Budd Boetticher's first western may star Audie Murphy, but it's a stylized affair nonetheless. Murphy is riding on a train when a robbery takes place. He's accused of taking part in it, beaten up by a lawyer, so he heads off to find his old gang and rejoin them... a story that others in the gang tell. Eventually, he's the one in charge.
This isn't one of the Randolph Scott westerns that made Boetticher's reputation, but one of the Universal 'Shaky A' westerns, shot in Technicolor, with lots of formal compositions. There's a sequence in the cave the gang hangs out in. Murphy has been shot, so he's lounging in a beefcake shot with his shirt half off, and the others arranged neatly and conspicuously around him. Every composition is perfect, every item of clothes in perfect condition, every character's hair perfectly barbered and set.
Was this a deliberate artistic choice or an expression of "Hey! This isn't a cheap B western! We spent money!"? The westerns were the oldest established movie genre, and they had long grown stylized. Probably this was a matter of a nice script by Louis Stevens hitting an effort to push Murphy as a western star, resulting in money being spent.... and Boetticher, having been a B director for a few years, knew how to spend the money for a distinctive look.
You get the same impression from he Paramount A westerns, which also had major casts. Those, however, seem to make you gawk at the landscape or the beautifully painted rail road cars. Here, you stare at the people.
This isn't one of the Randolph Scott westerns that made Boetticher's reputation, but one of the Universal 'Shaky A' westerns, shot in Technicolor, with lots of formal compositions. There's a sequence in the cave the gang hangs out in. Murphy has been shot, so he's lounging in a beefcake shot with his shirt half off, and the others arranged neatly and conspicuously around him. Every composition is perfect, every item of clothes in perfect condition, every character's hair perfectly barbered and set.
Was this a deliberate artistic choice or an expression of "Hey! This isn't a cheap B western! We spent money!"? The westerns were the oldest established movie genre, and they had long grown stylized. Probably this was a matter of a nice script by Louis Stevens hitting an effort to push Murphy as a western star, resulting in money being spent.... and Boetticher, having been a B director for a few years, knew how to spend the money for a distinctive look.
You get the same impression from he Paramount A westerns, which also had major casts. Those, however, seem to make you gawk at the landscape or the beautifully painted rail road cars. Here, you stare at the people.