Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Micransix Crappy film

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

HotToastyRag I never knew Susan Hayward made so many terrible movies. She's one of my favorite movies, so naturally I thought everything she touched was gold. Apparently not. Even if you love westerns or hostage movies, I can't recommend watching Rawhide.The opening credits play a theme that's been used in another movie, and once composer Sol Kaplan realized this plagiarism, he could think of nothing more to write than endless repetitions and modulations of "Oh Susanna" during the remainder of the film. Unless that was his way of expressing his undying love for the lead actress, there's no excuse.Suzy's taking a stagecoach from California to St. Louis, but along the way, she's forced to vacate and stay in an outpost because there's a murderous criminal on the loose. Tyrone Power is the man in charge of her well-being, but before long, Hugh Marlowe, the murderous criminal, arrives at the outpost and holds the three hostage.In addition to the terrible music, the acting is pretty lousy. Suzy's character is extremely stupid, and her performance is almost as bad as the obviousness of her wig. Try Garden of Evil or The President's Lady instead.

weezeralfalfa Yes, stages were often pulled by mules, rather than by horses, as in most westerns. Although in most westerns, we are interested in the passengers or strong box, as articulated elsewhere, without their mail-carrying function, we would have had to charge passengers more than their $200. from San Francisco to St. Louis or vice versa, for a 25 day bone-rattling journey.This is the first of 2 films I'm familiar with in which Ty Power and Susan Hayward costarred. The second: "Untamed", is also essentially a western, only Zulus replace Native Americans as their adversaries. Both are worth a look and available at You Tube. This film mainly deals with the relationships between 4 escaped prisoners, and the other inhabitants of an Overland relay station at Rawhide Pass. Originally, this included crusty Edgar Buchanan as the regular stationmaster, who is giving the son of the head of the eastern division of Overland a taste of what it's like to be a stationmaster in the West. Unfortunately, during an altercation with the 4 escapees, who had taken over the relay station, he was shot dead. This left Ty(Tom) and Susan(Vinnie)as the only other adults at the station between stage stopovers. In addition, Susan is carrying her deceased sister's baby, Callie, to be deposited with relatives in Missouri. Of the escapees, Zimmerman(Hugh Marlowe)is the self-appointed leader,since he apparently engineered the escape the others only incidentally took advantage of. He has a problem with Jack Elan(Tevis), who is very persistent I his goal of having sex with Susan. Zimmerman figures he needs Ty to help convince the drivers that everything is normal, when they arrive. Since Susan is assumed to be Ty's wife, Zimmerman doesn't want Ty upset by the 4 forcing themselves on Susan. Finally, Elan has had enough of Zimmerman interfering in his plans, and shoots him dead, also killing companion Gratz(George Tobias), for good measure. Since the other escapee, Yancy(Dean Jagger) had wandered off somewhere, that leaves Elan as the only escapee right around the station. Susan is running around looking for Callie, who has wandered off. Meanwhile, Elan and Ty engage in s gun battle. When Callie wanders into view, Elan changes his target to her vicinity, with the warning that he will be more accurate in the future if Ty doesn't come out with his hands up. Ty complies, with the prospect of being shot as he moves toward Elan, as commanded. But, Susan sees the situation and finds Gratz's riffle beside his body, shooting Elan dead just in the nick of time. The ending leaves the fate of Yancy up in the air. Also, any possible future relationship between Ty and Susan is left to the viewer's imagination. At one point, the escapees were very interested in a large gold shipment said to be on the next stage from the West. However, this seems to have been forgotten about in the ruckus surrounding Elan's pursuit of Susan, and Elan's killing of his compatriots..Calli, a toddler, does her parts well, giving us a fright as she wanders around the legs of the mules. She cries appropriately when Elan is shooting slugs in her direction, that kick up dust nearby.I would say that "Hangman's Knot", which has a screen play rather like this one, is more interesting, as is "Untamed", which I previously mentioned. See the latter film, as well as the present one at YouTube.

