Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

This 1966 Western, written and directed by Richard Brooks, was well received and has a decent cast.   But halfway in I was feeling rather underwhelmed. For starters the initial setup had been perfunctory: rich old man hires four guys to rescue his wife who has been kidnapped.  I'm supposed to believe that a guy well into his '60s is married to a Mexican beauty half his age, and that she has been kidnapped by a revolutionary-turned -bandit? What was she doing in Mexico in 1917 anyway, when the Mexican Revolution was still a thing? Some of the dialogue didn't land well with me, being a mixture of heavy-handed and pretentious.   And the action scenes were too contrived for my liking. The rescue team comprises a restrained Lee Marvin (the leader), Burt Lancaster (explosives expert), Robert Ryan (good with horses) and Woody Strode (good with a bow and arrow). Only Lancaster, as a cynic and womaniser, has much of a personality.   Anyway I am pleased to repor...

My bible for any film of this era ("The Sunday Times Guide to Movies on TV") is surprisingly lukewarm about this 1953 crime film directed by Fritz Lang, not liking the 'gratuitous violence'. Well, a lot of blood has flowed since that review was written.  Sure, there are a couple of moments here of shocking violence, but they are integral to the story. And what a taut, well-plotted story it is, more than capably performed and directed, with not a moment wasted. Glenn Ford is fine as an honest homicide detective, trying to do his job despite the corruption all around him.  He eventually triumphs, but at a huge personal cost, and only with the help of the splendid Gloria Grahame, as a gangster's moll.   The gangster in question is the psychopathic Lee Marvin, having a whale of a time. Unusually for a film of this period there is some suggestion that Ford's happy relationship with his wife might extend to the bedroom,  or maybe I am reading too much into a couple ...

This is a cross between a Western and a political drama, with rather more talking than action. The bulk of the story relates how an idealistic lawyer, Rance Stoddart (played by James Stewart) defeats Liberty Valance (a rather cartoonish character who Lee Marvin does his best to make menacing) who terrorises the town of Shinbone at the behest of local ranchers, and somewhat for his own perverted entertainment. It is told in flashback by Stoddart, now a Senator, who is visiting Shinbone to pay his respects upon the death of Tom Doniphon (played by John Wayne). In some ways Stewart’s role here has echoes of two roles from films released in  1939:  ‘Mr. Smith Goes To Washington’, in which he plays a naïve Senator, and ‘Destry Rides Again’, in which he plays a pacifist lawman. The central conflict presented is between the idea that justice should be delivered through the rule of law (espoused by Stoddart) and the idea that it can only be achieved through violence (Doniphon’s view)....