Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

This 1950 Western starring Gregory Peck really deserves more love;  it's at least as good as the much more acclaimed 'High Noon' with which it bears some similarities. It's about Jimmy Ringo, a gunslinger who would like to put his past behind him, but finds that to be impossible given his celebrity status as maybe the fastest gun in the West.   In the opening scene, a young kid is keen to get into an argument with Ringo just to prove how tough he is.  When he's foolish enough to draw on Ringo that's the end of him. The young punk has three older brothers so now Ringo has to skedaddle.   The next day he ambushes the three brothers and removes their horses, before moving on to Cayenne.  Ringo reckons he has just enough time to carry out his business there before the brothers catch up with him, which creates a ticking clock for the rest of the film. The Marshal in Cayenne is a former partner-in-crime of Ringo's, but even so he wants Ringo to leave town be...

This is yet another film I had been avoiding for no good reason, I just thought it was going to be a silly bit of sub-Freudian psycho-nonsense. But I was reassured from the outset - the makers of this film are not content with simply a caption telling us that this is a real story, they have distinguished broadcaster and journalist Alistair Cooke on screen to tell us directly that this is the case, and have him provide voiceover narration throughout complete with the dates of each important event. The unfortunate person at the centre of the drama is a timid housewife and mother Eve White (played by Joanne Woodward) who, suffering from headaches and blackouts, becomes a patient of a psychiatrist with the sinister name of Dr Luther (played by Lee J Cobb). He uncovers a second personality hiding within Eve White, who is her opposite - extrovert, outspoken, flirtatious, etc, who is dubbed Eve Black (see what they did there?). Whilst Dr Luther is trying to find a way of "curing" Ev...