The film premiered on October 1, 1958. At the time of release, the film was largely panned by American critics, but it was praised by Jean-Luc Godard, who, before he became a director, was a film critic. Godard claimed that Man of the West was the best film of the year. Decades after the film's release, it has gained a cult following and greater acclaim, with film historian Philip French claiming the film to be Anthony Mann's masterpiece, containing Cooper's finest performance.
Plot
Link Jones (Gary Cooper) rides into Crosscut, Texas to have a bite to eat, then catch a train to Fort Worth, where he intends to use the savings of his community of Good Hope to hire a schoolteacher.
On the train platform Sam Beasley (Arthur O'Connell) speaks briefly with Link, rousing the suspicions of the town marshal, Sam being a known gambler and con man. When the lawman remarks that Link looks familiar, he gives a false name, Henry Wright.
Aboard the train Sam joins Link, learns of his mission in Fort Worth and claims he can be of help. Sam introduces him to the Crosscut saloon singer, Billie Ellis (Julie London), insisting she could make an ideal teacher.
Their conversation is overheard by Alcutt, a shady-looking passenger. When the train stops to pick up wood for additional fuel, male passengers help load it on to the train but Alcutt remains on board, feigning sleep. From a window he signals to three horsemen, Coaley Tobin (Jack Lord), Trout (Royal Dano) and Ponch (Robert J. Wilke), who attempt to rob the train. The armed guard on the train thwarts the attempt.
Link tries to intervene and is knocked unconscious. The train departs, with Alcutt riding off with Link's bag containing Good Hope's money. Alcutt is wounded as he and the three other robbers flee.
Link revives to discover that he, Sam and Billie have been left behind, many miles from the nearest town. Link leads them on foot to a ramshackle farm, admitting that he lived there years earlier. Link sends the others to wait in the barn, giving Billie his coat to wear. Link enters the rundown house and finds the train robbers hiding inside.
Coaley is suspicious of Link's claim that he simply wants to rest for the night. They are interrupted by ageing outlaw Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb), who is startled to see Link, his nephew, whom he raised to be a killer and a thief. More than a dozen years earlier, in order to go straight, Link abandoned Tobin, and the old man laments that nothing has been the same since. He introduces Link to the others, including Link's cousin, Coaley.
Disturbed by the revelation of Link's true identity, Coaley demonstrates his toughness by shooting Alcutt, who is near death from his wound. Realising the danger of his situation, Link brings Sam and Billie in from the barn and lies to Tobin, telling him that Billie is his woman and also that he purposely set out to find Dock after being left behind by the train.
Tobin reveals his long-held ambition to rob the bank in the town of Lassoo and asserts that Link's return to the gang makes that possible and will breathe new life into them all. To protect the lives of his companions Link agrees to participate in the holdup. After Link and Sam are sent outside to dig a grave and bury Alcutt, an increasingly drunken Coaley decides to force Billie to strip. Her cries alert Link and, when he returns to the cabin, Coaley holds a knife to his throat while continuing to demand Billie remove her clothes.
When she is nearly undressed, Tobin steps in and ends the situation. He tells everyone to go to sleep and sends Link and Billie to sleep in the barn.
Claude Tobin (John Dehner), another cousin, arrives the next morning and is displeased at finding Link there. Tobin rejects the suggestion of Claude and Coaley that it would be best to kill Link and the others. They all depart on the four-day trip to Lassoo in three wagons and two on horseback.
When they make camp on the trail, Link seeks revenge for the brutal treatment of Billie at the ranch and goads the brutal Coaley into a fistfight. Link beats his cousin severely, then forcibly strips him of his clothes as revenge for forcing Billie to strip at the barn. Deeply humiliated, Coaley attempts to shoot the unarmed Link, but Sam interferes and is shot dead instead. Tobin then shoots Coaley dead for disobeying him.
During the trip Billie bemoans the fact that Link is a man worth loving but that she cannot have him. He says he has a wife and two children in Good Hope.
Gary Cooper
With the town of Lassoo in sight, Link volunteers to go in and do the holdup job, secretly hoping that in town he can seek help. Tobin insists that he be accompanied by the mute Trout. It turns out that Lassoo is a ghost town, its bank deserted except for a frightened Mexican woman named Juanita, who has the two at gunpoint when Trout coldly shoots her. Link uses the woman’s gun to kill Trout. He then awaits the arrival of Claude and Ponch. In a drawn-out gun battle, Link kills Ponch first, then eventually and with some regret - because as children the two of them had been fairly close - Claude. As Link leaves town, Juanita's husband is returning. "I'm sorry" is all Link can say to him.
Returning to camp, Link discovers to his horror that Billie has been raped and beaten. He goes in search of Tobin, who is on a cliff nearby. Link calls out to his uncle that he, like Lassoo, is a ghost and is finished, and Link is going to take him in. Tobin starts ranting and firing his gun, and Link finally shoots him and reclaims the bag of Good Hope's money.
