The Bravados
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Movie Reviews of The Bravados
Movie Review: A moody movie about the morality of revenge
Summary: 4 Stars
A rancher (Gregory Peck) returns to his ranch and finds that his wife was raped and killed. He is told that four men, who are described, did the deed. He rides for months to find and kill them. He hears that the four will be hanged in a certain town, and rides there to see them hung. The four escape the jail and kidnap a girl.
A posse realizes that he has skills and allows him to lead them. He shows his skill by having one of the posse fire a shot at night from time to time to confuse the four outlaws and put them on edge. During the chase the head outlaw rapes the kidnapped girl, kills Peck's neighbor, and takes a bundle of gold from him. Peck separates from the posse and finds the outlaws one by one, and kills all but one. Each swears that neither he nor the other three had anything to do with his wife's murder, but this does not stop him from killing them.
Did these four men kill his wife? How can he know since he was not present? Did he kill the wrong people? What happens to the fourth outlaw?
Movie Review: Awesome Peck Western
Summary: 4 Stars
Gregory Peck always had that solid, rugged character that made his heroes so appealing. Very human but very admirable. In the Bravados, Peck plays a rancher who has been tracking the four outlaws who killed his wife. He finds them in a town about to be hanged. Then, the four escape,and Peck's character is sent after them.
This is a Western with heart, grit, and some surprises, and as Peck's Westerns often did, The Bravados doesn't just feature action, but goes in depth into the heart and mind of its characters. This is one of Peck's best Westerns, and he made two or three of the best ever made, so this is a fine film indeed.
Movie Review: Vengeance is Good
Summary: 4 Stars
This DVD is two-sided, presenting the movie in its proper 2.35:1 aspect ratio on one side, and cropped to full-screen on the other side. The colors, sound, and overall transfer are fine. Peck is strong as a man on a grim mission of vengeance. Boyd is frightening as a psychopath, and Van Cleef, Salmi, and Silva are good as his disciples in evil. Collins is attractive and convincing as a rekindled former love. What Peck's character does is dramatically satisfying and morally justified, prior to a final specious message that is the film's only false step.Movie Review: One of the best Westerns in the old style
Summary: 4 Stars
Although production values have definitely gotten better, this 1958 western revenge story is still very tightly directed by any standards. I think it is one of Gregory Peck's best roles. It casts (a new) Lee Van Cleef and Stephen Boyd as villains; Boyd is chillingly psychopathic. Albert Salmi and Henry Silva (I remember him best as the dope fiend in Sharky's Machine) are "good" bad guys as well. The ending is terrific and packs as much of a whallop as I remembered.Movie Review: The Western Frontier, contrasting the ethereal with the stark
Summary: 3 Stars
Henry King may be among the most symbolically quintessential American of American filmmakers. Compared to the likes of the stylized extrovert John Ford, King is a straightforward director and, thus, remains one of the underrated American symphonists (putting him in good company with forever underrated fellow American symphonists, such as David Diamond and Paul Creston). "Twelve O' Clock High", "The Gunfighter" and "The Bravados" are integral canvases of the American frontier landscape that King made with Gregory Peck, yet the latter two languish in near obscurity.
King collaborated often with Peck, and in Peck King had his best collaborator. Gregory Peck was the real deal. With Peck, one does not have to separate the artist or the persona from the actual person (as one has to with John Wayne). Gregory Peck fit the iconic bill of integrity and nobility on and off-screen and, thus, personifies the best and most honestly masculine qualities in the western, which, along with jazz, is one of the two great American art forms.
Together, King and Peck vividly imprinted these qualities into each film's characterization without flinching from the flaws, warts and frailties which flesh out and give resonance to that characterization. King and Peck had created their previous western "The Gunfighter" eight years earlier. That is a film which deserves all the accolades it has received. "The Bravados" has even less a reputation. It is a very different film than "The Gunfighter", yet it deserve a wider audience. While "The Gunfighter" was shot in stark black and white, "The Bravados" benefits greatly from Leon Shamroy's sense of composition and ethereal blue filters. On the surface, "The Bravados", at first, seems to be another standard revenge film, but it is the juxtaposition of faith and violence that gives this film its tensioned individuality. Here again, we have the authenticity of Peck, the off-screen man of a deep Catholic faith, that informs his role, imbuing it with a striking inner intensity. Peck conveys emotions with expertly gauged skill, acting with his eyes and internal hesitancy. He stops short of speaking several times. Peck makes this a remarkable role.
Then, in direct contrast, is Joan Collins. As the old flame, Collins was still fairly early in her career, and it shows. Despite her reputation, Collins did sharpen her acting skills considerably, but that is not in evidence here. In several scenes, such as her initial reunion with Peck, discovering his past via a local priest, and her pleading with him to take revenge, Collins registers stiffness. Her part is underwritten and awkward, rendering it as, mostly, one of decor, which she does succeed in filling out. Still, Peck's attraction to her never registers.
Future Stooge Joe DeRita is quite good in his eccentric characterization. His is a small role, but he fleshes it out with personality, making one wish he had gone this route instead. Of the four antagonists, only Stephen Boyd and Henry Silva have any real personality. Boyd vividly registers as a real, slimy threat. Silva employs admirably restrained depth when face to face with his hunter.
The shifting, contrasting landscapes make for interesting, expressionist parallels. The rugged, rocky canyon terrain gives way to an ominous forest in which Peck both murders and escapes murder. A waterfall gives temporary sustenance. A small, claustrophobic cabin houses the ugly, terrible truth. The unrealistically large Catholic parish contains the vast possibilities of sanctuary and redemption, but that is only reached after revelation at the home of the good thief, where Peck is met with surprising hospitality and familiarity of family.
"The Bravados" is a harsh, brooding, tautly paced example of the 1950s western at its most adult. Despite some minor flaws, it is a stand-out in its genre, during the genre's greatest decade.