Warlock
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Movie Reviews of Warlock
Movie Review: "Civilization is stalking Warlock..."
Summary: 4 Stars
The title of this film, Warlock (1959), conjured (no pun intended) up some interesting visuals featuring Julian Sands working some bad mojo magic, but that's a completely different film...the title of this film relates in that it is also the name of the town where most of the story takes place, and what a doozy of a tale it is...directed by Edward Dmytryk (The Devil Commands, Back to Bataan), whose Hollywood career suffered after a run-in with the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee), stars Henry Fonda (My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache), Anthony Quinn (The Guns of Navarone, The Guns of Navarone), and Richard Widmark (Pickup on South Street, The Last Wagon). Also appearing is Dorothy Malone (The Day Time Ended), Dolores Michaels (Five Gates to Hell), Wallace `Mr. Curmudgeonly' Ford (Harvey, The Man from Laramie), Tom Drake (The Cyclops), Frank `The Riddler' Gorshin, who recently passed away in May 2005, and DeForest `He's dead, Jim' Kelley, better known as Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy from the Star Trek television series and subsequent films...you know, it was an exceptional bit of luck for Kelley that Star Trek came along when it did as his film career seemed on a steady decline, his last role prior to becoming `Bones' McCoy was that in the 1972 giant, mutated, killer rabbit flick Night of the Lepus...
The film begins pretty standard enough for a westerner with a gang of armed men riding into town, hooping and a hollerin' with vengeful intent, and quite soon the town of Warlock is without a deputy, which seems to be not an uncommon thing (check out the names on the wall in the jail). Fed up with living in terror, the townspeople decide on hiring a marshal/gunslinger named Clay Blaisedell (Fonda) to clean up the place (s'funny that the men in town outnumber the gang five to one, but still are unable to muster the courage to fight for themselves). His services aren't cheap, and I don't just mean just in the monetary sense. Along with his pay, he also gains exclusive rights to the gambling franchise within the town and his word is law, basically giving him the right to do pretty much whatever he wants, including killing, if it comes down to that...following Clay is his partner Tom Morgan (Quinn), who seems to handle the business of running the faro parlor while Clay is dealing with the `criminal' element. Widmark plays Johnny Gannon, once a part of the rebellious cowboys terrorizing the town, but disillusionment settled in after a particularly nasty business we never see, but is related to us later as Johnny unburdens his conscience. Anyway, after leaving the gang, Johnny becomes a social pariah, accepting the position of deputy (perhaps in a redemptive effort), creating a third faction within Warlock, that of the actual law (the other two being the cowboys outlaws and the hired gun of Clay). Eventually all sides have their various confrontations and all subplots get resolved, but not in the way some might expect...
Reading about this film from the DVD case one would get the impression this is your standard `townspeople hire an outsider to clean up the town' western story, but it goes a lot further than that. There's a good deal of time and discussion spent on `law and order', and how a frontier town might go about getting in on it being civilized despite itself (some of the debate focuses on the virtues of hiring of Clay, as the fear is violence begets violence, especially given his reputation). Thing is, when they hired Clay to be their marshal, they were essentially going outside the law, and possibly setting themselves up in a position of giving a virtual unknown control of the town. The characters of Clay and Tom know their role, and lay it out for the people of Warlock early, pretty much telling them while they're happy that Clay has arrived, once the trouble has been dealt with they will no longer want his presence, and then he will move on to the next town in need. As far as the `homoerotic' subtext between the characters of Clay and Tom it was there, but I wouldn't categorize in any physical sense, more like a co-dependant relationship that gets a lot weird as it's brought out into the light (although Tom's platonic love gets a little blurry, especially when the jealousy creeps in). I thought all the actors did well, and Fonda's always a treat to watch, but there was something lacking in the actually writing. The script was certainly lively, avoiding the cliché and staying within the realm of reality, elevating the film above the hundreds of run-of-the-mill westerns out at the time, but some of the characters seemed a little light, especially those of the women. As far as Widmark, I really enjoyed him in Pickup on South Street (1953) but his character here did little for me, despite Widmark's efforts...it just felt watery and lacking substance. And then there's Anthony Quinn's character of Tom. I thought it a unique, albeit morally ambiguous, character, one slightly miscast with Quinn, but he manages to pull it off despite himself. One of the more interesting characters to me wasn't even a primary but a supporting character named Curley Burne, played by DeForest `He's dead, Jim' Kelley, who actually had a fairly thriving film career going all the way back into the late 1940's. His role is small, but he's got some of the better lines, and makes the most of them. I wouldn't have thought he could pull off a menacing character, but he does, and pretty well. Overall I thought director Dmytryk did well in this sort of epic that isn't an epic (it certainly had enough characters for the standard epic). The going may seem slow after the initial sequences, but this is a professional effort as the foundation is laid before us, and the subsequent build-up is palatable. The story may begin to feel convoluted as more characters are introduced and relationships initially unclear, but the murkiness fades for those with the patience to follow through.
