From Paramount Pictures
Directed by George Stevens
Starring
Alan Ladd
Jean Arthur
Van Heflin
Brandon De Wilde
Jack Palance
Ben Johnson
Edgar Buchanan
Emile Meyer
Elisha Cook, Jr.
Douglas Spencer
John Dierkes
Ellen Corby
Nancy Kulp
In his essay The Westerner, Robert Warshow wrote... Shane was hardly a man at all but something like the spirit of the west, beautiful in fringed buckskins. He emerges beautifully from the plains, breathing sweetness and a melancholy which is no longer simply the westerner's natural response to experience but has taken on spirituality. And when he has accomplished his mission, meeting and destroying a spirit of evil just as metaphysical as his own embodiment of virtue, he fades away again into the more distant west, a man whose day is over, leaving behind the wondering little boy who might have imagined the whole story.
One would be hard-pressed to find a western with more heart than this one. For that reason and a few more, I would consider it to be one of the top three American westerns ever made. It is brought to you by a master director, George Stevens, who had never dallied in the genre except for Annie Oakley in 1935. He would go on, however, to make one of the finest contemporary westerns, Giant.
The gorgeous opening with Wyoming's Grand Teton mountain
range in the background shows a lone rider coming upon the homestead of the Starrett family. Little Joey is playing with his toy gun while his father is outside doing chores and his mother is inside their cabin by the open window singing while she cooks.
Shane quickly learns of a crisis facing the Starretts and their neighbors. A cattle baron and his cronies with an especially vicious sense of entitlement are out to rid the land of the sodbusting squatters who have built homes and put up fences. Shane takes a hearty liking to the family which steers him to joining forces with them and other homesteaders in opposing the bad guys.
The changes that will come to all of them are seen through the eyes of a brave and curious little boy, an upfront observer to the bitter struggle between a group of modest but stubbornly bold settlers and vicious killers. Telling the story from the viewpoint of the boy is what raises a well-worn range feud opus to a timeless masterpiece.
It's fun to watch Shane win over the boy and then the mother. Joe Starrett is more suspicious, even wondering if Shane is another henchman out to destroy his life. But he, too, is won over by the sincerity of the handsome loner. In short order it is agreed that Shane will work for Starrett for a spell. There's never much doubt that the stay will not last forever. Shane is informed of the feud with the cattlemen. He has been a gunfighter but is doing his best to include the word retired.
The first time Shane goes into town (without guns) for some work clothes (a shirt and pair of pants cost him less than $2.50), he is not only eyed suspiciously by the town rowdies but threatened about the idea of any return trip. When he does so a bit later in the story, we are treated to one of the great movie fights. In the sparse village of a town, in the saloon that doubles as a mercantile store, Shane beats a hateful cowboy senseless when he is goaded into a fight. Then others gang up on him and then Joe joins in and they are victorious. Little Joey has been watching from under the swinging doors with his dog.
The film is a stellar look at hero worship. I was experiencing it myself when I first saw Shane and that combination of events, real and reel, has always stuck with me.
Joey's mother, Marian, is nursing Shane's wounds when Joey, observing them from his bedroom door, calls her to come to him. You wanna know something, Mother? She sweetly say she does. I love Shane almost as much as I love Pa. That's alright, isn't it, Mother?
Joey is won over easily, of course. His father and Shane cement their relationship with the saloon fight and come to trust one another implicitly. But Shane ingratiates himself with the entire family... including Marian. With each viewing I find more and more subtleties in their unspoken love. It's not a deeply-felt love, perhaps, but it's unmistakably there in glances and intentions. She tells Joey don't get to liking Shane too much, implying that Shane won't stay around, but one knows she's saying it to herself. As she comes to understand her feelings, she tucks her head into her husband's shoulder and tells him to not say anything, just hold me tight.
The saloon fight results in the hiring of a gunfighter, steely-eyed, taciturn Jack Wilson. He'll kill anyone... make him an offer. The cattlemen just want him to kill them all. After one trouble-seeking homesteader gives Wilson a little too much lip, he is evilly shot and killed in the muddy street.
That, in turn, enrages Joe who decides to go into town and settle with the others. Shane knows what we know... Joe may kill one or two but he is unmatched against Wilson and would likely be killed. We know how Shane feels about the Starretts. We know he will one more time strap on his gun and go into town alone but he intends to leave Joe at home. His host has other ideas so the two friends engage in their own rousing fight with Joe getting knocked out from the butt of a gun. Shane and Marian have a thoughtful goodbye. Both know that, one way or the other, Shane won't be back.
The music is keyed (a vivid, western score by Victor Young), the brilliant afternoon sun drenches the buck-skinned cowboy atop his sturdy steed. What he doesn't know is that Joey, the ultimate fight fan who wants to see his hero slay the dragons, is running a fair distance behind him.
