6/14/14 (Part Two): When Legend Becomes Fact, Print the Legend

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1960's films, American Old West, Andy Devine, auteur theory, cinema, classic films, classic movies, Denver Pyle, Edmund O'Brien, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, gunslingers vs lawyers, James Stewart, James Warner Bellah, John Carradine, John Ford, John Wayne, Ken Murray, lawyers, Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, legend vs reality, Liberty Valance, Movies, Ransom Stoddard, senator, Shinbone, statehood, Strother Martin, the law vs the gun, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the myth of the Old West, the Old West, the taming of the Wild West, the Wild West, Tom Doniphon, Vera Miles, Westerns, Wild West, William H. Clothier, Willis Goldbeck, Woody Strode

In many ways, the American “Old West” is just as mythical a location as Tolkien’s Middle Earth or Lewis’ Narnia: composed of equal parts real history, tall tales, folk legends, personal myth-building, self-rationalization and flat-out malarkey, the Wild West has become so absorbed into the fabric of pop culture, by this point, that is hard to say where the stories end and the truth begins. Much of this mythologizing is thanks to the work of American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Peckinpah and Fred Zinnemann, directors who helped shape the public’s opinion of the American Old West as a rough-and-tumble, lawless land where the six-gun was the only jury and where a strong-willed man could carve out an empire with his bare hands. Classic Hollywood Westerns such as Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), Broken Arrow (1950), High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), The Searchers (1956),  Rio Bravo (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Wild Bunch (1969) have long posited the West as just such a brutal, beautiful and untamed wilderness, America’s last refuge against the relentless march of progress and industrialization that swallowed the rest of the nation part and parcel.

Nothing, of course, can withstand the march of time for long and the “Wild West” was no exception. Once the railroad began to unite far-flung settlements into something that resembled a larger community, as well as linking the West with the much much-maligned, industrialized East, it was only a matter of time before the formerly untamed frontier would fall to the natural progress of the modern world. As someone who became one of the mythologized West’s biggest proponents, it likewise fell to auteur John Ford to write its eulogy, once the time had passed. To that end, Ford tolled the funeral bell with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), a film that purported to bring together two of the Westerns biggest stars, John Wayne and James Stewart, even as it brought the curtain down on traditional notions of the Old West.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is structured as a flashback narrative, beginning in the “present-day” and moving backwards in time to show us the events that led us to where we are. In the present, Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife, Hallie (Vera Miles), have returned to the tiny frontier town of Shinbone in order to attend the funeral of one Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Once there, Ransom and Hallie reconnect with old friends, including Shinbone’s former marshal, Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) and Doniphon’s faithful manservant Pompey (Woody Strode). When the local newspaper editor pressures Stoddard for a story concerning his return to the dusty hole-in-the-wall that is Shinbone, Stoddard deigns to give him the full scoop, telling the story of how he first came to Shinbone as an idealistic lawyer fresh out of law school and met Tom, his future wife, Hallie, and the miserable human being that would end up helping Stoddard secure his reputation: the outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin).

Stoddard describes how he came to Shinbone after being waylaid, beaten and robbed by Liberty Valance during a stagecoach holdup. Despite the continued advise of the cowardly Marshall Appleyard and all-around good-guy Tom, Stoddard is determined to bring Valance to justice with the letter of the law, rather than the vengeance of a six-gun. Easier said than done, however, as Valance and his minions, Floyd (Strother Martin) and Reese (Lee Van Cleef), pretty much run the town, keeping everyone scared (including the Marshall) and under the thumbs of the local land barons. When the topic of statehood comes up, Valance and Stoddard end up on opposite sides of the issue: Stoddard knows that statehood will lead to modernization, industrialization and law and order, whereas Valance’s employers know that statehood will spell the end of their unchecked land rights. Neither man will back down, sending everyone in Shinbone, including Tom and his then-girlfriend Hallie, hurtling towards a violent confrontation that will signal the end for some while heralding a bold, new beginning for others. Liberty Valance is the second fastest gun in the territory, however, and Stoddard is the epitome of the “citified dude” – he’ll need more than justice on his side to take on Valance…he’s going to need a guardian angel.

