Tag: western

Women’s Justice, by Chrissy Wissler

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆

In the 1880’s, the town of Butte, Montana is a mining boom-town – instead of gold, it’s mostly copper which fuels its economy. The wealth comes at a cost, as the huge amounts of acrid smoke belched from the smelters and plants turns day into night, along with creating perpetually “noxious, disgusting air.” Off the train and into this smog steps Cat, a woman with no shortage of a past. A former prostitute, but also a ranch-hand, her preferred outfit of blue jeans and six-shooter is most atypical for a woman of the times. Almost immediately, she is drawn into the mysterious and suspicious death on the street of another “fallen woman,” Norma. The apparent cover-up goes right up to “Copper Kings” such as Marcus Daly (a real tycoon from that time and place), and it quickly becomes clear that whoever was behind Norma’s demise, is none to happy to find Cat looking into the matter. To find the truth, she’s going to have to navigate her way through both ends of Butte society.

What stands out for me is Wissler’s incredibly verbose style, in which a whack on the shoulder with a plank merits several pages of descriptive prose. There’s one sequence, where Cat returns to the boarding-house where she’s staying, and discovers an unexpected dinner party in progress, when it feels like chapters elapse between the front-door and dining-room. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it’s not like she’s Alexandre Dumas, getting paid by the word. Indeed, it’s often interesting to get a deep dive into Cat’s thoughts and motivations, since she has a past that influences much of her behaviour; not least, a hinted-at violent incident involving her sister, Alice and her abusive husband. But there were times when I would have been happier for the plot to move forward at less of a glacial pace.

There’s no denying the author’s talents at generating the nightmarish world, with its poisonous air, and yawning gulf between the haves and the have-nots. Those like Norma can be pitched from the former category into the latter in a moment – and return is almost impossible. Instead, you can end up in the tunnels below the city streets, a virtual living hell for the lowest of the low. Cat’s history gives her an ability to empathize with the lower classes, while still capable of interacting with their “betters”, though there are times when her abilities seem to come close to telepathy, in terms of reading people. She could probably make a great living as a poker player. And despite the pistol on her hip, the action is limited – she never gets to draw it at all. Even the final face-off with Norma’s killer in those tunnels, entered from one of Butte’s grandest brothels, sees her largely defer to others in the name of justice.

There are some typos and missing words in the text, and I wonder if the word “bum” – as in rear – would genuinely have been used repeatedly by an 1880’s cowgirl. It seems rather too British: surely “ass” or “butt” (not to be confused with Butte!) would have been more likely? But despite flaws, this does remains an evocative depiction of a time and place which feels different from the usual Western fare. And it’s all the better for that.

Author: Chrissy Wissler
Publisher: Blue Cedar Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 2 in the Cowboy Cat series.

Outlaw Women

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★★½
“In which Iron Mae eventually breaks.”

The city of Silver Creek is on the way out, and many of its inhabitants are leaving, including town doctor Bob Ridgeway (Nixon). Originally heading to Kansas City, he is convinced at gunpoint to take up a position instead in “Las Mujeres.” That’s Spanish for “The women,” and is an appropriate name since the place is a gynocratic society, where the ladies are in charge. Top of the heap is Iron Mae McLeod (Windsor), who runs the local saloon and ensures that the the other women in the town are kept safe from exploitation. She does, however, have to navigate the straits between aspirational gambler Woody Callaway (Rober) and outlaw Frank Slater. Ridgeway, meanwhile, because the target of affection for both Beth Larrabee (Balenda), one of Mae’s enforcers, and her big sister and star of the saloon’s show, Ellen. But when all of Mae’s money is about to be transferred out of Silver Creek, and becomes a target for Slater and his gang, romance has to take a back seat.

