Doomtomylo
a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Greekguy
Three years after James Dean gave us the quintessentially tortured young man in "East of Eden', John Cassavetes brought youthful angst to the western in this very fine but perhaps too hardworking film from Robert Parrish and an uncredited John Sturges. Yes, Robert Taylor is in it, and Julie London is there, too, as she will also be for Parrish's next western, "The Wonderful Country", but the film belongs to Cassavetes.Cassavetes plays the ever-striving younger brother of a reformed gunfighter, now a rancher, performed with competence by Taylor. It's hard for the younger sibling to carve out his own space under these circumstances. Sound familiar? There's more – in fact, there's everything you've ever seen in a western rolled together in this one film, apart from conflict with native Americans. There's the fast gun gone legit; the itchy young gun undergoing his first blooding; the mysterious femme fatale; the power struggle at the ranch; the omnipresent chief cattle baron (although in this case he's remarkably benign); the vengeful gun-toting stranger; the resentment left over from the Civil War; the arrival of homesteaders and the conflict they created with cattle ranchers – it's all here. And it's not done too badly, but with so much to cover, it's spread too thin to make any real impact.What does pack a wallop, however, is the performance of John Cassavetes. Along with a splendid role for Royal Dano, one of the outstanding character actors of his time, and the smart muddying of ethical clarity that is a hallmark of scriptwriter Rod Sterling, it's the very good work of Cassavetes that makes this really worth watching.
Irie212
The plot is straightforward and the milieu is entirely familiar-- open range vs. fenced farming, reformed gunslinger vs. trigger-happy kid, lots of grizzled guys and leather vests, a pointless saloon girl-- but it has enough originality and a solid enough script to transcend formula. It also has two crucial bonuses:First, the location. There's only one long shot showing the entire Western town, but I've never seen a more decrepit or believable one- - because it's a real one. Rosita, Colorado, west of Pueblo, was well on its way to becoming a ghost town in the late 1950s (it actually is one now, in the middle of exurbs). It had only three or four wooden buildings, plus a few scattered homesteads between them and the mountains. It delivers total verisimilitude. Quite a few scenes are shot in the wilderness, too, with meadows bursting with purple wildflowers. A real Western settlement in a gorgeous wilderness-- it is iconic, far more than John Ford's Monument Valley, which is unrepresentative of any other Western landscape.Second, the supporting cast. The faces are all more familiar than the names. Royal Dano and Irene Tedrow as squatters, Charles McGraw, Ray Teal (Bonanza's sheriff), Douglas Spencer, and as barkeeps, the wonderful Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones, tribble salesman) and the forever-unheralded Jay Adler (Stella's brother). Adler's worth his weight in silver-- Rosita was a silver-mining settlement-- and he's in the first scene so catch that at least.The reason that mother lode of character actors matters is because-- along with always-fine Donald Crisp and better-with-age Robert Taylor-- they carry this movie. The relative novices involved-- writer Rod Serling, actress/singer Julie London, and fish-out-of-water John Cassevetes -- handle their duties well enough. But they just can't measure up to that roster of seasoned pros, a cast that has been in so many Westerns, they feel as authentic as Rosita.
Clark Richards
Robert Taylor as Steve Sinclair gets top billing in this film and John Cassavetes(Tony Sinclair) steals the picture from Robert Taylor, but the real star of the film is its chief writer, Rod Serling. Serling establishes at the beginning of the movie a town where the folk 'don't want any gun-play'. In the opening sequence, Larry Venables (Charles McGraw) comes into a bar demanding whiskey, eggs and a side of information on the whereabouts of Steve Sinclair. Though we don't know it at the time, Tony Sinclair killed Venables' brother. So now we see Venables berating the barkeep with insults and threats, throwing the watered down whiskey to the ground and letting everyone in the bar know, if he has to, he will wait for his moment of revenge in the bar. This really establishes the tone for the entire movie. Something bad is about to go down, even if that something bad means he(Venables) has to die in this bar for it to happen. The dialog in this opening scene is bright and snappy, not a word out of place.Things really start to speed up when the younger Sinclair comes into the movie with Joan Blake(Julie London)in tow. Although he remarks to his 'soon to be' wife that, 'Steve's gonna love you', I doubt very much that he knew how true that statement would be. It's too bad, really because the young Sinclair has enough young man's angst/sexual energy to burn, as he spends his first moments with his girl at the new homestead actually away from his girl, shooting his gun at objects around the ranch trying to impress his older brother. At one defining moment of self loathing in the movie, the young Sinclair duels with his own reflection in a puddle.Another intriguing character is that of Dennis Deneen(Donald Crisp). He seems to be the center of the movie; always defining a pacifist approach to the violence in his town, letting his cattle wander freely without any fences. Then later wanting to do the right thing for a Yankee squatter who was wronged by the younger Sinclair over a land claim, and finally giving the moral high ground to his surrogate son, the elder Sinclair, ultimately forgiving him when the elder Sinclair couldn't attain his same high morality. Serling establishes a character who is as adverse to gun-play as he is to putting up fences around his property. The song that Julie London sings is very good.Cassavetes, Crisp, London and Taylor give solid performances. 9/10.Clark Richards
