It’s amazing that as filmgoers we come to know that certain genres and directors have conventions that they are supposed to follow. It can be just as amazing when we see a film that breaks away from these rules to blaze a new trail. I love Westerns, and have a special place in my heart for the Westerns of Anthony Mann, who often seems to be overlooked when the great directors of the genre are discussed. His Man of the West, released in 1958, wasn’t an out-and-out groundbreaking film, but I do believe it helped to pave the way for the revisionist Westerns that would break all of the genre’s conventions in the following decade. Watching it, I questioned why I hadn’t seen it until now – it’s not available from Netflix – but it did feel good to be reminded that there are still gems to be found, even within genres I thought I’d fully combed.
Working from a screenplay by Reginald Rose, Mann manages to skew slightly some of the Western tenets his films had helped to create. To help him do so he employed the talents of Gary Cooper, pushing the star into a performance darker than many of those he’s now remembered for. Mann’s heroes were always men trying to escape or avenge their past, and here Cooper, at 56, has the weathered face to convey the rage boiling just below the surface of Link Jones. Link rides into town with a gun on his hip and a pouch full of coins. He seems mild-mannered enough, and he tries to avoid trouble, but there is something about the way he clams up when the sheriff starts asking him questions. He buys a train ticket to East Texas, and as the locomotive leaves the station we learn that he’s been sent to collect a schoolteacher for his small settlement. When the train stops for wood Link gets out to help, leaving the teacher’s salary and his gun in his carpetbag. Before he can get back on board, the train is robbed by four men on horseback. In the gunfight that ensues the hired guard kills one of the would-be thieves and the others ride away, but not before the engine resumes along the tracks. Link is left behind with a shifty-eyed gambler and a quick-tongued dancing girl, Billie (Julie London). The gambler’s ankle is broken and the nearest town is at least a hundred miles away. Knowing that the small band needs shelter before nightfall, Link decides to lead them to a secluded cabin he knows is nearby. When they arrive his hesitation is evident, and upon meeting the gang inside that just robbed the train, it becomes clear that Link used to ride among their ranks, though most of the faces are new.
A familiar face is their leader, Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb), who once thought of Link like a son. Reunited, he now wants Link to help him with one final job, and he uses Billie, whom Link has said is his woman to protect her from rape, as persuasive collateral to convince his reformed protégé. Both Cooper and Link have to walk a thin line here, the actor needing to slowly hint at the anger that once made his character a murderous scoundrel so that he might pull more weight in the gang. I’ve never seen a Cooper character use violence in the way link Jones employs it.
As the men plan an assault on a corporate bank in the town of Lasso, Billie begins to fall for Link. She knows he has a wife and children back West, but his efforts to protect her are nobler than most dancing girls get from their typical male companionship, and she can’t stifle her feelings. Though Link’s domesticity is unseen, this extra dramatic tension is tangible. Even though I knew that Hays code censors would never allow it, I became enthralled. Could Gary Cooper really cheat on his wife!?
This dramatic strand and many others are the strong points of Man of the West. Though I wanted more interaction between Link and Dock before the Lasso robbery and the film’s final sundrenched showdown, the moments with Cooper and Cobb, playing a man Link calls “Uncle” despite being ten years Cooper’s junior, are valuable as they are. Both men were great actors, but I get the sense here that Cobb was trying to upstage the older thespian. It adds a tone that evidently lends itself well to the tension herein. Also evident is the strong theme of family relations, often found in Mann’s films, even if that family is an adoptive group of murderers.
Unfortunately Mann’s own professional connections weren’t as true. Jimmy Stewart had wanted the lead in this film, but having fallen out with Mann, with whom he’d done several Westerns, they found their differences irreconcilable. Cooper is no downgrade, and perhaps such things happen for a reason. I’m somewhat astounded that this hasn’t become one of his most noted performances, and that the film isn’t more widely acknowledged. The Internet Movie Database notes that without the support of Jean-Luc Godard, who named it his favorite film of the year, the picture might have faded into obscurity. What a tragedy that would have been.
Language: English
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Available for purchase from TCM.com
Grade: 3.5 Hats Off
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