The Man from Laramie (1955)

You Scum!

Will Lockhart (James Stewart) leaves his home in Laramie on a mission to find out who was responsible for selling repeating rifles to the Apaches who killed his brother. Landing in Coronado, New Mexico, he finds that most of the territory is owned and ruled by Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp), a fierce patriarchal rancher with one loose cannon son, Dave (Alex Nicol) and another surrogate son, Vic Hansboro (Arthur Kennedy) running the Barb Ranch. As he digs deeper, Lockhart finds he is in the middle of two wars, one of which may eventually conclude his revenge fuelled mission.

The Man From Laramie is the last of the five Westerns that director Anthony Mann made with leading man James Stewart. The only one filmed in CinemaScope, it is a visually stylish picture that is full of brooding psychological themes and boasts great acting and a tight script. It's no secret that Mann, before his sad death, was looking to make a Western King Lear, The Man From Laramie serves as a delicious starter to what would have been the main course. With its family dilemmas and oedipal overtones, Mann's Western is very Shakespearian in tone. That its characters are sumptuously framed amongst a harsh dangerous landscape further fuels the psychological fire; with the landscapes (terrificly photographed by Charles Lang) providing a link to the characters emotional states. So many scenes linger long and hard in the memory (none of which I would dare to spoil for would be new viewers), so much so they each reward more upon subsequent revisits to the film. There's some minor quibbles down the pecking order; for instance Cathy O'Donnell as Barbara Waggoman is poor and contributes little to proceedings, but really it remains a quality piece of psychological work that barely gives us reason to scratch the itch.

Taut, tight and tragic is The Man From Laramie, brought to us courtesy from the dynamite partnership of Mann & Stewart. 9/10

**_Mid-50's Anthony Mann Western with Jimmy Stewart and Arthur Kennedy_**

Jimmy Stewart stars as the titular man who meets a storekeeper (Cathy O'Donnell) while delivering supplies to a Southwestern town in Apache territory. It doesn't take long for him to clash with the rash son of domineering rancher (Alex Nicol and Donald Crisp). Despite the mounting tensions, he stays in town perhaps because he's sweet on the woman, but so is the rancher's formidable foreman (Arthur Kennedy). More importantly, he's searching for the mystery man who's been selling rifles to the Apaches.

Disregarding the hopelessly hokey title song during the opening & ending credits, Anthony Mann's "The Man from Laramie" (1955) is a winning mid-50's Western, the last of five Westerns Mann did with Stewart and easily the best of the latter four. The vast New Mexican landscapes in gorgeous color are magnificent. The compelling story is a little complicated, but not overly so. O'Donnell is winsome as the proverbial girl-next-door.

It runs 1 hour, 43 minutes, and was shot in Taos & Santa Fe, New Mexico.

GRADE: B+

When freight-man “Lockhart” (James Stewart) tries to take some salt from the local flats to trade, he falls foul of “Dave” (Alex Nicol) who just happens to be the wayward son of local boss “Alec” (Donald Crisp). It’s only the intervention of ranch foreman “Vic” (Arthur Kennedy) that enables him to escape with his life, but now bereft of his wagons and his mules, he vows to stick around long enough to set matters straight. “Alec” is a firm but reasonable man, and when he hears of what happened offers restitution, but by now “Lockhart” and the loose-cannon that is “Dave” are at a loggerheads that is going to make the former man’s life, and his friendship with his original employer “Barbara” (Cathy O’Donnell) - who is engaged to “Vic” - pretty hairy. Gradually, as this scenario smoulders away we also begin to discover that the visitor has an ulterior motive, that someone is running guns to the Apache and that “Dave” and “Vic” might know more than they are letting on to either “Lockhart” or the rapidly going blind “Alec”. As you’d expect from a Stewart western, though there’s still plenty of action there isn’t a great deal of killing. This is a more cerebral exercise with a solid story and characterisations from himself, Kennedy and from Crisp that go some way to showcasing an American west that isn’t so wild as it might have been a generation earlier. The cinematography stylishly sets the scene, the dialogue is sometimes quite witty and though I can’t say I loved the conclusion, this is still a characterful story that tells us of a nation maturing into a more law-abiding society.