Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

This 1954 Western is the fourth (of five) to be directed by Anthony Mann and to star James Stewart. It's written by Borden Chase whose cv includes such classic Westerns as 'Red River', 'Winchester 73' and 'Vera Cruz'.  Although this might not be quite in the same class it comes close, one of its virtues being that it's never at all predictable.  It has an unusual setting and for most of  its running time I found it pretty hard to pin down.  We start off in 1896 in Skagway, a town in Alaska, where Jeff (James Stewart) arrives with a herd of cattle, but straightaway the herd is confiscated by a guy called Gannon who has appointed himself the law.   For a bad guy he is surprisingly jovial and he has a grudging respect for Jeff. But he's not amused when Jeff steals the herd back, and he vows vengeance.  In the meantime Jeff takes the herd to Dawson, in Canada, where the small population of goldminers are mighty glad to see him, tired as they are of a die...

This is the first of five Westerns directed by Anthony Mann starring James Stewart, and although I haven’t seen them all (yet) I would be surprised if this isn’t the best. Mind you, it gets off to a sedate start with an opening caption screen that tells us how great the Winchester ‘73 rifle was, followed by a shooting contest to win one of these rifles.  The contest comes down to Lin McAdam (James Stewart) versus Dutch Henry (Stephen McNally), who clearly know and hate each other. Their relationship goes further south when Dutch steals the rifle from Lin after the latter has won it fair and square. This then launches us into the film proper in which we follow the rifle’s journey from one owner to another, all the while knowing that the film must inevitably end with Lin catching up with Dutch. One of the pleasures here is the skill with which the screenplay, cowritten by Borden Chase and Robert L Richards, creates fully fleshed supporting characters, from  Will Geer's Wyatt Ear...

This 1957 Western has a great pedigree: Anthony Mann directed it, Dudley Nichols wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay, Elmer Bernstein wrote the score, and Henry Fonda stars.  Intriguingly Anthony Perkins co-stars, in one of his earliest roles. As with 'High Noon' the sheriff here (Ben, played by Perkins) can't rely on his local townspeople in a crisis.  Unlike Gary Cooper, Ben is new to the job and young and inexperienced, and the crisis takes some time arriving.  The film starts with a bounty hunter, Morgan (Fonda) coming into town to claim his reward, having killed a wanted man.  Everyone is a bit snooty about it, they wanted the bad guy brought in alive so that they could try him - which is ironic given where the film ends. Anyway Morgan has to hang around to collect his reward, and finds lodging with a local widow who is a bit of an outcast owing to her husband being an Indian, and her having a mixed race son, Kip.  Racism is an undercurrent throughout, which...

James Stewart is Will Lockhart, the man from Laramie, in this 1955 Western,  He arrives in a town called Coronado with supplies he is delivering, and so  as to avoid returning home empty-handed he and his men are loading salt from some salt flats when they are interrupted by a local hothead and a load of cowhands.   The hothead, Dave, summarily has Lockhart's wagons burned and his mules shot dead. So OK this is now going to be a film about how Lockhart gets revenge, right?  Well, not exactly.   It is indeed a film about revenge but not in the way it first appears.  The real reason why Lockhart has come to Coronado is to find the person who sold rifles to the local Apaches, because those rifles were used to massacre a cavalry troupe, including Lockhart's brother. This does rather beg the question of why Lockhart needed to come to the town with supplies, and then seemed to be planning to go straight back to Laramie, but best not to worry, the plot i...

This 1958 Western is directed by Anthony Mann, who made several superior Westerns in the 1950s, usually starring James Stewart.   But by the time this film was being cast Mann and Stewart had fallen out and so the leading role was offered to Gary Cooper.  This was despite the fact that the part was clearly written for someone 20 years younger (Stewart of course would also have been far too old). Cooper's character Link is the nephew of Lee J Cobb's character Dock, but given that Cobb is some 10 years younger than Cooper this key aspect of the story never makes much sense. So although the film has a lot going for it, in terms of performances, direction, cinematography, it is always hamstrung by the miscasting of Cooper, albeit that he is typically fine. Anyhow, the early scenes of this film give absolutely no indication of where we are heading. Link is taking the train to Fort Worth with the savings of his community so that he can hire a school teacher, although we are gi...