Shane walks into the bar and Wilson is standing at the bar waiting. The scene, dimly lit, at first there's a frigid silence and after some manly posturing, shots are fired and Wilson is dead. In short order, a couple of more expire. Joey, surveying it all from under those swinging bar doors, yells to Shane that there is one more guy about to shoot him from the second floor.
The final scene, the one we know is coming, is heart-wrenching. The only one who doesn't really know that Shane is leaving is Joey. Upon hearing it, Joey thinks he can con his hero into returning to his home and they can be one big happy family. We know we have come to the famous Shane, come back moment.
George Stevens was a titan among movie directors. He made some wonderful films in the 1930-40s but it was in the 50's that he enjoyed a trio of masterpieces. As mentioned earlier, Giant came after Shane and A Place in the Sun came before it. Stevens was known for his sharp eye for detail that enhanced a very visual storytelling. His rapport with actors (except James Dean) was legendary.
I discovered Alan Ladd when I discovered movies. He was a hero in his westerns. Later I came to realize he was an unusually sad man and an uncertain actor. What I also came to know was that making Shane was not only the happiest time he ever had making a film but he was never better or ever more celebrated. Knowing that adds a certain something to watching Shane for me.
He said he was never better directed than he was by Stevens who did, in fact, take the time and had the patience to coax an honest and heartfelt performance out of the reticent actor. Prior to Shane, Ladd made a name for himself in film noirs but he was never very popular at Paramount and they never did much to promote him. By the time of Shane's release, Ladd had left Paramount for Warner Bros who put him in one Technicolored western after another, hoping to again capture the Shane magic. It never happened.
Some happiness came from the beautiful Jackson Hole locations where most everyone roughed it, visited one another, laughed, played cards and enjoyed the countryside. By most accounts it was a happy time. Another bit of joy for both Ladd and Heflin is that they became best friends during the filming and it would be so until Ladd's death some 10 years later.
Heflin, another lowkey actor, iron-jawed and sensible, was so watchable in any genre but I loved him in westerns because I felt he, too, embodied the perfect hero. I couldn't imagine anyone better as Joe Starrett.
Nine-year old De Wilde was nominated for a supporting Oscar, a fact of which I am supportive. It was an engaging performance for sure. One always wonders how much cut-and-paste there is in a child performance but Stevens, the actor's director extraordinaire, adored him and worked closely with the little brat. That's said affectionately because he was a terror on the set. He loved spooking the adult actors... his favorite prank was stomping in the muddy street, sending other actors back to wardrobe.
De Wilde gets introducing in the credits, which is somewhat not so. Shane was filmed in 1951, at which time it was the kid's first acting job. But post-production took so long (Stevens was overly meticulous) that the film wasn't released until late 1953 by which time De Wilde had appeared in The Member of the Wedding (1952).
The kid's best buddy on the set was Arthur, who wasn't especially happy making her final film. It probably wasn't anything specific. She just didn't like the movie-making experience. Years later she carped that the reason was because the part had no comedy. True enough. Her long career was full of sparkling comedies with some of her best work under Stevens' direction in The Talk of the Town (1942) and The More the Merrier (1943). She took the Shane role as a favor to her former director. She was what she needed to be in the part but if it's not her best role, it is certainly in her most famous film.
Palance, who had a much bigger role a year earlier in the noir, Sudden Fear, is perfect casting as the slimy killer. Wasn't he always perfect casting in villain roles? He, too, captured an Oscar nomination and as good as he was, I always thought that was a stretch.
Shane is an example of what a slew of polished character actors can do for a film... and I might say especially a western. Elisha Cook Jr., always a marvel, plays a rare good guy although he's the big mouth Palance plugs. Those two in a single scene is another Shane pleasure. Ellen Corby (the grandmother on The Waltons) is Cook's wife. Real-life cowboy Ben Johnson shines as an adversary who changes his tune. Emile Meyer, always bellowing, is ever-menacing as the cattle baron and scary John Dierkes is his brother. And Edgar Buchanan with that froggy voice... a western staple if there ever was one... plays a homesteader who wants to move away.
Despite the fact that a child is at the center of the piece, Shane is actually an adult western. Unlike many westerns it's not about cookie-cutter characters, stalwart but sleeping too long among the cows. We rarely learn much about what's really worth learning about movie characters in this genre. Here, however, we are treated to insights into their feelings and we have a soft spot for their general melancholia. These are, in short, flesh and blood characters.
It's dug deep for a tender and sincere look at family, friendship, teamwork, trust and role models. Something unusual happens in this western... none of the good guys wear guns. There is that one, quick, vicious killing but other disputes are settled with fists.
This is a most colorful western... the use of color is liberally applied courtesy of cinematographer Loyal Griggs who rightfully won an Oscar. The great western outdoors has rarely looked more appealing.
It is a film with no Cavalry, no Indians, no dancehall girls, no lawmen. What it has in spades is as clear a picture as one could want on good v.s. evil... the very heart of every western.
Next posting:
5 "B" westerns I loved
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