Wow, I had never seen this until this weekend. What an underrated film. I absolutely loved it.
It's got a brilliantly simple story, with shades of "High Noon". Poor farmer watches dangerous, charismatic outlaw for the money, and soon finds himself outnumbered and all alone. I had never seen Glenn Ford outside of Pa Kent, so he was a very cool surprise. He's got an innate "goodness" feel to him, that works so well with the really sinister, weasely dialogue he gets. I love the scene in which he's running down Van Heflin's character for not being able to provide for his family. Then they cut to Heflin crying, which surprised me.
The whole thing has a much edgier feel than 1957 would imply. And it's nicely understated for a film from that time as well, even the music feels somber and subdued. A great film, and I really can't wait to see what they do with the remake, seeing as how they've got two fantastic leads in Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.
Question though. As I understand it, Crowe is playing the outlaw, and Bale's the rancher. That works fine enough, but I actually think it would work better the opposite way. Let Bale play the young snake of an outlaw, and Crowe the beaten down rancher.
It's got a brilliantly simple story, with shades of "High Noon". Poor farmer watches dangerous, charismatic outlaw for the money, and soon finds himself outnumbered and all alone. I had never seen Glenn Ford outside of Pa Kent, so he was a very cool surprise. He's got an innate "goodness" feel to him, that works so well with the really sinister, weasely dialogue he gets. I love the scene in which he's running down Van Heflin's character for not being able to provide for his family. Then they cut to Heflin crying, which surprised me.
The whole thing has a much edgier feel than 1957 would imply. And it's nicely understated for a film from that time as well, even the music feels somber and subdued. A great film, and I really can't wait to see what they do with the remake, seeing as how they've got two fantastic leads in Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.
Question though. As I understand it, Crowe is playing the outlaw, and Bale's the rancher. That works fine enough, but I actually think it would work better the opposite way. Let Bale play the young snake of an outlaw, and Crowe the beaten down rancher.