This was shot in Cinecolor, at a time (1952) when many more expensive productions were still in black and white. That helps up the production value, though it otherwise remains an obviously low budget approach. It’s a shame the makers didn’t quite use that freedom to make something truly subversive. The ending instead manages to be almost cringeworthily patriarchal – particularly following, as it does, a gun-battle in which we see, again, that firearms are the great equalizer, allowing Mae and her gals to play their part in holding off the outlaws. Up until this disappointing coda, it has been a fairly decent romp, with Windsor holding things together effectively. She gets good support from Balenda, as well as Maria Hart, playing bouncer Dora. She casually manages to judo-flip the fastest gun in Silver Creek, after he refuses to give up his gun, while simultaneously disarming him. Dora can also strike a match on her teeth, an impressive party trick for either sex.

Coming in at a brisk 75 minutes, it still manages to waste some precious time, on things like musical numbers by a barbershop quartet called The Four Dandies. tnd The film doesn’t delve into the implications of its idea as far it might. Despite the noble intentions of Mae, Las Mujeres seems little if any different from any other town in the wild West. Though that could be the point, I suppose. I did like the pointed way in which the system – in the form of male-only suffrage – is the tool used by Callway to dismantle Mae’s gynocracy. Though as noted, the ending manages to embarrass the entire film, effectively dismantling the strong portrayal of Mae which we had enjoyed to that point. That aside, there’s no denying the movie remains well ahead of its time, paving the way for probably better entries, such as Johnny Guitar and Woman They Almost Lynched, later in the decade.

Dir: Sam Newfield, Ron Ormond
Star: Marie Windsor, Richard Rober, Allan Nixon, Carla Balenda

Wildflower Bride, by Mary Connealy

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Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆

Barb and I discovered evangelical Christian author Mary Connealy through her Sophie’s Daughters trilogy, partially set in Montana in the years from 1878 to 1884. Several characters who figure in her earlier Montana Marriages trilogy, of which this novel is the third, also play important roles in the later one. So we were interested in their back stories; and when I found this book in a thrift store, it was a natural purchase! (We’ve also just started reading the second installment; long story!) This means we’re reading the trilogy in reverse order; so we started with much more knowledge of the characters’ future than the original readers would have (the read was more like a visit with old friends). However, I’ll avoid spoilers in this review. (Obviously, though, it might contain “spoilers” for the earlier Montana Marriages novels.)

This tale opens in late spring/early summer, 1877, as young Wade Sawyer is awakened by gunfire as he’s sleeping in his small cabin high in the Montana Rockies. The shots come from the nearby small Indian village, which is being massacred by four masked whites. Arriving too late to prevent the deaths of most of the inhabitants, Wade manages to wound one of the fleeing murderers, and finds Glowing Sun, a young woman raised for the past dozen years by the Salish (called Flathead by the whites), ever since they found her alone at about the age of eight after disease killed her white family, still alive. (One of the killers had tried to abduct her, but she slashed his face with her knife and escaped.) Her white name, as she recalls, is Abby, and she and Wade have met previously (as recounted, apparently, earlier in the trilogy), last fall –and were in fact attracted to each other; but she had an Indian fiance at the time, through an arranged engagement. He’s now dead; and when she’s cast out by a surviving matriarch who never liked her (and who blames her for attracting the massacre, assuming that the attackers’ motive was rape), she’s left alone in the world again. Soon after, Wade’s summoned to the bedside of his estranged rancher father, injured and maybe dying; and since he won’t desert Abby, and she believes responding to the summons is his duty, she comes along with him.

Like all Connealy novels, this is a clean “romance” (in the modern-day book trade sense); but it has more going for it than romance (otherwise, I wouldn’t have read and liked it!). For one thing, it’s a perceptive exploration of cross-cultural romance, of the specific clashing cultures of whites and Indians in the late 19th-century West, and an ethically-aware indictment of the former’s treatment of the latter. (Abby doesn’t have much use for the attitudes and practices of a white culture she’s mostly long abandoned, though she hasn’t forgotten the language, and a lot of her criticisms strike home.) It’s also a hard look at the dynamics of a dysfunctional, abusive family –because Wade’s estranged from his dad for good reason!– at co-dependency and how insidious it can be, and what does (or doesn’t) contribute to familial healing. There’s also a decided helping of Western-style mystery, because there’s intrigue afoot on the Sawyer ranch. Who’s behind the outbreak of cattle rustling in the area? And who were the attackers of Abby’s village, and what was their real motive?

