User Reviews

Warner Bros. THE HANGING TREE (1959) is something of an unsung classic western. But over the years cultists have been drawn to it and it just gets better and better with each viewing! A "sleeper" of 1959, nobody thought it would turn out as good as it did. Based on a story by Dorothy Johnson it was fashioned into a splendid screenplay by Wendell Mayes and Halsted Welles. Gary Cooper headed a fine cast which consisted of Karl Malden, the strikingly beautiful Maria Schell, George C.Scott in his first picture and newcomer Ben Piazza (resembling a young Victor Mature). Produced by Cooper's own company Baroda Productions (named after the street where he was raised) it was solidly directed by the ever underrated Delmer Daves and as usual with Daves' outdoor pictures richly photographed in Technicolor, this time, by ace cinematographer Ted McCord ("Treasure Of The Sierra Madre"/"Johnny Belinda"). The lavish Art Direction by Daniel B.Cathcart was superb with a whole mining town built on locations near Yakima, Washington which would double for the mining fields of 1880's Montana.

The story revolves around Dr. Joe Frail (Cooper) who arrives in the rough mining town of Skull Creek to set up practice. Since the area is bereft of any sort of law enforcement the only deterrent to lawbreakers is symbolised at the town's entrance by the presence of a great ugly and ghostly looking tree complete with a hanging noose ("Every new mining camp's got to have its hanging tree - makes folks feel respectable" a new entrant declares).

The enigmatic doctor is a man with a hidden past! Stories abound about him years before setting fire to a house with a man and a woman inside ("The woman was my wife and the man was my brother - and I have no right to forget"). But in Skull Creek things are not working out so good for him in the new life he is attempting to carve out for himself. Firstly he falls in love with a beautiful Swiss immigrant Elizabeth Mahler (Schell) when she becomes his patient after being temporarily blinded by the sun. Then he falls foul of an unscrupulous and licentious town wastrel (Karl Malden giving an excellent performance). The picture ends with an exciting but bloody shootout and Frail being frogmarched by the townspeople to the hanging tree just before Elizabeth arrives and offers the mob her newly acquired riches of gold and even her goldmine to stop the lynching. ("Know what? She wants to buy her man! If she wants him that bad let her have him").

Adding immeasurably to the picture is Max Steiner's extraordinary score! It boasts a wonderful central theme for Doc Frail! Heard in different guises throughout the film it becomes a ravishing love theme and is touchingly rendered in the scene where Frail removes the bandages from the eyes of the blinded Elizabeth. Later when she stands on a cliff edge and opens her eyes regaining her sight for the first time Steiner's arresting theme makes it a remarkable sparkling moment! The great composer also provided some exciting action cues such as those for the townspeople pursuing a sluice robber and also for a stagecoach hold-up. A song by Mack David and Jerry Livingstone was sung over the opening and closing credits by Marty Robbins and was nominated for an Oscar. Steiner cleverly interpolated the song into his score and is heard to best effect in the final scene when Frail is being dragged to the infamous hanging tree.

THE HANGING TREE is a splendid drama in an unusual and atmospheric western setting. Eclipsing his Will Kane in "High Noon" Cooper gives one of his very best and most likable performances in what would be his final appearance in a western. A genre he made all his own! It would also be his third last film!

A FINAL AFTERTHOUGHT - IS THERE ANY ONE OUT THERE THAT MIGHT KNOW THE REASON WHY WARNER HOME VIDEO HAVE NOT RELEASED THIS FINE MOVIE ON DVD??

. . . into the Sun, the prophetic prognosticators of the always eponymous Warner Bros. Warn America with THE HANGING TREE. The U. S. has gone off her rocker, first with the Gold Standard and then with the Silver Rule, HANGING suggests. The Warner seers caution citizens NOT to be bamboozled a third time with "precious" metals, with something like a Copper Reign. Rather, HANGING recommends that we join the townspeople and miners of Skull Creek, MT, in adopting dirt as the Coin of the Realm. However, be sure not to let the guys with the biggest wagons corner the market on grit. Limit the size of a personal stash to one molehill's worth, so nobody will try to pack rat away a mountain of grimy wealth. Warner cautions that such a resource-hoarding mentality MUST become a thing of the past, a relic from the Ancient Times, when men worshipped golden calves. The day you can drive an Equinox away from your local dealer at the cost of six grains of sand, you'll be able to rest content with the knowledge that Chevy's are "dirt cheap."