Riding back to civilization, Billie tells Link she loves him but, knowing that he intends to return to his home and his family, she is resigned to the fact that she must resume her singing career and go on with life alone.
The film reunited Gary Cooper and Robert J. Wilke, who were adversaries in High Noon.
Production
Development
The script of the film, which was written by Reginald Rose (best known for writing 12 Angry Men (1957)), was based on the 1955 novel The Border Jumpers by Will C. Brown. The title of the film had nothing to do with the novel entitled Man of the West, which was written by screenwriter Philip Yordan. Yordan's novel had been adapted into a film called Gun Glory, which starred Stewart Granger in the lead role. The producer of the film, Walter Mirisch (whose company produced the Academy Award-nominated films: The Magnificent Seven (1960), West Side Story (1961), The Great Escape (1963) and In the Heat of the Night (1967)), assigned director Anthony Mann to direct an adaptation of the novel.
Casting
Stewart Granger was originally considered for the lead role. James Stewart, who had worked with director Anthony Mann in eight movies, five of them westerns: Winchester '73 (1950), Bend of the River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), The Far Country (1954) and The Man from Laramie (1955), eagerly wanted the role. Supposedly, Stewart was extremely upset when Mann didn't give him the script for the film, felt betrayed, and had no interest in working with him ever again, although Mann thought that Stewart would be unfit for the role. Another probable reason why Mann didn't give Stewart the script was that Mann and Stewart had a falling out during the shooting of Night Passage (1957). While Mann and Stewart felt that the script of the film needed some rewrites, Mann wanted a darker edge for the main character of the film and dropped out because Stewart softened up the character and sang a few songs in the final film, as a showcase for his own accordion playing. With Mann out of the picture, James Neilson took over his position as director of Night Passage. For Man of the West, Gary Cooper was eventually cast in the lead role of Link Jones, a former outlaw who is forced to relive his past. This was Cooper's first true Western since 1954's Vera Cruz with Burt Lancaster. He initially felt that he was miscast in the role of the former outlaw because he was twenty years older than the character; Cooper was 56 at the time of filming, the lead character being 36. However, in an interview at the 2008 Cinecon in Hollywood, Mirisch claimed that having just wrapped Love in the Afternoon, he promptly signed Cooper for another picture, which ended up being this one. He stated that they hadn't even considered a director yet, so Stewart was never a factor.
According to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, Cooper, who struggled with moral conflicts in his personal life, "understood the anguish of a character striving to retain his integrity ... [and] brought authentic feeling to the role of a tempted and tormented, yet essentially decent man."
Mann found working with Reginald Rose "a little more difficult, because they had bought his script and they wanted to stick with it, and I didn’t really want to." Mann said "I had to try and break it from its rigidity, which was mostly talk. I would have changed the girl completely, if I’d only driven hard enough. But I wasn’t able to convince the guys who were producing. I eventually convinced Cooper, but by then it was too late." Mann wanted to change the girl to Cooper's wife. "It would have been much more moving. The other girl was stupid, and I hated it, and wanted to change it, and they wouldn’t let me. Just imagine if the wife had to do what she has to do. Then it becomes much more poignant; then he would fight to the death."[4]
Lee J. Cobb (who had starred in 12 Angry Men as one of the twelve jurors) played the role of Dock Tobin. Despite playing the uncle of the main character, Cobb was ten years younger than Cooper. Make-up was applied in an attempt to make Cobb look older than Cooper. The age difference was also obvious with John Dehner, who played a key role as Link's cousin and childhood friend, Claude. Dehner was fourteen years younger than Cooper and it was readily apparent.
Arthur O'Connell played Sam Beasley, a fast-talking gambler, and saloon singer Billie Ellis was played by Julie London. London said this was her favorite movie. Tobin's henchmen Coaley, Trout and Ponch (who rob the train) were played by Jack Lord, Royal Dano and Robert J. Wilke respectively. J. Williams played Alcutt, one of the passengers on the train, and Chief Tahachee was cast as Pio.
Principal photography of Man of the West started and ended in 1958, with a budget of $1.5 million. The film was shot on the widescreen CinemaScope process (which was introduced in 1953) by cinematographer Ernest Haller, who is best known for his Academy Award-winning work in Gone with the Wind.
Gary Cooper did his own horse-riding scenes despite physical pain that he suffered from a car accident years earlier. Chuck Roberson, Jack Williams and Jack N. Young were the stunt performers for the film.
During a snow storm, Mann observed Cooper's eyes, which fascinated him: "It's all in the eyes. The heroes, all the stars the public loves, have very light blue eyes or green eyes....The eyes reflect the inner flame that animates the heroes. The guys with dark eyes play supporting roles or become character actors."