As with any elegy, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is an exceptionally sad film, not only for the events which take place on-screen but for the greater significance that these events held for our society. Although Ford’s film is full of rousing action set-pieces, lots of sharp humor and some nice, broad characterizations (Andy Devine is particularly goofy as the whiny, constantly eating sheriff), there’s a muted, toned-down feel to the proceedings that mark this as the furthest thing from one of Ford’s more “traditional” Westerns, such as Fort Apache or Rio Grande (1950). There’s very little in the way of celebration here, even in those moments where the “good guys” are succeeding (the saloon scene where Tom kicks Valance’s guy right in the face, the statehood representative meeting), since the film seems to be all too aware that these successes will, ultimately, spell doom for the old-fashioned Old West. If Tom Doniphon stands for the traditionally rugged Western settler/survivor, he also stands for the mythologized Western director, as well: whereas artists like Hawks, Ford and Zinnemann plied their trades for a particular mindset in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, auteurs like Peckinpah, Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood were dealing with not only the “death” of the traditional American Old West but also changing audience expectations and perspectives.

Your particular stance on progress and industrialization will probably color your particular view of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as being more or less a tragedy. On the one hand, Ransom Stoddard’s relentless quest to bring law and order, along with the niceties of “polite” society, to the untamed West is a noble (if slightly naive) pursuit. Industrialization in the American West led to a number of irrefutable benefits, such as the proliferation of better medical practices, educational institutions, the creation of a justice system that was wholly dependent on mob justice, etc… but it also led to the marginalization of hard-scrabble folks like Tom Doniphon (and Liberty Valance, if we want to split hairs), folks who would be completely out-of-step in a newly “Easternized” West. After all, this was their land, too, and there’s something inherently sad about the notion that a fundamentally good person like Tom (at least as portrayed in the film) will be allowed to lose everything, including the love of his life, in order to uphold Stoddard’s “new order.”

This notion of “the good of the many vs the good of the few” seems to be foremost on Ford’s mind, as the film makes no bones about the fact that Hallie and Tom were the “truer” couple, whereas Hallie and Ransom are the more “proper” couple. Hallie and Tom’s love is portrayed as passionate, romantic and messy, whereas Hallie and Ransom’s marriage seems to be more convenient, albeit more clinical. This, in micro, is the argument between the messier, more wild and more “authentic” Old West versus the more restrained, civilized and law-abiding “New” West. It’s the cactus rose versus the actual rose…Tom Doniphon’s antiquated notions of right and wrong versus Ransom’s Stoddard’s stubborn reliance on the rules of law and order…the emotion versus the intellect.

While The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is full of great performances, particularly John Wayne’s out-of-place cowboy Jimmy Stewart’s pompous, blowhard but well-meaning lawyer, the film really belongs to Lee Marvin’s dastardly villain: Liberty Valance is easily one of the greatest cinematic monsters to ever slime across the big screen and Marvin brings him to terrifying, shuddering life. He’s able to spit out “dude” with the same venom that others might reserve for “motherfucker” and the scene where he horsewhips Stoddard is as horrifying as something from a fright film. Marvin, ably backed up by Peckinpah mainstay Strother Martin and the one and only Lee Van Cleef, is a true force of nature in the film but he’s anything but a one-dimensional villain. In many ways, he functions as the flip-side to Doniphon’s “noble cowboy” character, showcasing the dark side of the Wild West that made Stoddard’s brand of law and order such a necessary, if game-changing, development in the building of the West.

Elsewhere, on the acting front, Edmund O’Brien provides some welcome comic relief as the besotted local newspaper editor/newly-elected statehood rep Dutton Peabody, while Vera Miles is an expressive, eternally sad presence as Tom Doniphon’s beloved Hallie, who ends up embracing both Ransom Stoddard and the change that he embodies. Truth be told, the only performances that grate a bit are Andy Devine’s ever-foolish Link Appleyard and Woody Strode’s ever loyal Pompey. Devine’s whiny schtick gets old quick, although he has some really nice, emotional beats in the “present-day” part of the film, particularly his quietly lovely scenes with Hallie, whereas Pompey is pretty much a non-entity, serving only to follow around and support Tom without much characterization of his own (the most we get is the rather on-the-nose bit where Pompey is able to remember everything about the Declaration of Independence except for the “All men are created equal” part).

