Night Passage is unusual in that Audie Murphy actually turns in a more interesting performance than Stewart. Someone else here has caught that Audie is at his absolute best here. Though actually he is equally good in John Huston's The Unforgiven. Those two are his centerpiece renditions.
The movie itself is really pretty stupid, yet rises far far above said same by the main performers. Anytime Murphy is on the screen it comes electrically alive. Here we see the baby faced killer at his most terrifying. Look up his Colmar Forest action in world war two and you will see that he was the real deal, and his twisted smiles are positively psycho in this one, and even crazier is that he is playing it all one stop below Dan Duryeas supposedly even wilder psychosis. When they are on the screen together it's almost Laurel and Hardy with guns, very very funny stuff in a totally fraught way.
Here comes a spoiler. So if you are going to see the movie first, I would suggest you skip this paragraph. It revolves around a very curious feature of Stewart. Nobody ever did one thing in the entire history of cinema and got away with it more naturally than Sir James. And he does it again here. Crying. Repeatedly he has broken into tears so believably, so touchingly, that nobody ever noticed. Yet time and again he does it, in Naked Spur, Its a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, Night Passage. In Night Passage right at the end just watch him break down so heart breakingly with the line.....no, I'll ....I'll take care of my brother.
Very very moving. Also I have mentioned elsewhere that nobody ever received physical punishment so horrifyingly as Stewart. Far Country, Bend of the River, Man From Laramie, Winchester 73 (all Mann westerns) he does it so well you wince: this is what is must actually look like when people are shot or burned or beaten. Just amazing what the guy could do, and do it more believably than Brando, great as Brando was. Yet all that said, Murphy for once gives the more interesting performance, because this is the perfect vehicle for his killer mentality. After all the guy did sleep with a service 45. under his pillow until the day he died.
Night Passage was his best.
The movie itself is really pretty stupid, yet rises far far above said same by the main performers. Anytime Murphy is on the screen it comes electrically alive. Here we see the baby faced killer at his most terrifying. Look up his Colmar Forest action in world war two and you will see that he was the real deal, and his twisted smiles are positively psycho in this one, and even crazier is that he is playing it all one stop below Dan Duryeas supposedly even wilder psychosis. When they are on the screen together it's almost Laurel and Hardy with guns, very very funny stuff in a totally fraught way.
Here comes a spoiler. So if you are going to see the movie first, I would suggest you skip this paragraph. It revolves around a very curious feature of Stewart. Nobody ever did one thing in the entire history of cinema and got away with it more naturally than Sir James. And he does it again here. Crying. Repeatedly he has broken into tears so believably, so touchingly, that nobody ever noticed. Yet time and again he does it, in Naked Spur, Its a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, Night Passage. In Night Passage right at the end just watch him break down so heart breakingly with the line.....no, I'll ....I'll take care of my brother.
Very very moving. Also I have mentioned elsewhere that nobody ever received physical punishment so horrifyingly as Stewart. Far Country, Bend of the River, Man From Laramie, Winchester 73 (all Mann westerns) he does it so well you wince: this is what is must actually look like when people are shot or burned or beaten. Just amazing what the guy could do, and do it more believably than Brando, great as Brando was. Yet all that said, Murphy for once gives the more interesting performance, because this is the perfect vehicle for his killer mentality. After all the guy did sleep with a service 45. under his pillow until the day he died.
Night Passage was his best.