Themes
Canadian film critic Robin Wood noted that Man of the West is director Anthony Mann's version of William Shakespeare's play King Lear, whose elements appeared in The Furies with Walter Huston, The Naked Spur and The Man From Laramie, with its sense of emotional whirlwind, and an older order crumbling. Man of the West, like most Mann films, is a tale of redemption. We are asked to consider the essential monstrousness of the hero, and whether redemption is a tenable idea. The noble frontiersman is made the Other, and one not very deserving of sympathy, a savage whose past ghoulishness seems unimaginable. Wood also noted that the film looks down the road to the contemporary horror film: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) and The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977), with their savage clans and desiccated American wasteland.[6]
Reception
When first released, the film was largely ignored by American critics, though renowned French critic Jean-Luc Godard regarded it as the best film released that year, writing that "each shot of Man of the West gives one the impression that Anthony Mann is reinventing the western, exactly as Matisse’s portraits reinvent the features of Piero della Francesca...In other words, he both shows and demonstrates, innovates and copies, criticizes and creates."[7]Howard Thompson, in The New York Times, gave it one of the few raves in the mainstream press.[8]Variety's Powe called it "uneven but often powerful".[9]
In the decades since the film's release, it has garnered a cult following as well as considerably greater acclaim. Some, such as The Guardian's Derek Malcolm consider the film Mann's best[10] and a landmark in the western genre's canon. Malcolm included the film in his 2000 list The Century of Film. Critic and film historian Philip French cites Man of the West as Anthony Mann's masterpiece, containing Gary Cooper's greatest performance.[11]Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader also hailed it as a "masterpiece," comparing it to "the grimness of Greek tragedy, its mountains and rock formations often suggesting the silent witness of an ancient amphitheater...the penultimate shoot-out in the ghost town is an appropriately eerie split-level confrontation between two wounded, supine men–one stretched out on a porch at screen left, the other stretched out underneath the porch at screen right, as if he were already buried. It’s a key example of the way that landscape and architecture, people and settings, painting and drama, image and idea, classicism and modernism all merge on Mann’s monumental canvases."[12]
Man of the West maintains a 94% approval rating on the Rotten Tomatoes film website, based on reviews from 17 critics.[13]
"Morally objectionable"
The trade publication Motion Picture Daily reported in 1958 that the National Legion of Decency objected to the content of Man of the West. In its October 3 issue, just two days after the film's release, the daily magazine provides a few examples of the Legion's classification system for judging a Hollywood production's level of "decency":
Two pictures were placed in Class B, as morally objectionable in part for all by the Legion of Decency, which reviewed seven films this week. In the B category are "Man of the West" and "Queen of Outer Space." Objection to the first was explained thusly, "the highly moral nature of this story is substantially marred by excessive brutality and unnecessary suggestiveness." Of "Queen," the group said it contains "suggestive costuming."[14]
James Maitland Stewart, commonly referred to by the public as Jimmy Stewart, was an American actor, military aviator, and poet. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality he portrayed both on and off the screen, he epitomized the "American ideal" in the mid-twentieth century. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors. He received numerous honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1980, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1983, as well as the Academy Honorary Award and Presidential Medal of Freedom, both in 1985.
The Naked Spur is a 1953 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, and Millard Mitchell. Written by Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom, the film is about a bounty hunter who tries to bring a murderer to justice, and is forced to accept the help of two strangers who are less than trustworthy.
Henry Enrique Estrada is an American actor and police officer. He is known for his co-starring lead role as California Highway Patrol officer Francis (Frank) Llewelyn "Ponch" Poncherello in the police drama television series CHiPs, which ran from 1977 to 1983. He later became known for his work in Spanish-language telenovelas, his appearances in reality television shows and infomercials and as a regular voice on the Adult Swim series Sealab 2021.
Lee J. Cobb was an American actor, known both for film roles and his work on the Broadway stage, as well as for his television role in the series, The Virginian. He often played arrogant, intimidating and abrasive characters, but he also acted as respectable figures such as judges and police officers. Cobb originated the role of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman under the direction of Elia Kazan, and was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for On the Waterfront (1954) and The Brothers Karamazov (1958).
The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury in the title role, along with Doug McClure, Lee J. Cobb, and others. It originally aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971, for a total of 249 episodes. Drury had played the same role in 1958 in an unsuccessful pilot that became an episode of the NBC summer series Decision. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute Western series. Cobb left the series after four seasons, and was replaced over the years by mature character actors John Dehner, Charles Bickford, John McIntire, and Stewart Granger, all portraying different characters. It was set before Wyoming became a state in 1890, as mentioned several times as Wyoming Territory, although other references set it later, around 1898.
Anthony Mann was an American film director and stage actor. He came to prominence as a skilled director of film noir and Westerns, and for his historical epics.