As with all of Ford’s films, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance looks great, a truly panoramic vision of the Old West that still manages to convey a sense of muted sadness. The black and white cinematography, courtesy of William H. Clothier (who shot several dozen other John Wayne Westerns), is always crisp and clear and there’s a typically expert use of directional lighting and shadows, particularly in the climatic scene where Stoddard and Valance face-off in the streets of Shinbone. Fittingly, the film often feels slightly oppressive, as if there’s a hanging sense of doom over everything: it’s the sense of tension befitting something like High Noon but with none of that film’s sense of release. Even after Valance is dead, Doniphon isn’t (personally) victorious and Ford’s film doesn’t seem particularly interested in celebrating his failure to preserve the old way of life.

Despite it’s status as a classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is just as much a character drama or tragedy (Doniphon’s fatal flaw is his inability to change with the times, which ends up being Stoddard’s biggest strength) as it is a traditional oater. While John Ford was responsible for some of the most iconic visions of the Old West put to film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is just a little bit different. Rather than a celebration of a by-gone era and the people who forged a nation, Ford’s opus is a quiet, serious meditation on the unflinching nature of progress, industrialization and the “taming” of the Old West. In any other film, the moment where Ransom and Hallie end up together would be the culmination of their struggles and a source of joy for the audience. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Ford asks viewers not to focus on the “winners” in the foreground, but the “losers” in the background, those men and women, including Tom Doniphon, who triumphed over a harsh landscape but ended up being shot straight in the heart by that most unavoidable of all enemies: the modern age.

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6/14/14 (Part One): That Sparkling Film of Gold

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1960's films, Arthur Hunnicutt, auteur theory, based on a book, Charlene Holt, Christopher George, cinema, classic films, Cole Thornton, drunk sheriff, Ed Asner, El Dorado, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, friendships, George Alexander and the Mellomen, gunfighters, Harold Rosson, Howard Hawks, iconic film scores, James Caan, John Wayne, Leigh Brackett, male friendships, Michele Carey, Mississippi, Movies, Nelse McLeod, Nelson Riddle, ranchers, Rio Bravo, Rio Lobo, Robert Mitchum, romance, Sheriff Harrah, The Big Sleep, The Empire Strikes Back, The Long Goodbye, the myth of the Old West, the Old West, the Wild West, The Wizard of Oz, theme songs, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, water rights, Westerns

If you’re anything like me, selecting one film as your “favorite” is probably a pretty impossible task. My likes can change based on mood, time of day, the weather outside, research I’ve done, other films I’ve seen and conversations I’ve had with other cinephiles. If 100 different people were to ask me the same question, they might receive any of seven or eight different answers, depending on any of the above. Rankings, of course, are a strictly arbitrary construction: if it seems difficult to select your favorite film of all time, try choosing your fourth favorite film of all time…at some point, it all just comes down to a question of personal preference. Truth be told, I don’t know that I could ever come up with a definitive answer to the question, although I’ll make damn sure to take a stab at it on my deathbed. By that time, hopefully, I’ll have been able to make up my mind a little better.

While it may be all but impossible for me to ever choose a “favorite” film, however, it’s a whole lot easier to choose the possible candidates. From my childhood all the way up to the present day, there have been some films that just get more attention from me than others. This group of films (more than five but less than ten…I think) still gets watched on a regular basis, at least once a year if not more often, despite my ever-present desire to continue to see as many new and previously unseen films as humanly possible. Some of this group of films tends to be seasonal (Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978) and Dougherty’s neo-classic Trick ‘r Treat (2007)), whereas others are good to go anytime, anywhere (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Goodfellas (1990)). The one common thread that all of these films share is that I never get tired of them, regardless of how many times I’ve seen them. Each viewing of these favorites bring me some deeper understanding of the films and solidifies my notion that these films are, for better or worse, the very best (at least as far as I’m concerned). If you’ve spent nearly 30 years watching the same film and aren’t tired of it, I think you can pretty much assume you never will be. In this vein, Howard Hawks’ legendary El Dorado (1966) must surely take a position of honor in my list: I first saw the film when I was a little boy and have loved it unconditionally ever since. After 30-odd years, El Dorado is still as fresh, fun, thrilling and fist-raising as it ever was.