Connealy’s a Christian author, whose world-view influences her writing. Christian characters are common in her novels (Red Dawson, a supporting character here, is a lay preacher as well as a rancher). Wade has a sincere Christian faith, as does Abby, fostered in her case by the missionary activity of real-life Jesuit Pierre-Jean De Smet (1801-1873) and his colleagues, who really did have considerable success in their work among the Salish, and whose treatment here is very positive. (The author’s approach to Christian faith is –commendably, IMO– nondenominational, though sectarian rivalries and animosities weren’t nonexistent in the real 19th-century West.) It’s seen here as a genuine source of moral reformation, courage in adversity, and guidance and help in daily life; but though it’s referred to more here than in the later trilogy, I wouldn’t describe this one as “preachy.”

Christian ethics, with its basis in the love commands, also raises a serious issue for reflection, when it needs to be lived out in a violent environment, among people some of whom are perfectly willing to kill you, and others, to get things they want. Wade wrestles with this some, as does Abby –in fact, more so, since while Wade wears a gun and can use it, she’s considerably more combat capable than he is. (She’s also a stronger-willed personality than he is, and the more dominant partner in the relationship –okay, that word’s not a spoiler, any reader knows these two are destined for each other!– and Wade’s willing to recognize that there’s nothing wrong with that.) While she’s not into guns (though if she slugs you in the head with one, you won’t get up for awhile), she’s handy with her knife, and it doesn’t leave her person –unless she needs to throw it. Her personality could best be described as hot-tempered and fierce. The conclusion she comes to is that forcibly defending yourself and others IS morally right, but relishing the damage done isn’t; and she’s honest enough to admit that she needs to work on her attitude in that area. So when the chips are down here, the main question may not be, will our hero rescue the damsel in distress? Given their respective skill sets, it might be, will our tough damsel rescue her guy in distress? :-)

Author: Mary Connealy
Publisher: Barbour Publishing; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Mohawk

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★★½
“A hair short.”

This takes place in upstate New York during the 1812 war between Britain and America, when combatants are courting the Mohawk tribe to join forces with them. The natives are suspicious of both, and won’t commit to either. Working for the British is Joshua (Farren), who is in a slightly odd, three-way relationship with Mohawk warrioress Oak (Horn) and fellow native Calvin (Rain). On the other side is Hezekiah Holt (Buzzington), and his small band of Americans, who are out for redcoat blood. When they blame the Mohawk for murdering some of their number, their violence quickly extends to encompass Oak and Calvin, as well as Joshua. After Oak is left all alone, she goes on the war-path to take revenge on Holt and his men.

Low-budget period pieces are always on shaky ground, because creating genuine period atmosphere typically costs money. This sidesteps the issue by largely taking place in the middle of the woods, thereby limiting costs to a selection of uniforms and other costumes. It is a slightly obvious swerve, and I was also distracted by the sizable presence of WWE wrestler Luke Harper (under his real name, Jon Huber) as one of Holt’s platoon. The main problem, however, is the abrupt switch over to a supernatural theme for the final act. After the film has been thoroughly – and gorily – grounded in reality for more than an hour, it suddenly turns into a native American version of The Crow.

This is a shame, as the story to that point had taken some standard tropes and twisted them in interesting ways. While I’ve classified this as a “Western,” it’s more of an Eastern in terms of its location on the continent, and dates from an earlier era than usual as well. It could easily have become a scenario painted in black and white; instead, it’s considerably murkier, with motivations largely kept under wraps, especially those of Joshua and Oak. The latter, in particular, spends a good chunk of the movie lurking in the woods, with the focus on Holt and his dwindling crew. They’re in particular trouble after their tracker is picked off, giving a decisive advantage of terrain to their enemies.

As noted, it’s enthusiastically messy and brutal, as appears to be a recent trend in the more revisionist of Westerns (hello, Bone Tomahawk). But I was probably expecting more emphasis on Oak rather than Holt, which doesn’t happen until after the shift in tone also mentioned earlier. Horn does deliver a powerful performance, very much quiet and understated, and I’d like to have seen more of it. Given this inner strength, it didn’t seem logical to me for Oak to be bailed out by help from the spirits of her ancestors or whatever, in order to carry out her vengeance. Leaning on this as the story does (and where were these spirits when everyone else was being massacred?), seems a bit of an unnecessary cop-out. Not by any means terrible, yet could certainly have been better.

