The Day of the Outlaw
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Movie Reviews of The Day of the Outlaw
Movie Review: Another movie: Day of te Outlaw" in my series of reviews on westerns
Summary: 5 Stars
A review of the movie "Day of the Outlaw." This is my third review of westerns, searching for nuggets on the true history of the west. The director, Andre de Toth, states: this is "a view of pioneer life that isn't as idealized as other films of the day." de Toth "gives us a truly bleak Wyoming winter." It starts out that way and goes down hill rapidly, in a tiny bleak town of Bitters, WY, with a population of only 20 people, including four women. It illustrates how difficult life could be as the country slowly recovered from the civil war, and as the population slowly moved west.
This town is not too small to be absence of any strife. For this area the strife is the classical battle on whether there should be any barbed wire on the range. The key character is Blaise Starrett (by Robert Ryan). He is defined initially as "a ruthless cattleman at odds with homesteaders." However, he is no way a "cattle baron" or as ruthless and evil a rancher as seen in "Open Range." In Bitters, the strife is defined as "trouble between local farmers and the lone cattle rancher over barbed wire fences." Starrett is depicted as "a hard edged rancher who bitterly resents the farmers whose barbed wire fences hamper his cattle drives." He is also bitter as he came to Bitters as a roughneck, about 20 years ago, and who fought to clean up the territory for settlers, only to be "ostracized for his troubles."
As in my other reviews this town comes under total domination by an evil, and mostly ugly, gang of renegades who are on the run after robbing a bank, and drift into Bitters. This gang is "led by a former Cavalry officer named Jack Bruhn (a commanding performance by Burl Ives)." His gang consists of some nasty, dirty and repellent individuals, that "only Bruhn's iron hand keeps them from laying waste to the town, especially its women." However Bruhn is wounded and slowly dying. Starrett senses that the only way to save this town, and particularly the women, is to get this gang out of town (and he just might redeem his reputation, if he can survive the elements and finesse the renegades.). He convinces Bruhn there is a way through the mountains to the west and he can find it. In contrast, if Bruhn dies in Bitters, there will be a terrible massacre, that will be Bruhn's legacy. Starrett wins Bruhn over to his plan, and he and the gang head into the mountains and a winter storm.
This movie relies far less on gunplay than most westerns. Indeed the final showdown, in Open Range, saw what might have been the biggest gunfight ever. Rather, in this movie, it is a battle "between man and the elements."
Movie Review: Bitters, Wyoming
Summary: 5 Stars
Bitters, Wyoming provides the setting for this brutally visualized creation...comes with a daunting, moody, and merciless soundtrack. Performances by Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise and company are pinned to multiple conflictual pairings. From one scene to the next, the physical distance between the characters and their psychological dimensions maneuver amongst individuals and groups. Farmers and Ranchers make up distinct classes at odds with each others stake in the use of available land, the laws handled by them to provide for individual needs for it, as well as, the types of roles that each chooses to play when another, more sinister, company bursts into the picture and reconfigures the parameters of the conflicts that are immediately established from the beginning credits. Multiple viewings are suggested here for the sake of style. This western is layered with complexities and surprises for which there are scarcely any models that lend it justice paying careful attention to the moment balanced with a nicely spaced out direction of time and space. Hint: listening is as much of the experience as seeing. Watch it more than once, it's really great theater. You can't count the ways it physically and emotionally tickles the nerves in true fashion. At the same time, it's as lyrical as Homer, Greek poet, as much as it is as philosophical as-say-Trotsky...Movie Review: Bleak, Startling Exploration of the Human Condition
Summary: 5 Stars
Although this is a Western, filmed in B&W and set in a wintry ramshackle "town" in uncharted Wyoming, it could be anywhere.
In fact at times I thought I was watching a particularly brilliant Star Trek or Twilight Zone episode.
It's clear that the people behind the recent Vampire flick "30 Days of Night" were inspired by Day of the Outlaw too, as there are recurrent images and themes regarding the vampire siege of the town that are lifted from this stark, unflinching drama.
Burl Ives proves once again how great a character actor he was, mixing mano a mano not just with Robert Ryan as the flawed hero but also his men - a gangly group of unbridled id every bit as scary as the bloodthirsty vampires in 30 Days of Night.
Unjustly overlooked and very satisfying.
Movie Review: Superb film, Western "noir"
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Ryan is not usually thought of as a Western actor, but his credits in that genre are numerous and uniformly excellent, from HORIZONS WEST to THE PROUD ONES and the HOUR OF THE GUN, not to mention THE WILD BUNCH. THE DAY OF THE OUTLAW, in stark black and white, is one of his finest, and perhaps the finest directed by the underrated Andre De Toth. Burl Ives makes a superb "baddie," almost along the lines of Donald Pleasants. Set in the snowy high altitudes, the film exudes a superbly shaped "coldness" that is also reflected in the lean dialogue. All in all, a very worthy film, well worth owning.Movie Review: Cold and Nasty
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a grim, taught film, almost more noir than Western, with surprisingly little gunplay but plenty of wide-open nature. The town looks like another blizzard would blow it away, and the snow and the cold do much of the work, e.g. Tex and Starret at the end. The dance sequence is brilliantly violent sexuality barely kept in check, almost a rape sequence. The acting is uniformly excellent, with Ryan and Ives leading, but the henchmen and the townspeople are perfectly presented. Excellent pacing, real tension. First rate.