WARLOCK

The title is misleading since it turns out that Warlock is not a person but a town. Well, not even a town since legally it’s not entitled to a marshal, which turns out to be an important plot point.

So the town has to make do with a mere deputy sheriff, but unfortunately but in the opening scene the latest holder of this post is run out of town by the McQueen gang, who seem able to terrorise the place whenever it suits them.

In desperation the townspeople decide to appoint themselves a marshal (the law be damned) and they have just the right person for the job in mind: Blaisdale (Henry Fonda) who together with his friend Morgan (Anthony Quinn) go from place to place restoring law and order.  

When Blaisdale arrives he predicts what will happen: at first his efforts will be appreciated but then the locals will begin to fear and resent his position of authority over them, at which point it will be time for him and Morgan to move on.

Events at Warlock however don’t quite follow this pattern, due to several complications.

For starters, Blaisdale takes a fancy to a local pillar of the community, Jessie Marlow (played by an actress some 28 years Fonda’s junior), and decides to marry her and settle down, much to Morgan’s dismay.

Then there’s John Gannon, who used to be part of the McQueen gang but after an horrific incident (the massacre of 37 Native Americans) he has decided to repent of his past misdeeds.  So much so that he volunteers for the thankless job of deputy sheriff, putting him potentially in conflict with Blaisdale who is the unofficial chief lawman in the town.

Gannon is played by Richard Widmark, who surprisingly gets top billing, presumably because nominally at least he’s the leading character even if it is Fonda who dominates every scene he is in.

Finally, into the town comes Lily Dollar (Dorothy Malone), a figure from Blaisdale’s and Morgan’s past.  Her relationship to them turns out to be rather complicated but not that important since she quickly forms a relationship with Gannon, so that she spends the latter stages of the film worrying about his safety, understandably so given that he’s not the fastest with a gun.

There’s no shortage of shootouts in the town’s only street, two of which are highly significant. 

In the first of these, Gannon defeats the McQueen gang with the help of some of the townspeople, indicating that Blaisdale is no longer needed to protect the town.  

In the second, Morgan gets very drunk and picks a fight with Blaisdale, ending with Morgan's death at the hands of his friend.  

Or are they more than friends?  Notwithstanding that Morgan might have had a yen for Lily in the past, or Blaisdale’s relationship with Jesse, many critics have detected a homoerotic relationship between the two.  . 

After all, what seems to push Morgan over the edge is Blaisdale’s desire to settle down with Jesse.  Is Morgan merely upset that he will now have to fend for himself, or is there more to it than that?  It’s certainly a committed and terrific performance by Quinn as someone whose life seems to revolve entirely around his relationship with one other person.

And then there is the quite extraordinary scene when Blaisdale carries his friend’s dead body into the saloon, in which he tears into the townspeople for not showing enough respect.  He kicks away the crutch of an elderly 'judge', forcing him to crawl across the floor, compels everyone to join him in singing a hymn, and ends up setting the whole place on fire.

(Amusingly, right at the start of the film the deputy sheriff rejects an offer of help by pointing out that the town will always need a fireman - how true!)

The person who comes out of all this very badly is poor Jesse.  She gets to learn that Blaisdale doesn’t love her in the most brutal way; when she refuses to accompany him to another town where he can be marshal he simply says that in that case he will just need to find himself another Morgan.

The final image of the film is her forlorn face as she watches Blaisdale leave.

This is an excellent Western, full of complex interrelationships, which is both a gripping story and an exploration of how best to achieve law and order.  

Edward Dmytryk proves yet again what a fine director he was with the right material.