The Law and Jake Wade
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Movie Reviews of The Law and Jake Wade
Movie Review: Fairly Standard Plot With Exceptional Screenplay
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Taylor and Richard Widmark make excellent opponents in this tale of an ended partnership, Taylor having gone straight and Widmark a confirmed outlaw. Both Taylor and his fiancee Patricia Owens get abducted by Widmark and company because Widmark wants $20,000 in gold that Taylor buried just before he reformed.
John Sturges directed "The Law and Jake Wade" with the same skill he brought to other westerns. The story moves quickly and use of California desert and mountain locations is outstanding. Unfortunately, some night scenes were filmed using indoor sets which not only don't look real but have painted scenery not geographically compatible with the actual photography. Having pointed this out, I am willing to make allowances.
Richard Widmark had a unique style of villainy--clever sarcasm, slight hesitations in delivery of his lines, and, yes, we do get to hear him giggle a few times a la Tommy Udo from "Kiss of Death". He was also a master of sudden mood changes, going from pleasant to homicidal in a few seconds, and always believable.
As great as the contributions of the stars and director are, I have to give top credit for the success of "The Law and Jake Wade" to screenwriter William Bowers.
Bowers chose to have Widmark's outlaw be a master of dry wit. Bowers later had James Garner speak in much the same manner, albeit as the hero, in "Support Your Local Sheriff". Some of what Widmark says is borderline anachronistic but that only adds to the interest. Widmark's character is not fun--he's actually quite psychotic--but his way with words is still very clever.
Henry Silva is also in this. Like Widmark, he's supposed to be a really nice guy and family man in real life, but you'd never know it to see his movies.
"The Law and Jake Wade" is not a top western classic but it still ranks quite high. It's worth seeing just to find out why Widmark's character never got to go to the Swiss Alps, and has other content to set it apart from usual Western fare.
Movie Review: THE LAW OF A GREAT SCRIPT AND GOOD ACTING
Summary: 5 Stars
The source of this very good film released through MGM on June 6, 1958, was a book written by the incomparable Marvin H. Albert. Mr. Albert has written many westerns (Clayburns) and mysteries (Lady In Cement), with many brought to film (Duel At Diablo & Tony Rome), from novels that are very near classics of the writer's art.
This film was shot on location in California's High Sierra Mountain Range, Lone Pine location, and in Death Valley. Both the filming sites and the actors allow great realism in this western. The 88 minute film was shot in both great color and wide screen.
For Robert Taylor (1911-1969) this film would be one of the better ones he had left to make, with Richard Widmark (1914-2008) having yet a longer string of films to make with some very good ones to come. Neither actor could have had any bad feelings concerning their stellar performances in this film. Both Taylor and Widmark do show their age somewhat in this film, however, their combined performance is a veritable thing of beauty to behold. For one seeing this film for the first time elements of suspense are encountered with the ending scoring a point for the 'good guys' believing in rule of law.
Great story, sustaining suspense, admirable locations, and a plethora of very good actors, help turn this western story into more than just a western. The label 'classic' isn't too far behind this movie. All-in-all, Hollywood seldom did a western any better than THE LAW AND JAKE WADE. Watch it and you will probably understand why I enjoyed this one so much.
Semper Fi.
Movie Review: We were delightfully pleased...
Summary: 5 Stars
Ordering a used movie was not the best idea in our minds, but it made the most sense when compared with other prices. However, when the DVD arived, we were delightfully pleased to find that not only was the case made to look brand new, but the advertising on Amazon about that particular DVD was correct, and it had scarcely any fingerprints at all. It was in tip-top shape!
The movie is one of our family favorites, and we looked long and hard to finally find it again. It is Western story telling at its best, and Richard Widmark gives one of his best classic performances as the outlaw. If you're not already a Robert Taylor fan, you will be at the end of this movie! The last scene at the end, in the graveyard, marks the nature of the entire film, and the ending is happily satisfying. We are a family of 10 that watches an "old" movie every night for family fun, and take it from the folks who have seen them all... this one rates right up on top in the tales of the old west!
Movie Review: The Law And Jake Wade
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent DVD !!!! Sous-titres en français, comme promis !!!! Je suis enchantée de mon achat!!!! MERCI à l'excellent vendeur dont l'envoi fut rapide!!!
Christiane
Movie Review: Seriously underseen and underrated western packs a lot into 86 minutes
Summary: 4 Stars
John Sturges' 1958 THE LAW AND JAKE WADE offers plenty of star power in the presences of Robert Taylor in the title role and Richard Widmark as his nemesis Clint Hollister, truly stunning Cinemascope color photography by Robert Surtees, a solid and literate screenplay by William Bowers (from a novel by Marvin H. Albert), and a wonderful supporting cast that includes Henry Silva and DeForest Kelley in typical if very nicely played henchmen roles. Sturges puts it all together with zest and economy, punching out a compelling story of a reformed bad guy (Wade) having to deal with his past while protecting his fiancee as best he can, all in a very speedy 86 minutes.
The film opens with some lovely shots of the Alabama Hills in California, location for a great many of the most famous westerns of this period including most of the Randolph Scott/Budd Boetticher films which were made at exactly the same time. A lone man on horseback, the usual beginning...it soon turns out to be Wade, who has come to break bandit Hollister out of jail. But Wade and Hollister are no longer friends, and Wade leaves the man a horse but no gun in the middle of the mountains, each man more or less promising to kill the other if they come in contact again. We don't have much more than an hour to go in this taut piece of work, so that'll be soon; shortly after we find out that Wade is actually a marshall in another town, Hollister and his gang come looking for him, and in equally short order they've kidnaped Wade and his fiancee Peggy (Patricia Owens) and are forcing them to lead the outlaws to a fortune in stolen gold.
The bulk of the film is this journey, with the five bandits trying to push Wade into leading them to the money through threats and intimidation against him and Peggy, with Hollister having to keep the younger and less disciplined members of the gang (especially Silva's psychopathic Rennie and Kelley's vengeful Wexler) in check time and again - and having to watch out for the tricky Wade's escape attempts. Eventually the group winds up in a ghost town, but due to some less-than-intelligent gunplay they've attracted the attention of some local Comanches, and so the recovery of the gold will prove to be more complex than it should have been. The ultimate showdown is kept until almost the last moment, by which point the odds aren't what they were at the beginning of the film.
Sturges made more than a dozen westerns, many of them fairly large-scale and prestige productions, over more than 30 years, and why this one isn't among his better-known films is a mystery to me. I guess it lacks the obvious gloss and macho overload of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, and it's not based on a famous story like GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL or HOUR OF THE GUN; but still it strikes me as a film that should be better known. There's a goodly amount of action (Sturges' real forte) for such a short film, and the characters are well-defined enough by the screenplay that he doesn't have to do much to keep them interesting. Romantic complexities weren't the director's strong point, and here he's got a faithful woman who stands by her man but doesn't get in the way of the action or the real story - the history between Wade and Hollister; and Widmark and Taylor although playing pretty much to type are both excellent as the friends-turned-adversaries, and their backstory is painted in just enough detail to be believable and involving.
Really, it's hard to find any serious flaws at all in the thing; perhaps the score (there's no composer credited, so presumably it's all stock music) is a little ordinary but that's about the only "problem" that comes to me. So I guess it really comes down to it not standing out enough amongs the dozens of great westerns of the period. In any case, this strikes me as probably the best of the 8 Sturges westerns I've seen, and while not quite a masterpiece it definitely falls into the must-see category for any serious western aficionado I think. The DVD doesn't have any extras, but it's a nice enough widescreen transfer.
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