Dir: Ted Geoghegan
Star: Kaniehtiio Horn, Eamon Farren, Justin Rain, Ezra Buzzington

The Stolen

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★★
“98 minutes robbed from my life.”

Rarely has such promise been so spectacularly and vigorously squandered. For this starts well enough. In 19th century New Zealand, English ex-pat Charlotte (Eve) is settling into a new life with her husband and newborn child. This is upturned when a midnight raid leaves her husband dead and the baby kidnapped. Months later, after everyone else has moved on, she gets a ransom demand in the mail, and she tracks its source to Goldtown. This remote outpost is truly an Antipodean version of the Wild West, a rough-edged mining town run by Joshua McCullen (Davenport). Braving all manner of threats – not least, that the only other women there are prostitutes – Charlotte makes the perilous journey to the frontier settlement in search of her son.

So far, so good. The landscapes and photography on the way there are gorgeous, yet threatening, and Charlotte is built up nicely, possessing a strength and inner steel which belies her “English rose” appearance. Both her late husband, and the guide who accompanies Charlotte (also bringing to Goldtown a batch of fresh hookers!), have laid the groundwork, both theoretical and practical, for her to learn the use of firearms, that great equalizer of force. The foundations were apparently being created for her to put her training to good use, when she finds out what happened to her child.

Then she arrives in Goldtown and the film goes to hell in a hand-basket, almost as soon as Riff Raff from Rocky Horror (O’Brien) shows up to portray the manager of the local brothel, sporting an accent of entirely indeterminable origin. For a good chunk, Charlotte appears to forget entirely what the purpose of her trip is. Even when she remembers, her investigative approach initially consists of little more than roaming the town, yelling at miners about her minor. When the truth about who is behind the abduction is revealed, it doesn’t make much sense: the motive for their acts, in particular, is more “it needed to happen because film,” rather than anything springing organically from the nature of their character.

Eve does makes for a heroine with potential. There’s something of the young Nicole Kidman about her, and it’s a good character arc for Charlotte. She transforms from a passive lady of the manor, to someone forced to sleep in a dormitory with a bunch of whores (the most acidic of whom, the severely mis-named Honey, is played by the film’s writer, Emily Corcoran), and fend off men who, somewhat understandably, believe she is also pay-to-play. However, the film likely reveals the culprit too soon: doing so eliminates what little sense of suspense present, and it’s not hard to guess how things will develop thereafter.

Such speculation will likely be accurate, and the film does at least deliver the expected payoff at the end, in the form of an armed confrontation between Charlotte and the kidnapper. By that point, most viewers will likely have given up caring much, beyond being reminded of New Zealand’s picturesque qualities.

Dir: Niall Johnson
Star: Alice Eve, Jack Davenport, Richard O’Brien, Graham McTavish

A Reckoning

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★★★
“Much calm before the storm.”

Considering how little actually happens here, I enjoyed this considerably more than expected. It kicks off with 19th-century settler Mary O’Malley (Dietrich) being informed her husband has been brutally slain. Despite the warnings of fellow settler Henry Breck (a small role for Lance Henriksen), Mary heads out on the trail through Oregon for revenge, looking for the serial killer responsible. He’s known as “Marrow” (Makely), for reasons which eventually become clear. She encounters Jebediah (Robinson), a bounty-hunter after Marrow who doesn’t appreciate the competition, and Barley (Crow), a trader who offers and receives temporary companionship.