I like to think that I’m able to view films with a particularly critical eye but there are still certain movies that produce an almost Pavlovian response in me: Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) get me with their scores, The Man With No Name trilogy and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre get me with their openings and Dirty Harry (1971) gets me pretty much every damn time Eastwood is on-screen. With El Dorado, my adrenaline starts pumping the second the opening kicks in and that glorious theme song, performed so perfectly by George Alexander and the Mellomen, begins. For my money, El Dorado may just have one of the most perfect opening credit sequences in the history of film: as Alexander’s tuneful baritone begins the tune by referencing Edgar Allen Poe’s eponymous poem, we get a series of old-fashioned oil-color paintings that depict various mainstays of the Old West: the range-riding cowboy, covered-wagon riding settlers, stampeding herds of mustangs and dusty twilight landscapes. Alexander’s mellifluous voice continues to rise, creating a truly cinematic moment: you feel not only the history and “reality” of the Old West but you feel the myth and legend, as well. Never mind that the song is absolutely brilliant, perhaps the best Western theme song ever: when combined when the paintings, the tune manages to not only tell a story (in some ways, the whole of the film is in there, writ small) but to flood the viewer with the notion that what we’re about to see is just as much glorious make-believe as it is reference to a real era. Regardless of my mood on any given day, just watching the opening credit sequence for El Dorado is enough to put a smile on my face and keep me humming along for the next 24 hours.

We begin with Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum), the sardonic, dead-eye sheriff of the frontier town of El Dorado. Harrah’s best friend, the plain-talking hired gun Cole Thornton (John Wayne), has come through town in order to go see land baron Bart Jason (Ed Asner) about a potential job. Turns out that Jason wants to use Thornton to help steal water from the MacDonald family, in order to help with his own developments. Harrah talks Thornton out of taking the job and Cole hits the road, leaving behind his “best girl” Maudie (Charlene Holt) and Sheriff Harrah to keep the peace. On the road, Cole is forced to gut-shoot Luke MacDonald (Johnny Crawford) after the startled lookout starts shooting at the gunslinger. After the boy ends up taking his own life, Cole brings the body back to the MacDonald ranch: “Never send a boy to do a man’s job,” he tells the elder MacDonald and he’s right. So right, in fact, that MacDonald’s fiery, take-no-shit daughter Joey (Michele Carey) decides to head-out and wait for Thornton on the road. While her ambush doesn’t kill Cole, as planned, it does leave him with a bullet in his back and plenty of residual pain.

Seven months later, Cole returns to El Dorado and finds the place in a bit of an uproar: Sheriff Harrah has turned into the town drunk (and laughing-stock) thanks to a bad relationship and Bart Jason rules everything with an iron fist. He’s brought in a ruthless gunslinger, Nelse McLeod (Christopher George), to finish the job that he tried to start with Cole. Things aren’t looking too good for Cole, who’s still experiencing pain and loss of feeling from the bullet which is still lodged near his spine. Things get a whole lot better when Cole happens to meet young Mississippi (James Caan), however: Mississippi is a bit of a hot head and is completely wet-behind-the-ears but he’s also whip-smart, fiercely loyal and absolutely lethal with a hunting knife. If he can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a sixgun…well…that shouldn’t be too much of a problem: as Cole points out, you don’t need to aim with a sawed-off shotgun…you just gotta point and shoot. After cleaning up the sloshed sheriff, Cole, Mississippi and Harrah join forces with Harrah’s deputy, former “Indian fighter” Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt), in order to bring down the villainous Bart Jason. The bullets are gonna fly as Cole and his friends seek to bring peace to El Dorado one way or another.

In many ways, El Dorado functions as a remake of Hawks’ own Rio Bravo (1959): the basic plot is the same and many of the characters in El Dorado seem to be slight variations on the characters from Rio Bravo. John Wayne plays, essentially, the same character in both films, while Robert Mitchum, James Caan and Arthur Hunnicutt are just variations on the characters that Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan first established in Rio Bravo. That being said, however, El Dorado is anything but a pale imitation of Hawks’ earlier film. For one thing, Mitchum is miles above Dean Martin as far as acting goes: sorry, Dino, but them’s the facts. When Mitchum was on point, he was pretty much invincible and Sheriff J.P. Harrah might be his best role besides Night of the Hunter (1955). I’ve also got nothing against Ricky Nelson, whose Colorado Ryan is a nice addition to the “naive, wet-behind-the-ears gunfighter” club but compared to James Caan? Sorry, Ricky…lights out on this one. Caan is absolutely fantastic in El Dorado, striking a perfect synthesis of “newbie jitters” and ridiculously self-assured braggadocio.  His plain-spoken, painfully honest declarations would be the highlight of any lesser film but, here, are just another brick in a pretty amazing wall. And as for Brennan versus Hunnicutt? This is a tougher call but c’mon: Bull is such a kickass character that Hunnicutt almost wins by default.

