Recently, I've been watching old movies with greater weight on the modern context. In other words, I almost completely discount the situation in which it was made, and how it was intended to be viewed. You really have to do that in defense, if you study very many of these old turkeys.
This is ghastly bad: good brother, bad brother, judicial father and girls, one bad and one good. Mix in a bit of cattle rustling and Technicolor.
But as an episode in history that is fascinating, it works. This is when the western was still reverberating from the John Ford model, and these sorts of things could take themselves seriously. It was before TeeVee destroyed the western in the 50s by overexposure.
Here you have two of the main offenders, the two guys that would go on to anchor "Gunsmoke." Seeing them before their culpability — even before they became competent — is pretty enjoyable.
But you have tow other icons as well. Rock Hudson, when he was marketed and consumed as a sex star. This was before it became known he was gay, bravely announcing his fight with AIDS. That drama created a two-brother conflict in fundamentalist America we still see. Watch him here as the good brother who fights for and stays with the family.
And the other, special to me. Raymond Burr also went into TeeVee a few years later as Perry Mason. This was an important show, because it was a vast ten year experiment in conveying the mystery to screen without compromise. One can literally see the evolution where the compromise won, when the public signaled that it did not want to guess, but merely be told the answer to the riddle at the end. Here, in a shock to anyone looking backwards, he is the evil guy who is replaced by the evil brother.
The sets are more hokey than usual for Universal.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
This is ghastly bad: good brother, bad brother, judicial father and girls, one bad and one good. Mix in a bit of cattle rustling and Technicolor.
But as an episode in history that is fascinating, it works. This is when the western was still reverberating from the John Ford model, and these sorts of things could take themselves seriously. It was before TeeVee destroyed the western in the 50s by overexposure.
Here you have two of the main offenders, the two guys that would go on to anchor "Gunsmoke." Seeing them before their culpability — even before they became competent — is pretty enjoyable.
But you have tow other icons as well. Rock Hudson, when he was marketed and consumed as a sex star. This was before it became known he was gay, bravely announcing his fight with AIDS. That drama created a two-brother conflict in fundamentalist America we still see. Watch him here as the good brother who fights for and stays with the family.
And the other, special to me. Raymond Burr also went into TeeVee a few years later as Perry Mason. This was an important show, because it was a vast ten year experiment in conveying the mystery to screen without compromise. One can literally see the evolution where the compromise won, when the public signaled that it did not want to guess, but merely be told the answer to the riddle at the end. Here, in a shock to anyone looking backwards, he is the evil guy who is replaced by the evil brother.
The sets are more hokey than usual for Universal.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.