That’s pretty much it, up until the final, inevitable confrontation between Mary and Marrow, where we are reminded again of firearms’ role as a great equalizer. [Dietrich resembles a middle-aged version of Noomi Rapace, all slightly-built and cheekbones; Makely looks like he might have wandered out of a WWE ring] Read the reviews eviscerating this on the IMDb, and you’ll see a lot of people who appear very disappointed with the pacing and lack of action. For once, I wasn’t one of them. I was somewhat forewarned, wasn’t expecting non-stop gun battles or whatever, and was happy for this to proceed at its own, leisurely pace. I will say, it is probably not something you want to watch late at night, admittedly, as it could prove to be a little… too soothing. This likely worked much better in the Saturday afternoon slot where I viewed it, and could appreciate the landscapes as they unrolled.

It helps that the performances are mostly good to very good, with Dietrich’s performance the epitome of “speak softly and carry a big stick”. The film does a particularly solid job of setting up her character, both by her early interaction with Breck, and a subsequent conversation with Diana Maple (Meg Foster, an equally brief role as Henriksen’s), another settler who encourages and supplies Mary on her quest. However, some characters come off as slightly bland, or in Marrow’s case, over-the-top, and whenever the film is not exploring the countryside, the limited resources are painfully apparent. The “town meeting” at the start, for example, appears to take place in front of a bed-sheet, presumably intended to simulate a large tent of some kind. Given this, the amount of wilderness wandering makes considerable sense.

Lee seems to be a one-man film industry out of the Pacific North-west, with two other movies released in 2018 and two more in post-production. [Not sure I’ll exactly be chasing down Bigfoot pic Big Legend though] This one runs a relatively short 80 minutes, and is probably wise to do so. The film may not even be one to which you need to devote your full attention. The scenery is pretty, the cinematography does it justice, and the music fits in with the whole “chill out in the background” vibe. Pop your head up whenever you hear the sound of gunshots, and you’ll be fine.

Dir: Justin Lee
Star: June Dietrich, Kevin Makely, Todd A. Robinson, Kevin Crow

Cassidy Red

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★★½
“Better red than dead. Albeit, only just.”

Josephine “Joe” Cassidy (Eiland) is promised in marriage to Tom (Jenkins), the son of the area’s richest rancher, but her heart actually belongs to Jakob (Grasl), the Indian who is Tom’s adopted brother. The two lovers consummate their relationship when Tom is away, but  the spurned fiancee hatches a long-term plan to get revenge. Years later, after becoming the local sheriff, he uses these connections to frame and execute Jakob for murder. Word of this reaches Joe, who conveniently for the plot is handy with a firearm, because her father (Cramer) was a renowned bounty-hunter, and passed on the necessary skills to her. Dying her hair red – hence the title – she sets out to take revenge on Tom, only for him to reveal that Jakob is not dead… Not yet, anyway.

The structure here is quite convoluted – rather needlessly, I’d say. Not only does it unfold in several different eras, the entire thing is enclosed in wraparound sections, where the story of Cassidy Red is being told, for inspirational purposes, by a piano-player in a brothel to one of the working girls. It’s definitely a case where less feels like it would have been more, with a straightforward chronological timeline working to the film’s benefit, instead of characters dropping in and out. Perhaps the director felt that might have been too simple, for once you peel away the trapping, this is indeed a very straightforward tale of revenge. Is that necessarily a bad thing, though?

This was submitted for Knudsen’s thesis at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, which perhaps explains some of the issues here: on occasion, it certainly does feels as if it was an academic requirement with an earnest Message (capital M used deliberately), rather than wanting to tell its story. The best section is likely the one where Joe is being taught the mechanics of gun-fighting by her father, which is very well written, performed and edited. The result is a sequence that sheds genuine light into the mindset of someone who, for survival, has to be permanently ready to shoot to kill. Given the limited budget here, credit is due for production values which are generally good. It was filmed largely on location at Old Tucson Studios, and that adds authenticity to the 19th-century Arizona setting, which some films wouldn’t have bothered with. 

Other parts, unfortunately, fall short of that, and some are flat-out unconvincing – the scene where Jakob is taken on board as a foster son, for example, seems entirely inexplicable, and they just shouldn’t have bothered, since it’s not something the audience needs to see. It’s a shame, since the central performance is good: however, the two male leads both struggle to be more than forgettable, and that leaves the end result feeling unbalanced on the dramatic level. This sporadic quality is perhaps the biggest problem: there seems a general unevenness of tone and approach, resulting in a film which takes two steps forward, then one back.