On top of those stellar four, we get a virtual constellation of glittering stars to support them. Ed Asner does villainy up right with the merciless Bart Jason but Christopher George is a revelation as Nelse McLeod, the second-best gunfighter in the area (after Cole Thornton, of course). Coming off as a more handsome, if no less nutty, Willem Dafoe, George is able to make McLeod more than a worthy adversary for Wayne’s Thornton. One of the best moments in the film is the part where McLeod watches in curiosity (and admiration) as the “unarmed” Mississippi steps up to one of McLeod’s men and demands retribution for a previous killing. George could have played the scene any number of ways but the quiet, slightly amused tone to his delivery and his obvious interest in seeing the outcome of the skirmish mark him as a much more complicated villain than simply another “black hat.” Likewise, the part where McLeod tells Thornton that “with two like us in the same batch, sooner or later we’d have to find out who’s faster” is a masterpiece of economy, giving us not only a little good old-fashioned foreshadowing but some great character development, as well. McLeod’s laid-back, if ruthless, attitude also leads to one of the film’s funniest, most tense moments as Thornton has McLeod exit the saloon first, in order to foil Pedro (John Gabriel) and Milt’s (Robert Donner) ambush attempt. His arch, slightly bemused delivery is pitch-perfect, going miles towards establishing his begrudging respect for Thornton.

Phenomenal acting aside, El Dorado is a marvel of filmmaking craft, which shouldn’t be surprising considering that Hawks produced and directed the film. A true film auteur in every sense of the word, Hawks was an amazingly adept filmmaker who, along with John Ford and Sergio Leone (go ahead and shoot me but I’ll be damned if Leone isn’t at least as responsible for the modern Western as his American counterparts) was pretty much responsible for the entire world’s view of the American West during the Golden Age of cinema. Here, Hawks is pretty much flawless: working with legendary cinematographer Harold Rosson, he’s created perhaps one of the finest evocations of the “mythical Wild West” ever put to film. El Dorado would actually be Rosson’s last film, capping off an astounding 51 year career that included such mainstays as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Asphalt Jungle (1951), Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and The Bad Seed (1956). While the photography in El Dorado is absolutely gorgeous, full of bright, vibrant and crystal-clear images, Rosson’s use of lighting really makes everything stand out. Favoring hard, directional lighting, Rosson often produces shots that resemble German Expressionism which, when combined with the beautifully artificial sets, tends to create a real fairy tale atmosphere. It’s heady stuff and none more so than towards the end of the film, where Thornton, Harrah and Mississippi stalk the deserted streets of El Dorado, picking off McLeod’s men one by one.

One aspect of El Dorado that can’t be lauded enough is the excellent, witty script, courtesy of screenwriter Leigh Brackett (Rio Bravo, Hatari! (1961), Rio Lobo (1970), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)). The script is tight and filler-free (at slightly over two hours long, it actually feels like about 90 minutes), full of great dialogue, one-liners and asides. One of my favorite parts of the movie is the scene where Mississippi finally meets Maudie, Cole’s kind-of/sort-of girlfriend. Up to that point, Cole had been pretty tight-lipped about his past, frustrating his young partner’s attempts to get to know him. After laying eyes on the comely Maudie, Mississippi lets out a low whistle: “Well, I found one thing out,” he tells Cole. “What’s that,” the laconic gunslinger snaps back. “You know a girl,” Mississippi replies, without missing a beat. It’s a great moment between Caan and Wayne and but one example of an exceedingly fun script.

In all honesty, I really can’t find enough good things to say about El Dorado: it’s been one of my all-time favorite films since I was a boy (this and Clint Eastwood’s Westerns were the only ones I truly loved, as a boy, and I really couldn’t stand John Wayne until I was much older) and my love and appreciation for the film have never waned. Not only is it my favorite Howard Hawks film, it’s also my favorite John Wayne film and one of my favorite Mitchum and Caan films, which actually says alot. When I went to re-watch the film for purposes of my recent “film festival,” I went into it with the goal of being as critical as possible: it’s often too easy for us to simply accept our childhood loves unconditionally, without giving them proper critical consideration. I was ready to tear the film to pieces: after all, I used to love Clerks (1994) and find it to be absolutely pointless as I approach forty years on Earth.

