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The title is part of a philosophical articulation in the wilderness, you run for cover or you "keep on going, picking up the pieces." The Ox-Bow Incident informs the opening movement, middle-aged wanderer (James Cagney) and rebellious "ward of the town" (John Derek) mistaken for train robbers (the distant locomotive's steam rises between trees in a choice shot early on) and facing a trigger-happy posse. The fellow becomes sheriff and cares for the broken lad not unlike the son he lost, the future is a Swedish maiden (Viveca Lindfors) and the past is a bandit leader (Grant Withers). "Pretty good at thinking like an outlaw, aren't you?" Having already detonated the Western in Johnny Guitar, Nicholas Ray pieces it back together with a gentle eye for pain and hope, bitterness and perseverance. (Tourneur's ambivalent oaters around the same time run a striking parallel.) Snow-capped mountains dwarf the hamlet, just beyond the woods is a sandy void and there's Jean Hersholt in his final role for the link to Greed. The townspeople are on the staid side but with a propensity for lynching, their celebratory mood is punctuated by a glimpse of lifeless legs dangling from the top of the VistaVision screen. The offbeat details are to be savored—the lawmaker rolls up bills and stores them in his revolver's chamber, "peace officers carry around their own burial money. Custom of the country." Children's chorus in church and explosions in the bank, an engulfing river after the windswept desert. "Lots of fellas live and die without ever having to find out how much of a man they are." Aztec ruins in the climax anticipate the ancient Berber city in Bitter Victory. With Ernest Borgnine, Jack Lambert, Ray Teal, Irving Bacon, Trevor Bardette, John Miljan, and Gus Schilling.
--- Fernando F. Croce |