Dir: Matt Knudsen
Star: Abigail Eiland, David Thomas Jenkins, Jason Grasl, Rick Cramer

Woman They Almost Lynched

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★★★½
“She’s more cold-blooded than any man I’ve ever seen.”

This Western was released in 1953, and feels decades ahead of its time. It’s set toward the end of the Civil War, in the town of Border City, which sits exactly on the dividing line between North and South. A settlement built on mining, it has remained a neutral zone under strictly enforced rules laid down by Mayor Delilah Courtney, selling lead to both sides for their bullets. As well as Yankee and Confederate soldiers in the area, the picture is complicated by Quantrill’s Raiders, a group of independent (yet generally pro-South) soldiers under Charles Quantrill (Donlevy). [They really existed, and as the film reveals, had some well-known names in their ranks]

Quantrill arrives in town alongside Sally Maris (Leslie), there to visit her brother, Bill, who runs the local saloon. However, tensions are high, since a couple of years earlier, Quantrill had abducted Bill’s girlfriend, Kate (Totter), taking her as his wife. Kate instigates a gunfight in which her husband shoots Bill, and after some doubts, Sally takes over the saloon. But Kate won’t let it lie, and her enmity leads to a gunfight between the women, which Sally wins, although she refuses to finish the wounded Kate off. When the Yankee army rides in, seeking to end Quantrill’s group, she shelters Kate, despite all that has happened. Meanwhile, Sally has fallen for Lance (Lund), a supervisor at the local mine, who is playing a dangerous game as an undercover agent for the Confederacy.

A lot to unpack in a brisk 90 minutes, with a great concept, of which I’d like to have seen more use made. An entire film about Mayor Courtney and her hardcore approach to neutrality (which includes summary execution for anyone she perceives as threatening the balance) would have been worth the watch. But it’s mostly the Sally/Kate dynamic which drives the film, leading to a saloon cat-fight after Kate threatens to start singing Dixie – an incendiary act which could easily trigger a blood-bath. Even more impressively, it escalates into the duel mentioned above (and shown below) – is it the first gun-fight in cinema, solely between two women? It’s a spectator sport, with the rest of the town watching in fascination; the men on both sides simply let things unfold as they may.

Though it’s really Sally’s story, Kate gets the poster and is also the subject of the tagline at the top. Proof, once more, that bad girls have more fun. There was, apparently, a difference in approach between the two actresses, Joan Leslie saying, “Audrey later told me she played the whole thing for farce, while I was doing it straight.” Yet fifties farce turns into female empowerment when viewed through a 21st-century lens, especially when Kate is lamenting her husband’s hold over her, which is positively #MeToo in tone: “At first I fought him. I tried every way I knew to try and escape. And later on, I became just like him.” Yet she’s actually far more of a dangerous wild-card than Quantrill.

I must say, Sally’s transition from straitlaced lady to whorehouse madam is rather jarring, and it’s never satisfactorily explained why she’s such an expert shot. The film never quite manages to recapture the refreshing energy of her duel against Kate; it feels like that should have been the climax, rather than petering out at the end of the war, with everyone joining in a rousing chorus of Dixie. And Totter’s pair of musical numbers appear to have strayed in from another film entirely. Yet the two leads are more than capable of carrying this: it’s especially interesting to note how this foreshadows the similarly-themed, yet much better known, Johnny Guitar, released a year later.

Dir: Allan Dwan
Star: Joan Leslie, John Lund, Audrey Totter, Brian Donlevy

The Quick and the Dead

  By

★★★
“Drawn that way.”

1995 possibly marked a recent low for the commercial appeal of action heroines in Hollywood. December would give us one of the biggest disaster movies of all time, in Cutthroat Island and March saw Tank Girl bomb. Together with this attempt to give the Western a female spin, the three movies had a combined budget of $155 million, but grossed less than $33 million. While Westerns were enjoying a return to popularity in the years after Unforgiven, it was almost as if Sony had learned nothing from Fox’s dud in the same area the previous year, Bad Girls. They instead doubled down on something which was not just a Western, but specifically a pastiche of the spaghetti Western subgenre.

