Walter Brennan, whose movie this is, is "Judge" Roy Bean, the ruler of the tiny frontier town of Vinagaroon, Texas. He's a hanging judge. Everybody that comes into his bar room cum court room is "guilty" and they are all hanged, whatever the offense. Brennan's character is one of those blustering military heroes -- William F. Halsey, George S. Patton, "Howlin' Mad" Smith. They are always angry and aggressive. They bark out orders. They brook no insubordination. And they usually have some humanizing weakness or quirk -- Halsey discomfort at getting injections, Patton's vanity, that sort of thing. Brennan fits the mold. His weakness is his adoration of the actress, Lilly Langtry. The difference between the arrogant military commanders and Brennan's character is that the commanders channel their prodigious self-confidence into socially approved acts, while Judge Roy Bean had no aspirations higher than maintaining his position as corrupt king of Vinagaroon, perfectly comfortable in his authoritarian skin.
But Brennan's weakness humanizes him, too. We disapprove of his hanging people all the time and making up his "rulings" as he goes along to suit his own aggrandizement, but we can also empathize with his worship of a star of the theater whom he has little chance of meeting. He's like a murderous philatelist pining for a rare stamp.
Gary Cooper is a minimalist actor, along the lines of Robert Redford, but he's very good at signaling what's going on in his head with only the slightest change of expression. He's accused of horse stealing in Vinagaroom and is about to be hanged. Then he divines Brennan's devotion and claims that he not only MET Lilly Langtry but has a lock of her hair stashed in El Paso. His sentence is forgotten and an accommodation arranged. It leads to a shoot out at the end in which Brennan dies, but not before he satisfies his life's desire and has a glimpse of Lilly Langtry.
The movie's iconography gives the impression that it's just another Western actioner, but it isn't that. Oh, there's a dreary actress (Doris Davenport) to provide Cooper with a romantic interest, but William Wyler, the director, and Niven Busch, the writer, make full use of every tool at their disposal, including the supernumerary girl.
I'll give just two brief examples of unusually good writing and direction. (1) Having promised Brennan to deliver a lock of Lilly Langtry's hair (which he never had), Cooper is compelled to bring back a fake. The only woman around is Davenport. Cooper and Davenport are leaning on a wooden fence and she is berating him for something or other, while he smiles smoothly, snipping carelessly at his buckskin fringe, and he delicately lifts a strand of her long hair, scissors poised. She stops talking and pouts. "Can I take a little?", asks Cooper. Then, a pause, and -- SNIP -- and she snaps out "No!", just a fraction of a second too late. It's not much, but it's an expression of some of the effort that went into the writing and direction. What I mean is -- somebody had to THINK about that little exchange in order to make it as humanly amusing as it is.
Example two -- briefer. Cooper returns to Brennan with the promised lock of hair tucked away in a matchbox inside a tobacco pouch with a draw string. As the two men sit together, Cooper reaches inside his shirt. Wrong side. With the most deliberate of movements, he reaches into the other side of the shirt. Brennan, meanwhile, is bouncing up and down with anticipation, like a child about to see a Christmas present unwrapped. (It's all done without dialog.) Cooper finally, slowly, extracts the pouch and gently tries to pull it open. But the draw string is stuck and the pouch is intractable. Cooper tugs at it, tugs again -- and Brennan's tense, empty hands mimic Cooper's motions impatiently.
An added bonus is one of the better "next day" scenes in the movies. Brennan and Cooper, two mutually wary, short-time friends, get blind drunk on a local whiskey that has the power to eat through the bar. Cooper wakes up the next morning to find himself in the same narrow cot as Brennan, and with the snoring Brennan's arm around him. Cooper clambers clumsily out of the bunk and when he nudges Brennan's arm, a hidden ace falls out of the sleeve.
I can't go on because I'll run out of space and anyway I'm laughing too hard. Its high user rating is justified. You'll probably get a kick out of it.
But Brennan's weakness humanizes him, too. We disapprove of his hanging people all the time and making up his "rulings" as he goes along to suit his own aggrandizement, but we can also empathize with his worship of a star of the theater whom he has little chance of meeting. He's like a murderous philatelist pining for a rare stamp.
Gary Cooper is a minimalist actor, along the lines of Robert Redford, but he's very good at signaling what's going on in his head with only the slightest change of expression. He's accused of horse stealing in Vinagaroom and is about to be hanged. Then he divines Brennan's devotion and claims that he not only MET Lilly Langtry but has a lock of her hair stashed in El Paso. His sentence is forgotten and an accommodation arranged. It leads to a shoot out at the end in which Brennan dies, but not before he satisfies his life's desire and has a glimpse of Lilly Langtry.
The movie's iconography gives the impression that it's just another Western actioner, but it isn't that. Oh, there's a dreary actress (Doris Davenport) to provide Cooper with a romantic interest, but William Wyler, the director, and Niven Busch, the writer, make full use of every tool at their disposal, including the supernumerary girl.
I'll give just two brief examples of unusually good writing and direction. (1) Having promised Brennan to deliver a lock of Lilly Langtry's hair (which he never had), Cooper is compelled to bring back a fake. The only woman around is Davenport. Cooper and Davenport are leaning on a wooden fence and she is berating him for something or other, while he smiles smoothly, snipping carelessly at his buckskin fringe, and he delicately lifts a strand of her long hair, scissors poised. She stops talking and pouts. "Can I take a little?", asks Cooper. Then, a pause, and -- SNIP -- and she snaps out "No!", just a fraction of a second too late. It's not much, but it's an expression of some of the effort that went into the writing and direction. What I mean is -- somebody had to THINK about that little exchange in order to make it as humanly amusing as it is.
Example two -- briefer. Cooper returns to Brennan with the promised lock of hair tucked away in a matchbox inside a tobacco pouch with a draw string. As the two men sit together, Cooper reaches inside his shirt. Wrong side. With the most deliberate of movements, he reaches into the other side of the shirt. Brennan, meanwhile, is bouncing up and down with anticipation, like a child about to see a Christmas present unwrapped. (It's all done without dialog.) Cooper finally, slowly, extracts the pouch and gently tries to pull it open. But the draw string is stuck and the pouch is intractable. Cooper tugs at it, tugs again -- and Brennan's tense, empty hands mimic Cooper's motions impatiently.
An added bonus is one of the better "next day" scenes in the movies. Brennan and Cooper, two mutually wary, short-time friends, get blind drunk on a local whiskey that has the power to eat through the bar. Cooper wakes up the next morning to find himself in the same narrow cot as Brennan, and with the snoring Brennan's arm around him. Cooper clambers clumsily out of the bunk and when he nudges Brennan's arm, a hidden ace falls out of the sleeve.
I can't go on because I'll run out of space and anyway I'm laughing too hard. Its high user rating is justified. You'll probably get a kick out of it.