Rent The Man from Laramie (1955)

Classic 50s Western - The Man from Laramie review by GI

The 1950s were the 'golden age' of the American western, many of the greatest westerns were made in this decade and this is one of them. Director Anthony Mann made five westerns with James Stewart and this is the last of them. It's epic in scale, shot in beautiful technicolor and blurs the edges of genre convention. Ostensibly this is a revenge narrative but this has film noir overtones and the good guy/bad guy tropes are blurred and conflicted. Stewart plays Will Lockhart who rides into town with a team of wagons and stores for delivery to Barbara (Cathy O'Donnell) the local store owner. But Lockhart has another darker agenda, he's searching for the man responsible for selling rifles to the Apaches who are still running amok and are an ever present threat to the area. Lockhart's brother was a trooper massacred by Apaches with these guns and he's determined to kill whoever is responsible. This is where Stewart exhibits the light and greys of his screen persona. He's all Mr Nice Guy one minute and then seething with repressed anger the next. Soon he comes up against the Waggoman family, run by rancher and patriarch Alec (Donald Crisp), Alec's psychopathic son Dave (Alex Nicol) and the ranch foreman Vic (Arthur Kennedy) and the seeds of Will's investigation begin to take root. There's a pointless love interest with Barbara thrown in and even though by today's standards it's tame there is, for the times, some hard violence including a deliberate wounding of Will and a scene where he is dragged by rope. The narrative follows the classic plot line often found in myth and legend and utilised many times in the western. An outside 'force' arrives to unsettle a community, causes disruption in unraveling evil and then restores the stars quo, riding off with little reward if any. Stewart's Lockhart is the outsider who disrupts the status quo and forces the bad guy out into the open causing everyone's lives to be disrupted but ultimately left for the better. He leaves with no personal gain, in this case not even the love interest. There's much to admire in this film and it's worthy of close viewing to appreciate just how sharp and interesting it is.

Revenge Western. - The Man from Laramie review by Steve

Superior revenge western, which is mainly of interest for the magnificent photography of New Mexico in Technicolor, and especially in the emerging CinemaScope process. Anthony Mann explores these new dimensions with expertise. The muddled narrative prevents this from being a genre classic, but it is visually impressive.

James Stewart stars as the obsessive stranger in town determined to get under the skin of the dominant but fading landowner (Donald Crisp) who makes the law in the region. Plus his sociopathic son (Alex Nichol) and loyal foreman (Arthur Kennedy). Is one of them selling rifles to the Apaches warriors?

And that's an impressive western cast. Maybe Nichol overdoes his performance as a deranged, entitled narcissist, but he lifts the action in his brief screen time. Cathy O'Donnell gets stuck with an underwritten role, the eternal fortune of women in westerns... Still, the laconic, pugnacious dialogue is a strength.

However, the many plot glitches suggest a problem with the screenplay, or in the editing room. The story feels like a loose composite of standard genre scenarios, but of course that's part of the appeal for fans. Stewart and Mann were masters of the '50s western and this looks as spectacular as any.