In hindsight, its commercial failure was almost inevitable, even though after Basic Instinct in 1992, Sharon Stone was one of Hollywood’s hottest actresses. So when Sony bought Simon Moore’s script the following year, they approached her to star. She not only came on board as the lead actress, she also became one of the film’s producers, and had no hesitation in wielding that power. For example, she insisted that Sam Raimi – then, largely known only for his work on the Evil Dead trilogy – had to direct it, or she would not be involved. Similarly, she went to bat for then largely unknown actors Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio, going so far as to pay the latter’s salary herself. The subsequent Oscars for both men suggest she had a good eye for upcoming thespians.

Moore was eventually fired, with the studio bringing John Sayles on board. However, Moore was re-hired three weeks before shooting was scheduled to start, due to the movie becoming excessively long: he simply discarded all of Sayles’s changes, and Sony accepted what was basically the original version. However, during shooting, Raimi realized he had an issue. “I came to the studio and said, can you find me a writer? I’ve shot this movie, and the end isn’t quite working… They suggested Joss Whedon, who was doing Buffy, so I met Joss and he saw the movie, and he helped me solve this ending in one afternoon,” adding one more name to the list of future stars who worked on the film.

The concept here is pure gimmick. The town of Redemption lives under the iron hand of Herod (Hackman), who organizes an annual gunfight contest he always wins, partly to flush out anyone who might be plotting against him, mostly because he enjoys it. This time, 15 other entrants are drawn by the $100,000 prize, as well as other reasons. The more or less willing participants include Herod’s son (DiCaprio), former partner Cort (Crowe) and a mysterious woman (Stone), named in the credits as The Lady, actually called Ellen. She has a particular grudge against Herod, since his involvement in the death of her father, though things are more complex than you initially suspect. Getting revenge, however, requires Ellen to get through a tournament increasingly stacked against her.

The Variety review at the time nails the main problem: “Given the inevitability of an Ellen-Herod showdown, despite a couple of twists [Moore] has thrown into the last reel, the film quickly becomes hamstrung by the rigid dramatic constraints imposed upon it by the gun tournament format. No matter how many fancy ways Raimi invents to stage the shootouts, the tedium is quick in coming, and there’s nothing else going on between times to build up suspense, character or interest.” Moore has failed to grasp that while Westerns often climaxed in a gunfight, this does not mean that more gunfights = a better film. They are the full-stop at the end of a cinematic sentence. And like. Those, when. You use them. Too often, the. Results are jarring rather. Than effective.

It’s a shame, because the supporting cast is quite stellar, and deserve better. Outside of those already mentioned, there’s also Tobin Bell, who’d go on to become horror icon Jigsaw in the Saw franchise; Lance Henriksen; Keith David; and, although his scenes were deleted, Raimi’s long-time friend, Bruce Campbell. Seeing the talent which gets rushed in and out of the story in about five minutes makes me wonder if a feature film was the best medium for the idea. It might have worked better as an ongoing television series, each episode telling the back story of the participants and ending in their duel. A rotating series of guest stars would have worked very nicely, with the season covering one of Herod’s contests, leading up to the final gunfight in the last installment.

I’m not certain Stone is perhaps the best candidate for the role, since she seems to think staring really hard is the key to dramatic success. You’d think she might have known better, given apparent action heroine ambitions from relatively early in her career. Even before breaking through to stardom in Total Recall, she was in her fair share of adventure flicks – albeit not very successful ones – such as King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold. Unlike Geena Davis, however, Stone didn’t seem to persist in her efforts: the critical acclaim she received the same year for Casino, pushed her career back toward more dramatic pastures. This therefore stands out as something of an oddity in her filmography.

Time has perhaps been slightly kinder to this than its companions in action heroine failure for the year. Raimi eventually showed an ability to deliver this kind of comic-book spectacle with his work on the Spiderman franchise, and that may have been a better home for his stylistically excess flourishes than this. Naturally, as an Arizona resident, this film now triggers a certain amount of native pride, having been filmed largely around the state, in particular at Old Tucson Studios [unfortunately, a good portion of which burned down a couple of months after Quick was released, forcing its closure for two years] and Mescal, 40 miles southeast of Tucson.