FilmFlaneur More suggestive of such dark western films of the late 1940s as Pursued, than romantic brawlers by Hathaway like North To Alaska etc, this film is taut and suspenseful, well-acted and shot - just as one might expect from one of the great Hollywood studio professionals. In hindsight, it is obvious that the origins of Rawhide can be found in the director's earlier career, when he was involved with the noir cycle. After helming such classics as Kiss Of Death, and Call Northside 777, only a few short years before, it was natural for Hathaway to bring something of the same sensibility to an oater.Rawhide is scripted by Dudley Nichols who worked for John Ford among others, over a prestigious writing career. The story is a relatively simple one: a junior way station employee Tom Owens (Tyrone Power), and a woman Vinnie Holt (Susan Hayward), with her sister's child, are held captive by a small band of prison-escapees who are waiting to rob a gold shipment. Playing husband and wife to maximise their survival chances, Owens and Holt have to find a way to escape the vigilant and murderous ringleader Zimmerman (Hugh Marlowe) as well as warn the approaching stage. Further down the cast list there is also a splendidly evil part for Jack Elam as the deadly and lascivious Tevis, with eyes on Holt.Interestingly, the main action of the film is book-ended by a jaunty narrator, putting events into an historical context. This is a tale taken from the annals of the 'Jackass Mail', we are assured, a famous postal service which defied sceptics of the time to triumphantly link San Francisco and Saint Louis. But then the story shifts abruptly, to just a few people in the middle of nowhere, one of whom (Owens) has even yet to learn the business properly.After this step change, as trumpeted, 'Jackass Mail' appears just so much romantic hyperbole. It's the events at the way station which come to dramatise actual truths about convincing characters, even if they are often at a loss to control events. The irony is that, due to Nichols' skills as a dramatist and fine performances, we end up likely viewing the alleged history behind events as so much Hollywood window dressing, while the predations of the Zimmerman gang seem by far the more vivid and realistic. The 'real history' of sorts is displaced.As already mentioned, Hathaway's movie recalls the director's assignments earlier in his career. But Rawhide was also a modern, and for its time, relatively adult western attempting rounded characterisation. In a dramatic scheme familiar to the genre, character concerns regularly develop indoors while critical physical action is reserved for the open air. It's a film in which room-space in general, and doors in particular, play an important part. Players are confined within rooms, are repeatedly framed through, or walk back and forth, even die, in doorways; they spark off among themselves in a side room or the communal living area, while outside they rarely stray far.Once the Zimmerman gang arrive claustrophobia increases - a feeling helped by a sense that each room is really three-dimensional, closed in with a ceiling (reinforced by one noteworthy Citizen Kane-ish shot near the beginning). Doors and walls are uniformly sturdy, due to a fine location choice, in part of a real building. This way station offers an increasingly prison-like atmosphere - coming to a head as Owens and Holt ultimately attempt to tunnel out through the wall. In some senses, of course, the station is a penitentiary for everyone: whether for the Zimmerman gang, who have merely transferred their former penal relationships into a different setting or Vinnie Holt, wrongly condemned as an unmarried mother travelling with child to escape society's sanction, or Owens - whose restrictions means he cannot easily warn the approaching gold stage.The most interesting character in Rawhide is that of Vinnie Holt - stranded, with child, through company regulation. In a genre where women-kind are too often divided into contrasting or opposing stereotypes, of nice girl/ whore, bar girl/ respectable wife, and so on, Holt is more rounded, less dependent on the approval of others in general, and men in particular. A woman who is at first wrongly assumed to be of dubious virtue, lusted after by Tevis, and distrusted by Zimmerman, she is jealously protective of her sister's child, to the extent of being less bothered by other issues. Even before her true history is known, she gains the audience's respect through this single-minded independence, respect eventually matched by that of her temporary 'husband' Owens. Eventually she and he end up as a team for the mutual benefit of both, not coming together through easy romantic attachment. One feels it is a stronger bond and, given the nature of frontier life, a more likely one. Hayward's rare appearance in a western can be judged a success.The bond which grows between Owens and Holt, based on mutual respect, is in contrast to that connecting the Zimmerman gang. United by a dubious common background, the need to escape, greed, and respect enforced by fear, it is a union which is doomed to sunder. Zimmerman himself is allegedly unable to trust women (and in fact has been sentenced for killing one) after a tortured personal history. As Tevis says to him: "I ain't been cured of women... ain't had your medicine yet, Jim" - recognising that Zimmerman is unlikely to ever form a proper relationship with the wider world and implying that female-kind is some sort of sickness. Tevis himself has a brutal, leering fixation on the fairer sex, another direct contrast to Owens' basic decency and moral strength. Out of Zimmerman's confederates, only Yancy (Dean Jagger) has any strong humanity. It is a trait which, appositely enough; means he will survive.

donofthedial Ever wonder why some films have faded from view and are little spoken of? RAWHIDE is a great example and contains many reasons for its general obscurity.Things go wrong the moment Susan Hayward arrives on the scene. This woman cannot act and her character is completely overbearing and obnoxious.This is simply a badly written story made worse by bizarre performances by Hugh Marlowe, Dean Jagger, George Tobias and the thoroughly freakish Jack Elam who is either the highlight or the low-light of the film.Jack Elam gives all to his role with his eyes bugging out, licking his lips and his teeth, sticking out his tongue and his jaw and positioning his head in every freakish position that he can. And he gets close-ups! All he needed was to have his head spin around a la Linda Blair in THE EXORCIST.Hugh Marlowe is awful and doesn't seem to realize he is in a movie.Dean Jagger mutters much of the time as the semi-simpleton of Marlowe's band of gold robbers.George Tobias plays an ethnic in the manner of El Brendel, yet looking like Alfonso Bedoya in THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.Tyrone Power does the best of all with a cookie-cutter character.On the other hand, the location shooting in Lone Pine is very attractive and the digital restoration made the image quality look near to real life, but in black and white.I can't envision myself ever watching this grueling film again.