The widescreen (2.35:1) anamorphic picture in this DVD looks very decent, but there did seem a point near the beginning where the colors felt overly saturated (it doesn't last long). The Dolby Digital stereo audio came through very clearly. As far as special features goes, there's a original theatrical trailer for this film, along with ones for The Bravados (1958), Broken Arrow (1950), Broken Lance (1954), Forty Guns (1957), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), and a short, curious Movietone News piece whose only relevance appears to be a two second shot of Fonda at some Hollywood function.
Cookieman108
Movie Review: A pretty exciting law and order Star Western...,
Summary: 4 Stars
The Colt revolver was a tool and the more you study the men who used it at a high professional level the more it becomes obvious that they were also tools, sometimes unwittingly, sometimes (according to Western films) quite the opposite... Necessary tools, necessary men in a very compressed package of American history... They have their brief moment on the stage and then it's time to take their leave, preferably with their boots on, knowing, or not knowing that they've done the job that history actually required, but that history, in fact, won't thank them for it...
Fonda--a quiet dominant personality in Westerns--puts this over perfectly in Edward Dmytryk's 'Warlock,' unpretentious Western... Here Fonda is a professional hired gun brought in specially, and most temporarily, one always feels, to calm down a town plagued by cowboys, some of them with outlaw affiliations...
Every word he says ('I'm a simple man, handy with Colts'), every calculated ploy, shows that he's marvelously clear-eyed about his situation--that today he's wanted, that tomorrow he won't be--because he's an old professional and it's all happened before...
Spruce as spry as ever, Fonda is Clay Blaidsdell, a legendary gunfighter, the ideal professional gunman with great expectations... He is hired, temporarily, by the citizens of Warlock to clean up their town from the outlaws... The movie focuses on his rise when he succeeds in removing the bad guys in a spectacular confrontation, and his fall when he is forced to face his best friend in a showdown...
Fonda brings with him his hero-worshiping right hand and conscience, the ex-killer Tom Morgan (Quinn), who challenges his one-man rule, one vindictive old girlfriend and one loving new flame... When the pair defeats the San Pedro gang, one of its members, Johnny Gannon (Widmark), stays behind and volunteers to become Blaisdell's deputy...
As an uneasy peace settles onto Warlock, the relationship between Blaisdell and Morgan deteriorates when the marshal finds romance with a local girl, Jessie Marlow (Dolores Michaels). Gannon, meanwhile, becomes involved with Lily Dollar (Dorothy Malone), who at one time had been Morgan's mistress and now hates both Blaisdell and him for killing a man she had hoped to marry...
Blond for the only time in his career, Quinn - curious and different as the complex, clubfooted gambler-gunman whose relationship with Clay, leans rather strongly toward homosexuality - made Dmytryk's multi-plotted film somewhat daring for its time... Its complicated story line, working at various levels, and its shadowy psychological innuendos, turned off critics and audiences alike, and from several corners came concern that Dmytryk had carried the 'new convention' Western too far too fast... Nevertheless "Warlock" remains a typical law and order Star Western, well written, pretty exciting, and entirely in the classic mold...
Movie Review: Warlock - A Bewitching Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Suspense, drama, pathos, romance, and action...this Western has them all. A gunslinger and his sidekick are hired by the people of Warlock as Marshall and Deputy to restore law and order to their town which is dominated by a terorising local family. The new Marshall immediately lays down the law. Tension rises as the Marshall has to deal not only with the lawless band of brothers but with the animosity of some of the townsfolk who feel that he has eventually exceeded his authority. One of the brothers rebels with mixed emotions against the family and joins forces with the Law. The climax comes when the some of the citizens of Warlock want to get rid of the man they now consider a tyrant although they initially hired him to free them from an earlier evil. There are powerful performances from Henry Fonda (the Marshall), Anthony Quinn (his sidekick) and Richard Widmark (the renegade brother) with a nice cameo from DeForest Kelley, the future Dr. McCoy of Star Trek fame. One of the great Westerns.Movie Review: Good Western!
Summary: 4 Stars
"Warlock" is a very good film, beautiful scenery, well-acted. Apart from the bigger names--Fonda, Quinn, Widmark--Tom Drake does an excellent job in his role. It's interesting to see Drake as a villain, having already seen him in juvenile, "nice young man" parts filmed during his tenure at MGM, and I believe he was a versatile, underrated actor. Good western, well worth watching.Movie Review: A Great Western
Summary: 4 Stars
"Warlock" is a great classic western with an amazing cast. I am sad to see Dolores Michaels not get billing on the DVD, as she did on the original moive posters. While she retired early from acting, she not only was beautiful, but a very solid actress.