I watched this just now because, a few days after once again watching "City Slickers" (wherein the film's "yee-ha scene" is referenced), I happened upon it in my local library and decided to give it a try. I wasn't expecting TOO much, though the involvement of Montgomery Clift gave me cause to think this was perhaps not just another standard John Wayne cowboy film and I knew it was directed by some heavyweight like John Ford or that Hawks fellow. Well...all I can say is that I am sure glad I picked the film up. It's possible I saw this when I was a kid, I guess, but even if I'd remembered doing so I doubt I'd have appreciated its intrinsic worth quite as much then. The film's a masterpiece.
I'd only recently watched again "The Young Lions," and I knew that Montgomery Clift suffered bad injuries not long before from a car crash, so when I saw on the title roll that this film was made in 1957 (I swear that's what I saw, though perhaps I'm a little too tired today to be deciphering Roman numerals) I figured that it was shot not long before his crash and the physical changes that resulted. Now I find it was made in 1948...all I can say is that it was way ahead of its time. Thematically and in the acting style, this film reads more like a movie made by very skilled filmmakers a decade later, or even later than that. The cinematography rivals the best, John Ford included, and the acting is first rate from all concerned. Montgomery Clift is subtly compelling -- not an easy quality to get across on the big screen -- but John Wayne is also at the top of his game and ably demonstrates that, with good direction and inspiration, he was more than many think him to be as an actor. Perhaps he had somewhat limited range, but he could act, no question about that. As in "The Searchers" (a film I recently watched after getting on a Kurosawa kick and then wanting to go back to see what it was about John Ford, and that film in particular, that so inspired Kurosawa), John Wayne plays a character of questionable moral rectitude, a realistically paradoxical and ambiguous character with flaws, and his character is all the more interesting for it. Walter Brennan, too, is classic in his role and behind the Gabby-Hayesish exterior there's a more insightful and naturalistic aspect to the character that this veteran character player manages to project onto film. John Ireland, too, has a fairly minimized role but burns up the screen when he's on it.
The cinematography, in living black-and-white, is nevertheless stunning. There's some innovative camera work, too, including some really cool shots from within the chuckwagon (and, yep, ol' Walter's actually in the driver's seat) as they cross the Red River. It's a long film, too, for the time.
For the time, as with a few other true classic Westerns ("Shane" leaps to mind, and not just because of the hero's excellent name), this film was grittily realistic in its portrayal of the West as a dusty, muddy place and a cattle drive as the real domain of exploited blue-collar workers just trying to get by. The film somehow manages to mythologize what has become our earlier revisionist view of the West -- the domain of modest heroes and laconic cowpunchers fast on the draw, with many sunsets and beans for dinner -- and foreshadow the later revisionism that portrays the West in a much more realistic light, placing it squarely in terms of the social dynamics of today. It may not be the truth, or even the idealized version thereof, but it is a masterful wrapping of the legend within layers of reality with the additional benefit of a morality tale for the ages.
Yee-haw!!!
I'd only recently watched again "The Young Lions," and I knew that Montgomery Clift suffered bad injuries not long before from a car crash, so when I saw on the title roll that this film was made in 1957 (I swear that's what I saw, though perhaps I'm a little too tired today to be deciphering Roman numerals) I figured that it was shot not long before his crash and the physical changes that resulted. Now I find it was made in 1948...all I can say is that it was way ahead of its time. Thematically and in the acting style, this film reads more like a movie made by very skilled filmmakers a decade later, or even later than that. The cinematography rivals the best, John Ford included, and the acting is first rate from all concerned. Montgomery Clift is subtly compelling -- not an easy quality to get across on the big screen -- but John Wayne is also at the top of his game and ably demonstrates that, with good direction and inspiration, he was more than many think him to be as an actor. Perhaps he had somewhat limited range, but he could act, no question about that. As in "The Searchers" (a film I recently watched after getting on a Kurosawa kick and then wanting to go back to see what it was about John Ford, and that film in particular, that so inspired Kurosawa), John Wayne plays a character of questionable moral rectitude, a realistically paradoxical and ambiguous character with flaws, and his character is all the more interesting for it. Walter Brennan, too, is classic in his role and behind the Gabby-Hayesish exterior there's a more insightful and naturalistic aspect to the character that this veteran character player manages to project onto film. John Ireland, too, has a fairly minimized role but burns up the screen when he's on it.
The cinematography, in living black-and-white, is nevertheless stunning. There's some innovative camera work, too, including some really cool shots from within the chuckwagon (and, yep, ol' Walter's actually in the driver's seat) as they cross the Red River. It's a long film, too, for the time.
For the time, as with a few other true classic Westerns ("Shane" leaps to mind, and not just because of the hero's excellent name), this film was grittily realistic in its portrayal of the West as a dusty, muddy place and a cattle drive as the real domain of exploited blue-collar workers just trying to get by. The film somehow manages to mythologize what has become our earlier revisionist view of the West -- the domain of modest heroes and laconic cowpunchers fast on the draw, with many sunsets and beans for dinner -- and foreshadow the later revisionism that portrays the West in a much more realistic light, placing it squarely in terms of the social dynamics of today. It may not be the truth, or even the idealized version thereof, but it is a masterful wrapping of the legend within layers of reality with the additional benefit of a morality tale for the ages.
Yee-haw!!!