stryker-5
The Sinclairs and the Deneens are two ranching families who share the open range in their remote western valley. Steve Sinclair is a fine, strong man who has put his gunslinging days behind him and is now a figure of rectitude and stability in the affairs of the valley. His younger brother Tony, however, is a hothead who is beginning to regard himself as a handy guy with a six-gun. Robert Taylor plays Steve with manly, tight-lipped stoicism, contrasting markedly with John Cassavetes' Tony, a jumpy dynamo of attention-seeking energy. This thoughtful MGM western sets up a whole web of conflicts and tensions: there is the inevitable clash between the two brothers, the uneasy modus vivendi with Old Man Deneen, friction between ranchers and homesteaders, as the latter try to settle on the free range. When Tony returns from a trip to the city bringing with him the beautiful Joan (Julie London) as his bride-to-be, yet another source of conflict arises. "Steve's gonna like you," Tony tells his new fiancee with unconscious irony, not knowing that it is Steve and Joan who will fall for each other. The romantic closeness between the saloon girl and the older man is never made explicit, but it is plain that they are destined to be a couple. The psychology of this tentative relationship is sensitively portrayed, for instance in the scene where Joan remarks, "I've seen reformed gunmen before." Steve reacts with a mixture of shame and hurt which tells us that he desires her good opinion. Prefiguration is a stylistic leitmotif running through the film. Larry Venables refuses to have his saloon table cleared, and then later Tony prevents Manuelo from clearing another table. Deneen's young son was killed in a futile gunfight, an event which has impacted on the life of the whole valley, and we see the tragedy re-enacted as other men lose their lives needlessly. Tony and Dallas act out a playful 'mock' draw on the exact spot where Ellason is later gunned down. A good deal of the film's psychological import is conveyed, not in dialogue, but through visual communication. Joan's reaction when Venables makes trouble in the saloon suggests that she knows the bad guy but is trying to conceal the fact. After the shooting, we see Tony fail the 'test', though nothing is ever said directly. Joan wants to be taken home, and Tony's immature decision to stay drinking with the boys signals the breaking-point of the relationship. Joan moves away from the group and sits alone. The ploughshare which is used for shooting practice symbolises the threat posed to wholesome farming life by irresponsible gunmen. Tony places his arm on Steve's shoulder, and Steve dislodges it with the subtlest of movements, showing the rift that is growing between the brothers, but which neither wishes to acknowledge. In the very next image, Hank tries to take the whiskey bottle away from Tony, but Tony clings to it, his pattern of destructive self-indulgence now well established. Once Deneen (the marvellous Donald Crisp) has decided to choke the range with wire fences, we see bales of barbed wire thrown down onto the ground with force. They glint harshly, their steely newness a hostile presence, harming the soil. When the brothers finally meet, we see each of them silently preparing his gun. The scene in which Steve and Joan ride back from town is nicely done, with its change of tempo from hard anger to a quieter, more reflective mood. Steve shows himself to be a man of complex emotions beneath his stern facade. The film is shot in Cinemascope and MGM's own colour process, Metrocolor. In the first scene, Venables menaces the bartenders in the saloon, a drab brown man in a drab brown setting. This is this creature's element. A very striking effect is achieved as the scene changes and we see the open range, the beautiful sunlit countryside contrasting powerfully with what has gone before. By the end of the film, the sage is in bloom, and the image of the young man dying on a brilliant purple carpet of natural luxuriance is almost unbearably poignant. Elmer Bernstein was the Musical Director, and in his characteristically understated style he did his usual excellent job. By 1958 it was beginning to be ambarrassing for audiences to see a character breaking into song, but the restrained guitar accompaniment as Julie London croons the theme tune salvages this one from seeming too obtrusive. Everybody is looking for his place in the world. Deneen dreams of establishing a paradise where violence is unknown, and Steve is striving to be a good rancher and to live down his past. Tony wants to make a name for himself, while Joan is hoping to escape the squalor of her earlier years. Venables wants the kudos of having killed Steve Sinclair, and Ellason is yearning for the homestead of his dreams. Some achieve their persoanl nirvana, but most don't. The film's message is that violence and confrontation don't move anybody forward in life.