Doc Frail helps Rune, who is a thief, escape from those he stole from, but since Frail is played by Gary Cooper, who is tall and good looking, we figure that makes what he is doing all right. He then blackmails Rune, forcing him into slavery, but since it's Gary Cooper, what he is doing must be for the best somehow.

When Elizabeth is discovered suffering from exposure and dehydration, Frail refuses to leave the bedside of a woman who he knows is going to die in a couple of hours anyway. It is a standard principle of triage that a doctor should help those who can be helped and not waste time on those who cannot, but since it's Gary Cooper, we figure he must be doing the right thing somehow. Besides, the person who thinks he should leave the dying woman and help Elizabeth is Frenchy, played by Karl Malden in an unsavory role, so he must be wrong somehow.

When Frail finally arrives at the house where the men who found Elizabeth had taken her, Frail expresses his disgust with the fact that the house is dirty, asking the old man who lives there why he doesn't clean the place up. But that can't be rude, because it's Gary Cooper, so we figure the old man deserved to be insulted.

Frail keeps Elizabeth in a cabin, allowing no one else in except himself and Rune. When ladies from town come to check on her after she has been there for a while, Frail refuses to let them talk to her. And Elizabeth, after finding out that he made the women leave, asks if she is a prisoner. Normally, it would be perfectly reasonable for concerned citizens to be allowed to ask Elizabeth if she is being kept there against her will, if she would like to leave. After all, if it were Frenchy keeping her in a cabin and not letting others talk to her, we would suspect that he was keeping her as a sex slave. But it is not Frenchy, played by Karl Malden; it is Frail, played by Gary Cooper. And besides, the women are really just a bunch of busybodies. And if Elizabeth thinks she is being kept there as a prisoner, that is just too bad, because it's Gary Cooper who is doing it, and so he must be right to disregard her wishes.

And then, when Elizabeth finally gets her sight back, she goes to a lot of trouble to prepare a special dinner for Rune and Frail, but Frail would rather play poker instead. But we have to overlook this, in part because it's Gary Cooper, and in part because of some dark secret from his past. As best we can figure from rumor and from what Frail says, he caught his brother and his wife having sex. When he killed his brother, his wife was so horrified that she shot herself and died, after which Frail burned the house down. If it had been Frenchy who did something like that, we would hate him for it, but since it was Frail who did it, we are expected to be understanding.

This is not to say that Frail does not do good things. Even if he were not played Gary Cooper, we would still approve of much of his behavior: letting Rune go free after a while; curing Elizabeth; letting some poor folks borrow his cow so their daughter can have milk; secretly funding Elizabeth in her determination to make her own way; and saving her from being raped by Frenchy. But it is still remarkable how much latitude we allow a character in a movie if he is played by an actor with an established persona of moral rectitude, especially if he is tall and good looking.

Gary Cooper had starring roles in three more movies after The Hanging Tree, but none showcasing his talents better than this western. While not given a producer's credit for the movie, this movie was the first under Cooper's new production company, Baroda. Just as with Along Came Jones, the only movie Cooper officially produced, The Hanging Tree has great talent in front of and behind the camera, starting with the screenplay writers. The only person now alive who can tell how much of a production role Cooper had is Karl Malden, whom IMDb identifies as an uncredited fill-in director as well as co-star.

Whatever production role Cooper had, this movie looks like it was a real tough location shoot, filming on steep trails and having to create a mining camp set in an isolated national forest. This movie has one interesting distinction, concerning the character of Society Red, one of the miners. (Possible Spoiler) John Dierkes, who played the part and formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury department, has the last full line of dialog in the in the move: "Frenchy said it (the mine) was worth a million." Dierkes, 6'6" and over 7' tall with the stovepipe hat he was wearing, has the best lines in the movie at the very end. It is not often that a supporting actor gets to a chance to end a movie as Dierkes did this time.

The Hanging Tree is a story about people who, for whatever reason, are on the edges of society and trying to make a go of it. The only things this movie needs (as of this writing) are a wide screen restoration and a DVD release in the United States.