions” as in “genre conventions” works better–it has a more objective feel. I never ask that movies do something different than start with what is familiar–it is the variations played on those conventions that make the work individual. That’s the challenge and the real measure of a work.
Westerns are almost entirely made up of familiar traditions and archetypal characters–in good hands, as in QUANTEZ, this is a strength. The weary gunfighter (or outlaw) who wants to put the violent past behind him is a magisterial and moving archetype–look how many wonderful Westerns have come from this and all the best ones have their own individual character. The underlying theme that accompanies such a character is profound and can be so affecting. Think of MAN OF THE WEST and the revelation that Gary Cooper’s Link Jones was an outlaw just like the Tobins and rode with them (“there wasn’t any difference at all”) but that the town of New Hope where he has made a new life (of course he has to deal with the old one–and that’s the film) knew all about him and “they let me live it down.”
I believe like Toby and others, I’m also very drawn to stories in which just a few characters are thrown together in a tightly-knit story and their fates play out together, often on a journey (though QUANTEZ is an example of a film that varies this). This became a specialty of 50s Westerns–ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE (Walsh again) was a great early example. A number of the Boetticher Ranowns (for me the best ones) are this kind of film, while Mann’s sublime THE NAKED SPUR is always one of the first of these to jump to mind. When a movie concentrates on only a few characters they all have to work and be interesting and QUANTEZ understood this very well.
Conventions is a better word, but I kinda like the negative connotation that automatically comes from formula.
It’s interesting to see all the truly great films we’re associating Quantez with — Naked Spur, Man Of The West, the Ranowns. That’s some pretty serious company, and I think it holds its own.
Over the last month or so, I’ve been watching, re-watching or rediscovering a really strong batch of films. Just what showed up in my mailbox or what I felt like writing about. Quantez. Reprisal! The True Story Of Jesse James. The Naked Dawn. Face Of A Fugitive. Rage At Dawn. Forty Guns.
Good stuff. And as I get more familiar with the genre, and the decade, as a whole, the more I appreciate each picture. It’s a case where you can’t see the trees for the forest. As good as these things are, you almost need the context to really GET it. For instance, Quantez seems like a better film when you really know the conventions it uses to its advantage — and have seen where those conventions originated, and how they can be mis-used.
I just watched “Quantez” on TV this week (on DAVE). excellent movie, I realized as I watched it that it had more than a passing relationship to “Key Largo” especially the relationship of John Larch & Dorothy Malone when he makes her sing – just like Edward G Robinson & Claire Trevor in KL and also the scenario of the gang trapped for the night in the claustrophobic empty town. It just makes me think that a good story can be played out in many settings.
Good point. That’s a connection I never made.
I was so hooked by Quantez when the DVD showed up, I forgot to take notes!
Where was quantez filmed?
From what I’ve seen, some of it was shot at Universal, on a soundstage. The town of Quantez was built near Victorville. Not sure where the opening and closing scenes were filmed.
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I watched the German Blu-ray of the movie last night and the combination of the terrific transfer, the solid performances and the slow burning tension frankly blew me away.
MacMurray did a wonderful job as the mysterious lead and his developing relationship with all the other characters (especially Malone) moves from intriguing through to deeply touching by the end. I agree with your comments that Malone was given a particularly strong role in this film – as with the best female parts in westerns, she has a huge effect on those around her and her presence is significant in shaping their actions.
The opening certainly looks like Lone Pine to me and the mix of exteriors and the extended mid-section on the sound stage works very well. The cinematography is without doubt one of the big stars of this production, and the use of color – that red dawn when MacMurray makes his decision is visually powerful and a moment of genuine beauty.
Glad you liked it, Colin. I can’t imagine you NOT liking it.
Quantez is one of the great joys of my time with this blog. It blew me away, too. A perfect example of what medium-budget genre filmmaking can be.