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The opening crawl mentions historical accuracy, Johnny Mack Brown's eponymous outlaw wears black, is pushing thirty, and packs an Alabama drawl. ("You're not quite as I pictured you," says the Cavalry officer.) New Mexico during the Lincoln County War, small-time ranchers and immigrants on one side and on the other the land baron (James Marcus), Pat Garrett (Wallace Beery) is a gruff mediator. The schoolmarm (Kay Johnson) plays the piano as they warble "the cattle rustlers' song," off-screen shots are heard and Billy sneaks back in to join the chorus. "Killin' rats comes natural to me." Penn and Peckinpah have their mythical versions, King Vidor here takes the camera outdoors so that vast, barren landscapes set off the nascent community and dwarf the characters' vendettas. The extended siege sequence has barricaded homesteaders surrounded by gunslingers and gradually overcome by thirst, in such times the anecdote about the bare maiden in the river just doesn't have the same allure: "Just now, I'd rather drink the water she swam in." A burning barrel rolls down the hill to bring the shootout to a close, the protagonist turns on a music box before blasting his way out and leaping backwards onto a steed. "He's kind of monkeyin' with a buzzsaw, ain't he?" Plenty of grandeur to hint at the lost widescreen version, plenty of strange gags to jolt early-talkie creakiness. The wily prisoner pauses his escape to shoot his nemesis (Warner Richmond) with his own shotgun, and Vidor uses the view from the window and the body on main street for a deep-focus experiment ahead of Renoir. "Keep movin' west, like all killers do." Ford borrows the finale for Stagecoach. With Wyndham Standing, Russell Simpson, Blanche Friderici, Roscoe Ates, and Karl Dane. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |