Two big things to like about this 50s psychological western from King Vidor. The first is the performance of Kirk Douglas. Like Bogie, Holden and Garfield Douglas is a romantic leading man who is better when he projects a darker, non romantic side, as in "Lust For Life", "Out Of The Past", "Bad And The Beautiful", "In Harms Way", and here, playing, on the surface, a happy go lucky drifter with a penchant for banjo strumming but with a pool of bitterness and rage just underneath as well as interesting quirks of character, like a feminine side that peeks out at odd moments, such as when he shows a more than passing interest in the contents of Jeanne Crain's dressing/vanity table. And speaking of Crain I very much like the way Vidor and his scenarists, Borden Chase and D. D. Beauchamp, present her character, namely as a hard bitten, quite capable, sexually aggressive, unrepentant capitalist who suffers neither comeuppance nor a conversion to goodness at the end. In a weird sort of way the film makers' take on Crain's persona is almost feminist, especially when you contrast it with the typical 50s attitude toward working women in movies, particularly white collar working women, which is pitched somewhere between anthrax and communism and thus dictates that they must meet horrible fates. Or get married. Crain's cold cattle baroness does neither.
Pulling against the above virtues are several things that drag this Vidor work into less than stellar regions. The story, that centers around a range war and barbed wire (which should have been the film's title, by the way, since lawmen, lapsed or not, do not figure prominently), is one we've seen a gazillion times before and thus puts undue pressure on the characters to pick up the story slack. And too many of the characters beyond Douglas and Crain lack interest. William Campbell brings nothing new to the pretty boy/callow youth role. Basically, I'd rather be watching Tab Hunter or Robert Wagner. Claire Trevor is good but in a most conventional, heart of gold, saloon gal turn. And Richard Boone has not quite perfected his psycho villain vibe that would be fully developed two years later, in "Tall T". Consequently, his final showdown with Douglas has a hurried, perfunctory quality. In fact, the last fifteen minutes seem rushed which is most uncharacterisitc of the usually magisterial Vidor.
Bottom line: Not a great western, but a most interesting one. B minus.
Pulling against the above virtues are several things that drag this Vidor work into less than stellar regions. The story, that centers around a range war and barbed wire (which should have been the film's title, by the way, since lawmen, lapsed or not, do not figure prominently), is one we've seen a gazillion times before and thus puts undue pressure on the characters to pick up the story slack. And too many of the characters beyond Douglas and Crain lack interest. William Campbell brings nothing new to the pretty boy/callow youth role. Basically, I'd rather be watching Tab Hunter or Robert Wagner. Claire Trevor is good but in a most conventional, heart of gold, saloon gal turn. And Richard Boone has not quite perfected his psycho villain vibe that would be fully developed two years later, in "Tall T". Consequently, his final showdown with Douglas has a hurried, perfunctory quality. In fact, the last fifteen minutes seem rushed which is most uncharacterisitc of the usually magisterial Vidor.
Bottom line: Not a great western, but a most interesting one. B minus.