Winchester '73 is a 1950 American Western film noir directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea and Stephen McNally. Written by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards, the film is set in 1876 in a variety of famed Western locations and follows the journey of a prized rifle from one ill-fated owner to another, as well as a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive. It is the first Western film collaboration between Mann and Stewart, the first of eight films that they made together, and was filmed in black and white. It is also the first film from which an actor received a percentage of the receipts, a practice known as "points", as compensation.
Roland Young was an English-born actor. He began his acting career on the London stage, but later found success in America and received an Academy Award nomination for his role in the film Topper (1937).
Bend of the River is a 1952 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Julie Adams, and Rock Hudson. Based on the 1950 novel Bend of the Snake by Bill Gulick, the film is about a tough cowboy who risks his life to deliver confiscated supplies to homesteaders after gold is discovered in the region. Bend of the River was filmed on location in and around the Sandy River, Mount Hood, the Columbia River, and Timberline, Oregon. This is the second Western film collaboration between Anthony Mann and James Stewart.
The Far Country is a 1954 American Technicolor Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Ruth Roman, Walter Brennan, John McIntire and Corinne Calvet. Written by Borden Chase, the film is about a self-minded adventurer who locks horns with an evil, corrupt judge while driving cattle to Dawson, Yukon Territory. It is one of the few Westerns to be set in Alaska — others include The Spoilers (1955) and North to Alaska (1960) — although it was not filmed there. This was the fourth Western film collaboration between Anthony Mann and James Stewart. The supporting cast features Jay C. Flippen, Harry Morgan, Steve Brodie, Robert J. Wilke, Chubby Johnson, Royal Dano and Jack Elam.
Royal Edward Dano Sr. was an American actor. In a career spanning 46 years, he was perhaps best known for playing cowboys, villains, and Abraham Lincoln. Dano also provided the voice of the Audio-Animatronic Lincoln for Walt Disney's Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln attraction at the 1964 World's Fair, as well as Lincoln's voice at the "Hall of Presidents" attraction at Disney's Magic Kingdom in 1971.
John Dehner, also credited Dehner Forkum, was an American stage, radio, film, and television character actor. From the late 1930s to the late 1980s, he amassed a long list of performance credits, often in roles as sophisticated con men, shady authority figures, and other smooth-talking villains. His credits just in feature films, televised series, and in made-for-TV movies number almost 300 productions. Dehner worked extensively as a radio actor during the latter half of that medium's "golden age,” accumulating hundreds of additional credits on nationally broadcast series. His most notable starring role was as Paladin on the radio version of the television Western Have Gun – Will Travel, which aired for 106 episodes on CBS from 1958 to 1960. He continued to work as a voice actor in film, such as narrating the film The Hallelujah Trail. Earlier in his career, Dehner also worked briefly for Walt Disney Studios, serving as an assistant animator from 1940 to March 1941 at the company's facilities in Burbank, California. He appeared in Columbo episodes "Swan Song" (1974) with Johnny Cash, and as Commodore Otis Swanson in "Last Salute to the Commodore" (1976). He appeared in a two part episode of Mission: Impossible.
Night Passage is a 1957 American Western film directed by James Neilson and starring James Stewart and Audie Murphy.
Borden Chase was an American writer.
Robert Joseph Wilke was an American film and television actor noted primarily for his roles as villains, mostly in Westerns.
Paul Franklin Dano is an American actor. He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance for his role in L.I.E. (2001) and gained wider recognition for playing a troubled teenager in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). For playing identical twins in Paul Thomas Anderson's period drama There Will Be Blood (2007), he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Tension at Table Rock is a 1956 American Western drama film directed by Charles Marquis Warren and starring Richard Egan and Dorothy Malone. The film stars Richard Egan as a man vilified after killing a famous gunslinger who was a public hero.
The Houston Story is a 1956 American crime film noir directed by William Castle and starring Gene Barry, Barbara Hale and Edward Arnold. It was produced by Sam Katzman for distribution by Columbia Pictures.
Ted Mapes was an American character actor, who was also a prolific stuntman and body double. Born on November 25, 1901, in St. Edward, Nebraska, he moved to Los Angeles in his mid-20s, and entered the film industry in 1929, first as a grip, and then as a stuntman and actor. He doubled for many famous actors, including Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper. His film and television career spanned forty years, during which time he appeared in hundreds of films and television shows, either as an actor, stuntman or body double. After his career in front of the camera ended in 1969, Mapes became an advocate for animal safety in films, working as an observer on sets for the American Humane Association.
References
↑ Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company That Changed the Film Industry, University of Wisconsin Press, 1987 p. 169
↑ "Top Grossers of 1958". Variety. January 7, 1959. p.48. Please note figures are for US and Canada only and are domestic rentals accruing to distributors as opposed to theatre gross
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