When you think of great Western movies, you probably call to mind John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and maybe John Ford; if you’re a major fan, you might also recall Randolph Scott and Howard Hawks — maybe even Sam Peckinpah, or James Stewart.
But sadly, few would mention Anthony Mann.
While the Golden Age veteran directed such features as El Cid, The Glenn Miller Story and God’s Little Acre, he made no less than eight films with Stewart — and their five Westerns are all terrific.
Mann’s 1953 entry The Naked Spur, basically restricted to just five characters, is something of a cult classic; but for my current Western course at Lycoming College — the subject of an ongoing series here at Webb — I chose instead the dandy Winchester ’73.
Made in 1950 as the first Mann-Stewart Western, the film currently holds a 100% rating at Rotten Tomatoes — largely due to its exceptional cast and swift, complex plotting (after all, how many Westerns offer a genuine twist at the end?).
Stewart plays Lin McAdam, who pursues his long-lost 1873 rifle as it passes waywardly from hand to hand. He is joined by Shelley Winters and Dan Duryea, with a slew of veteran character actors: Millard Mitchell, Will Geer, Jay C. Flippen, John McIntire and — in brief early roles — one “Anthony Curtis,” along with Rock Hudson playing a Native American (not too convincingly, as it happens.) The movie is handsomely filmed in black and white, with several gripping shoot-outs; fans might watch for yet another of Mann’s stellar “adult Westerns” — 1958’s Man of the West, with Gary Cooper.
And speaking of Cooper: After Winchester ’73, my syllabus moves on to two beloved Westerns which are often paired because they comment on each other: High Noon (1952) and Rio Bravo (1959).
As for High Noon: Fred Zinnemann is another name most folks omit when rattling off directors; but he helmed such masterpieces as The Search, From Here to Eternity, Oklahoma!, The Day of the Jackal — and this real-time Western that won an Oscar for Cooper. He plays Marshall Will Kane, whose recent marriage to a pacifist Quaker (Grace Kelly) is threatened by the imminent arrival of a vengeful gang that plans to gun him down. As the tense, 85-minute deadline looms, Kane realizes he’s going to have to do it alone — because no one will help him face the four men.
The film’s original writer, Carl Foreman, was blacklisted in the McCarthy-HUAC hearings, and the film is now seen as an allegory for cowardly refusal to support those accused of Communist ties during that turbulent time.
The famously conservative Wayne turned down the role for this reason; then later, he and director Howard Hawks engineered a response: “I made Rio Bravo because I didn’t like High Noon,” Hawks insisted. “Neither did Duke. I didn’t think a good town marshal was going to run around town like a chicken with his head cut off asking everyone to help…. That isn’t my idea of a good Western.”
Rio Bravo, by contrast, offers a small handful of troubled men — not only Wayne’s John T. Chance, but also an alcoholic (Dean Martin), a tenderfoot (Ricky Nelson) and a game-legged old deputy (Walter Brennan). Together, this ragtag band must defend the jail where they’re holding a criminal — whose vicious cronies are determined to break him out.
But this brief summary barely touches the richness of this character-driven film; leavened with humor and compassion, it’s considerably brightened by a young Angie Dickinson — as a fiery widow who matches wits with a nonplussed Chance.
Esteemed film scholar Robin Wood put Rio Bravo at the very top on his personal list of greatest movies ever made. Even if you don’t care for the genre, there’s much to love in this sprawling, beautifully made Western classic.
I think that’s true of most films on my syllabus — and we’ll deal with more in our next installment.