But then, of course, a funny thing happened: the more critical I became, the better the film held up. The movie looks and sounds gorgeous, is filled with instantly memorable characters, has tons of iconic set-pieces (like Mitchum and his crippled quarry in the saloon) and has some really insightful points to make about friendship and duty. Wayne, Mitchum, Caan and Hunnicut make a perfect team, Asner and George make perfect villains and Michele Carey is one of the most amazing spitfires to ever grace the silver screen. In short, El Dorado is an absolutely perfect film. If I had my way, everyone would be required to see it at least once, regardless of their feelings about Westerns, in general. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. If you’ve seen it in the past, go ahead and watch it again. In many ways, El Dorado represents the very best that “film as entertainment” has to offer: it might not change your life but it may just make it a whole lot happier.

5/31/14 (Part Three): Better Make it Three Coffins

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1960's films, A Fistful of Dollars, Akira Kurosawa, cinema, Clint Eastwood, cult films, Eastwood, Ennio Morricone, favorite films, feuding families, film reviews, films, foreign films, Gian Maria Volonte, gunfighters, iconic film scores, Italian cinema, James Bond, John Wayne, Marianne Koch, Movies, Ramon Rojo, Sergio Leone, Shakespearean, spaghetti Westerns, the Man with No Name, the myth of the Old West, the Wild West, trilogies, Westerns, Wolfgang Lukschy, Yojimbo

As a kid, I was raised on a pretty steady diet of movies…I can’t really recall a time when we were at home and not watching something, to be honest. My parents had fairly wide-ranging tastes, although certain things were pretty sacrosanct: Westerns, musicals and crime films always ruled the roost in our little castle. In particular, my parents loved John Wayne and Clint Eastwood films. Growing up, I was never particularly into Wayne: I’d seen almost all of his films by the time I was a teenager, I believe, but very few aside from El Dorado (1966) and North to Alaska (1960) ever stuck out for me. As I get older, I find myself with a little more appreciation for his body of work, although he’ll never be close to my favorite Western star. Eastwood, however…Eastwood was a different story.

To not put too fine a point on it, I absolutely idolized Clint Eastwood growing up. Not just enjoyed his films, mind you, but voraciously devoured them, sometimes watching the same movies over and over again to the point of rote memorization. There was a certain inherent badassness to Eastwood that always hit me right in the primal center of my brain: I didn’t just love his movies…I wanted to be this dude! It didn’t matter what the films were…Westerns, war movies, cop thrillers, chimpanzee road movies…I loved ’em all, man. The Dirty Harry series will always have a special place in my heart but, for my money, Eastwood was the most unstoppable during his classic run of mid-’60s-’70s Westerns. To this day, I can watch any or all of these at the drop of a hat: A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966); Hang ‘Em High (1968); Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970); Joe Kidd (1972); High Plains Drifter (1973); and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). For this decade+ timeframe, beginning with Sergio Leone’s unbeatable Dollars trilogy, Eastwood, as far as I’m concerned, was the single greatest action star in the world. But it all began with a humble little spaghetti Western called A Fistful of Dollars.

The setup for A Fistful of Dollars is almost Shakespearean in its simplicity: a mysterious, nameless man (Clint Eastwood) wanders into a lawless town and ends up in the middle of a seemingly eternal struggle between two feuding families. In this case, the town is San Miguel and the families are the Baxters and Rojos and each one controls a vital aspect of the town – the Baxters run all of the guns and the Rojos take care of the liquor. As The Man With No Name knows, any town with liquor and guns has got money…and he wants in on the action. Soon, the stranger is pulling strings every which way, inching both clans towards a fiery Armageddon that will see him sop up the remains like soup from the bottom of a bowl. Caught between Sheriff John Baxter (Wolfgang Lukschy) on one end and the feral Ramon Rojo (Gian Maria Volonte) on the other, the stranger is able to find a friend in the enigmatic saloon-keeper, Silvanito (Jose Calvo)…always a good thing when you need someone to watch your back. He even finds a cause, in a way, as the stranger seeks to reunite Ramon’s captive Marisol (Marianne Koch) with her husband and young son. It’s just business as usual in San Miguel, where a man can either get rich…or dead.