It may not be the greatest Western – or even a particularly good Western. Yet two decades later, it likely remains the biggest production in the genre with a female lead, and as such, it deserves a certain respect. Especially when the commercial failures in recent years of Jane Got a Gun and Woman Walks Ahead, suggest that position at the head of the class probably isn’t going to be under threat, any time soon.

Dir: Sam Raimi
Star: Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio

Johnny Guitar

  By

★★★½
“When a fire burns itself out, all you have left is ashes.”

Despite the male-oriented title, there’s no doubt who the star is: Vienna (Crawford), a former saloon girl who has clawed her way up to owning her own place, on the outskirts of an Arizona mining town. She has inside knowledge of the route the railroad is going to take, and chose her location with that in mind. But there’s stiff local opposition, from those who don’t want the railroad, or who object to her allowing the Dancing Kid (Brady) and his gang, suspects in a stagecoach robbery, to frequent her establishment. Leading those with a dim view of Vienna, is Emma Small (McCambridge), whose brother was killed in the robbery.

Vienna hires her former lover, who goes by the name of “Johnny Guitar” (Hayden) as security, only to be given 24 hours to get out of town by Emma and the disgruntled townsfolk. Matters aren’t helped when the Dancing Kid and his crew raid a local bank. A posse sets out to track them down, and Emma convinces the town-folk that Vienna – unfortunately in the bank at that point – was complicit in the Kid’s crime. The presence of Turkey, a wounded member of the gang who is hiding out in the saloon, doesn’t improve Vienna’s situation.

Crawford is magnificent, utterly commanding the screen with a blistering performance, despite off-screen issues between Crawford and other cast members – a situation not helped by McCambridge’s alcoholism at the time. But she wasn’t alone, Hayden infamously saying afterward, “There is not enough money in Hollywood to lure me into making another picture with Joan Crawford. And I like money.” However, it could perhaps have been worse: the director originally wanted Bette Davis for the role of Emma, but couldn’t afford her. Given subsequent events when Davis and Crawford starred together in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Ray probably dodged a bullet.

Made in 1954, this is a not very disguised parable about McCarthyism and mob psychology: credited writer Philip Yordan often lent his name out to blacklisted colleagues, reportedly Ben Maddow in this case. For example, the Dancing Kid is innocent of the crime of which he’s accused, and driven to commit one as a result – he needs funds to get out of town and escape the lynch-mob. But it’s the scene where Turkey is interrogated by the mob and forced to implicate Vienna, which is the most obvious jab at the then-contemporary political situation. Perhaps the resistance to the railroad is also a metaphor for reactionary conservatism?

This is all largely secondary in terms of modern entertainment, especially when you can watch Vienna spitting out lines like, “Down there I sell whiskey and cards. All you can buy up these stairs is a bullet in the head. Now, which do you want?” In less confident hands, these could easily seem cheesy: in Crawford’s, they become an entirely credible threat. Vienna is a rare character, not only for the genre or the era, but also for her age. The tired veteran gunfighter who simply wants a peaceful life is a common Western trope; it’s just rarely if ever a middle-aged woman. Crawford was 49 at the time of its release, and there’s little or no attempt to play her as younger.

She’s so good, everyone else pales in comparison – and that’s a cast which includes the likes of Ernest Borgnine and John Carradine. Hayden and, particularly, Brady come over as bland, and their subplots are nowhere near as interesting. It’s possible they may simply have been necessary for the fifties, which could have been more than slightly unwilling to tolerate a film with a gun-toting fallen woman as the heroine. As she says, in another great speech, “A man can lie, steal and even kill. But as long as he hangs on to his pride, he’s still a man. All a woman has to do is slip – once. And she’s a tramp!” Tramp or not, she’s still capable of being the most fascinating character in a compelling tale which has, largely, stood the test of time well.

Dir: Nicholas Ray
Star: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady