My Romance with Movies: From the 1950s: The Hanging Tree

1959 Western

From Warner Bros

Directed by Delmer Daves

Starring

Gary Cooper

Maria Schell

Karl Malden

George C. Scott

Ben Piazza

Karl Swenson

Virginia Gregg

John Dierkes

With this film Delmer Daves would step away from his string of acclaimed 1950s westerns. He would not film it in his beloved Sedona nor in Arizona at all. It would be shot in its entirety in Washington State which would stand in for Montana of 1873. He would not work with any of his usual actors. Instead Daves would hire a Hollywood legend at the end of his career and near the end of his life, a beautiful European actress, a renowned character actor and two film newbies.

The story opens with middle-aged Joseph Frail (Gary Cooper), a doctor, gambler, gunslinger and all-around oddball, riding into a small goldmining town (camp would be a fitting description, too) called Skull Creek. He immediately buys a cabin perched atop a cliff, overlooking the entire town (which helps explain the character's remoteness). His place is mere yards away from an old, gnarly oak tree christened the hanging tree by the locals.

At the same time, another newcomer to the town, a young man known only as Rune (Ben Piazza) is seen stealing gold from a sluice by roughneck Frenchy (Karl Malden). Frenchie shoots Rune who nonetheless manages to get away by climbing a hill and winding up at Frail's place. The doctor treats him for his wound and when Rune is unable to pay, Frail tells him he can work it off as his bond servant. Rune strongly resists but Frail tells him he will turn him in if he doesn't do as he's told.

Frail sends Rune all over the place announcing a new doctor is in town. Frail does treat some people but others likely stay away because the good doc comes with an unsavory reputation. There are those who talk about him fleeing Illinois after a mysterious house fire. It doesn't help that Frail is downright unfriendly. In 1873 did people in a Montana mining camp know of a doctor's woes in Illinois? Okay, okay, we'll let it pass.

Ben Piazza as Rune

We notice the doctor is a complicated and tortured human being who is distant, bossy, ungrateful and emotionally damaged. Rune notices it, too. He might have fought the doctor in the beginning but he has taken to liking him and does or says things that we all hope will melt the ice around Doc. But not a chance.

When Rune is asked to join a group of locals to help locate a stagecoach that has been robbed and overturned, he jumps at the chance. They discover the driver and a male passenger have been killed and the passenger's daughter is missing.

The first glimpse of Maria Schell

Frenchy, off by himself, finds Elizabeth Mahler (Maria Schell) unconscious and blinded by her exposure to the sun. She is hauled off to Doc Frail's home. He puts her up at a neighbor's empty cabin and both he and Rune tend to her religiously.

A fair share of the story is focused on getting Elizabeth well. She recovers from her blindness and burns and turns into the beautiful lady from Switzerland that she is. There is no doubt Doc is awfully fond of her though he is incapable of expressing it. No woman in Skull Creek has ever looked like her. These women are broken into two groups... prim, proper and cheerless wives or women brought in to make the men cheerful. The proper ones band together and confront Doc Frail about his improper living arrangement. He takes care of them with a few choice words.

He takes another matter into his hands when Frenchy visits the newly-healthy Elizabeth and puts the make on her. Doc walks in and finds Frenchy bending over Elizabeth. Angrily he throws Frenchy out of the house. Frenchy runs to the saloon with Doc right behind and the latter practically kills the former.

Elizabeth has fallen for Doc but he doesn't respond favorably to her overtures. When she asks what the problem is, he reveals that his wife and his brother, who were having an affair, ended their lives in a murder-suicide. Frail burnt down the house and has forever been troubled, feeling unfit and turning to the life of a loner.

Elizabeth decides to buy a claim and set up a sluice with Rune and (oddly) Frenchy. Unknown to her Doc is financing their operation although she thinks it's because she's sold a piece of expensive (it's not) jewelry to local shopkeeper (Karl Swenson). When everything looks like it's going to fail (and as Frenchy makes another unwanted advance), a large tree topples over and gold is discovered beneath.

Frenchy, who can keep nothing to himself, tells the townsfolk of their good fortune and buys drink after drink for everyone. An alcoholic Bible-thumper, Grubb (George C. Scott), who hates Frail, helps incite a riot and fires are set all over town. When Frail finds out about Frenchy's latest sexual attempt, he confronts Frenchy who attempts to shoot the Doc but misses. Frail kills Frenchy. Now Grubb whips everyone into a frenzy and they all head up the hill to take Doc Frail to the hanging tree.

Actor and director Karl Malden

In the nick of time Elizabeth and Rune arrive with their claim and satchels of gold which they offer to everyone in exchange for Doc's life. It works. Despite the fact that Rune is closer in age to Elizabeth and in love with her, she once again turns to Doc Frail. We know she will go off with him.

The movie is intelligent, intense, abound with symbolism and with a woman as the central character. For a western there is little action although, as in most all the great westerns there is redemption and salvation. Written more of a character study than a traditional western, it is a fine depiction of the nomadic life of those lost and damaged souls in their search for gold.

The rich dialogue likely comes from Wendell Mayes and Halstead Welles who crafted an unusual western from Dorothy Johnson's novel for which she won the Western Writers of America Spur Award. She also wrote two other western stories that would be turned into good films, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and A Man Called Horse.

Also present is some first-rate acting from most of the cast. Cooper forges one of his most complex, and morally ambiguous, if not talkative, characters. His work in the fifties was sketchy at best but this film is among the best of that crop.

Prior to signing on for the film he established his own production company, Baroda Productions, and after The Hanging Tree, the company would produce two more Cooper films, They Came to Cordura and The Wreck of the Mary Deare. The Hanging Tree is generally considered to be the actor's last western but Cordura, though taking place in 1916, feels like a western to me.

Schell was making only her second American film but the first one filmed in the U.S. I didn't detect a wrong move in her acting, a sensitive performance that required her character to go from helpless to rejected to strong and confident. Years ago I read a couple of reviews on this film that said Schell was totally wrong in playing a woman of the west. The film I saw showed a Swiss woman, not of the American west, who moved there and suffered as a result. What was wrong? This actress, no matter the role, always enchanted me with her luminous blonde beauty, her wet, blue eyes and that soulful demeanor.

When Malden played a creep, I found him thrilling to watch, such as here as the selfish, unlikeable miner. He pulled double duty as well. When Daves became ill with an ulcer and had to take time off, Malden filled in as director. Warner go-to director Vincent Sherman also handled some directing chores but only Daves is credited as director.

Piazza had made a Canadian film before this one but he is given introducing status in the credits. Like Schell he plays a sympathetic character... one is always rooting for him. And like her there is growth as he goes from anger and resentment to loyalty and a strong bond. It's also a prominent role. He impressed me as a winning new talent and yet he became essentially a television actor and I never saw him in anything else.

Perhaps I am the only one not impressed with Scott's film debut. I thought he bordered on caricature and his part was not in the slightest necessary to the overall story.

The gifted Max Steiner handled the stirring musical score and Ted McCord and his superb, color cinematography made this an excitingly visual movie.

As said, Daves would not make another western. Interestingly his next film, made the same year as this one, was his most financially successful of them all... A Summer Place.

Here is the film's opening with Marty Robbins singing the Oscar-nominated title song.