Right off the bat, astute viewers will note that the plot of A Fistful of Dollars bears a striking resemblance to Akira Kurosawa’s iconic Yojimbo (1961). While this is pretty obvious, I’ll go a little further out on the branch and suggest another possible influence: the James Bond films, which began with Dr. No (1962). While this may seem a bit odd, think about it for a minute. Consider the highly stylized credit sequence, which features stark red and black silhouettes. Compare The Man with No Name’s offhand, cool demeanor and way with a (subtle) wisecrack to Sean Connery’s portrayal of the British super-spy. Think about the effortless way in which the stranger executes highly complex plans, sort of like Rube Goldberg devices minus the bowling balls. While the James Bond similarities will really come to the forefront in the followup, For a Few Dollars More, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point them out in this one. Truth be told, I’ve been a gonzo fan of both the original Bond films and the Dollars Trilogy for so long, by this point, that I’m a little surprised I didn’t make the connection earlier.

New revelation aside, my biggest takeaway from yet another viewing of A Fistful of Dollars is how really unbeatable the film is. In fact, the only Western that might be better than this is For a Few Dollars More. And, of course, the only one better than that would have to be The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (RIP Mr. Wallach), which looks down on most films from a godly height, Western or otherwise. There isn’t really any aspect of Leone’s classic film that doesn’t work splendidly well, as far as I’m concerned. Eastwood is the perfect hero/anti-hero (although his actions to help Marisol and her family seem to tip him more in the “hero” direction for this outing). The story is streamlined and quick-paced, full of lots of natural wit and some truly funny moments, much of it thanks to Eastwood’s spot-on delivery of some pretty classic quips. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, full of the huge, wide-open vistas that would make The Good, The Bad and The Ugly such an epic film. And that score…yeesh, who could ever forget about Ennio Morricone? Although he’ll always be best known for the iconic score for the final Dollars film (wah wah….wa wa waaaah…), the threads are here and they’re pretty damn glorious.

When all of the elements come together (that amazingly vibrant cinematography, the stirring score, the sight of Clint squinting, cheroot in mouth, finger itching to pull the trigger), they create a sensation that I can best describe as a purely cinematic experience. My adrenaline starts to pump, I mutter things at the screen and, before long, I’m throwing my fists in the air like it was an Iron Maiden concert: I’ve had the same, basic experience when watching these films for the best 30 or so years, without fail. Unlike other beloved films from my childhood that currently have as much relevance as month-old milk (I’m thinking specifically of Clerks (1994), which I can’t even sit through nowadays), my opinion on A Fistful of Dollars (and the Trilogy, in general) has never changed. I loved the film back then and I still love it now. Although I’m able to articulate my feelings a little more eloquently these days (“Clint Eastwood kicks ass!” has been replaced by examinations of the cinematography, dialogue and musical score), I still arrive at the same conclusion: this film kicks ass.

While it’s impossible to completely quantify what works so well about A Fistful of Dollars, I’ll close with one of my favorite moments in the film. Towards the end, as we near the final shootout, Silvanito has been taken hostage by the Rojos and severely beaten. There’s little hope of rescue for him: after all, it’s not like him and the stranger are comrades…they’re just a couple of guys who don’t have any reason to kill each other. Silvanito has no reason to believe the stranger will come to save him, even though he’s kept his mouth shut and given the Rojos nothing regarding the Man with No Name. Suddenly, the stranger appears in the street, stepping from behind a plume of dynamite smoke. Eastwood stands there, wearing that classic serape and hat, a cheroot between his teeth and steel flint in his eyes. Silvanito looks up, just then, squinting to see through swollen eyes. He sees Eastwood and a small smile creases his weary face: help has arrived after all…all hope is not lost. As Eastwood strides forward, my heart soars, like it always does. There is about to be a stomping and it’s going to be an especially righteous one.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what movies are all about. You could argue, of course, but you would be wrong. So very, very wrong.

2/27/14: Big Dude on the Little Prairie

Tags

1950's film, Apaches, based on a short story, Best Supporting Actress nominee, cowboys, Geraldine Page, gunfighters, homesteaders, Hondo, Hondo Lane, John Farrow, John Wayne, Louis L'Amour, Native Americans, the Old West, U.S. Cavalry, Westerns

Taking a break from the barrage of Oscar-related films that I watched at the end of February, I decided to go in a completely different direction with the rather modest John Wayne oater Hondo. This was never one of my favorites as a kid but would time change my perspective? Read on, gentle folk…read on.

If there was one thing that both my parents loved when I was growing up, it was definitely Westerns. We were a very film-centric family, watching dozens of movies over the course of a typical week but Westerns always made up a good portion of the fare. To be honest, I was never a huge fan of Westerns when I was younger, although I was completely obsessed with Clint Eastwood and spaghetti Westerns, by association. I was able to find Westerns that I liked, here and there, and even one that I abjectly adored (El Dorado, still one of my top 5 favorite film ever) but I found the genre rather dull, as a whole, and found little to hold my interest. In particular, I was always less than impressed with John Wayne (aside from his outstanding turn in El Dorado, of course). He was one of my parents’ favorite actors, so I’d probably seen all of his films (at least twice) by the time I was a teenager. Despite that, there were very few that I actually remembered (who could ever forget The Green Berets…), making all of these films ripe for re-examination. After all, if I can’t recall anything about the film, it’s almost like watching it anew, right? In this spirit, I decided to give Hondo another shot and see how adult-me felt about it.

Based on a Louis L’Amour story (one of my mother’s favorite authors) and directed by filmmaking machine John Farrow (48 films in 25 years), Hondo is a modest, unassuming and fairly routine little Western. Wayne plays Hondo Lane, the kind of laconic, sharp-shooting gunfighter hero that L’Amour specialized in. He stops by the ranch of Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page) and her young son Johnny (Lee Aker), a ranch which just happens to be located in hostile Apache territory. Angie says that her husband is away but Hondo is more than welcome to stay for a spell. Sensing something more to the story, owing to the general state of disrepair around the ranch (things are obviously going to shit since the man isn’t around, doncha know) and concerned about the nearby Apache, Hondo agrees to stay on and serves as a surrogate father, of sorts, for precocious Johnny. Hondo is also part-Indian, which makes his relation to the white settlers and the surrounding Apache even more complex.

Trouble enters the picture, however, in the form of Vittorio (Michael Pate), the local Apache chief. When his raiding party comes to Angie’s ranch, Johnny ends up holding them off with a few poorly aimed gunshots, earning the undying respect of the chief and blood-brother status. Since no “blood-brother-son” of Vittorio’s is going to grow up fatherless, Vittorio tells Angie to either produce her absentee husband (even the Apaches think he’s imaginary) or choose a nice, strong Apache warrior to replace him. Producing her husband Ed (Leo Gordon) becomes rather complicated after Hondo ends up gunning down the yellow-bellied lout (he tried to shoot John Wayne in the back, so what, exactly, did he expect to happen?), so Angie replaces him with the next best thing: Hondo. Thrown into the mix, Hondo must now negotiate between the angry Apache, the blood-thirsty U.S. cavalry, a boy who needs a father and a lovely, lonely lady who could really use a fella. Too much to handle? All in a day’s work for John Wayne, son…all in a day’s work.

Overall, Hondo is a decent but largely unexceptional Western that doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from the rest of Wayne’s oeuvre.   The original story’s central conceit, that Hondo is a “half-breed” caught between the world of the whites and Native Americans is fairly underutilized here, producing no more than a few throwaway moments and adding nothing particularly deep to the story. In its absence, we’re left with a fairly routine Western about a rugged cowboy protecting a widow and her kid from outside forces. Certainly nothing wrong with that, but nothing particularly ground-breaking, either.

Wayne is good in the role, as expected, although there’s absolutely nothing save for the occasional attempt at Native American-sounding philosophizing to differentiate this from many of his other roles. If anything, Wayne’s character is still the same old red-blooded, Injun-killin’ character he always played: now, he just pays lip service to a “vanishing way of life,” which seems particularly disingenuous since he’s helping to make it vanish in the first place. His ending statement, after the obligatory big gunfight between the Apaches and cavalry, is to say “End of a way of life. Too bad…it’s a good way of life.” Indeed. The film seems to want to have its cake and eat it, too: the only “good” Indian is still a dead one but at least their killers feel kinda bad about it. It’s an interesting, conflicted notion to have the Apaches serve as both the good AND bad guys: the cavalry does nothing noble whatsoever (they also aren’t particularly good tacticians or listeners), whereas Vittorio and the Apaches are shown to be true men of their word. They still get gunned down, mind you, but at least they never lie about anything.

At the end of the day, Hondo stands as a decent but largely unexceptional Western, one that probably won’t have much value beyond Wayne completists.  The filmmaking is decent, the acting is fine and film clips along at a brisk pace. Nonetheless, while adult-me has a softer perspective, he’s still pretty much in agreement with young-me:  Hondo just isn’t much to write home about.