Product Description
Besides being a terrific movie in its own right--and the second entry in a remarkable eight-film series teaming director Anthony Mann and star James Stewart--Bend of the River is also fascinating as a variation on one of the greatest Westerns. With or without anyone else's knowledge, screenwriter Borden Chase reworked scenes, character configurations, and much of the structure of Red River, the screenplay of which he had cowritten (from his own novel) for director Howard Hawks six years earlier. Seeing what Hawks and Mann did with some of the same scenes--a spooky night skirmish with Indians, for instance--makes for a compelling lesson in the transformative power of directorial style.
Instead of Texas and the Chisholm Trail, Bend of the River is set in the Oregon river country, with a wagon train substituting for an epic cattle drive. Wagonmaster Stewart, a man with a secret past he's determined to redeem, rescues another, not-so-ex-renegade (Arthur Kennedy) from a lynching. Stewart finds Kennedy a powerful ally in a fight but ultimately has to face him as a mortal enemy--and to revert to his old savage ways in order to save his adopted community. Along the trail, they are variously companioned and/or menaced by the likes of slick gambler Rock Hudson (compare the Cherry Valance part in Red River) and hard cases Harry (then Henry) Morgan, Royal Dano, and Jack Lambert. There's knockout scenery, as usual with Mann, and fight-to-the-death action as bracing as a plunge into an icy river. --Richard T. Jameson
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Who are you running away from?
Man-with-a-past Glyn McLyntock (James Stewart) guides a wagon train of settlers to new land in Oregon. They first battle man and mountains to reach the land and later looming starvation when their vital first year supplies are delayed and hijacked by men maddened with gold fever. All the while McLyntock is haunted by his secret past: Can a bad man change? Perhaps more importantly, will others let you change?
Jimmy Stewart and Anthony Mann collaborated on some of the best westerns ever. In them they usually explored the inner demons the main character was wrestling with. Beyond vague references to McLyntock's past (He's THE Glyn McLyntock of the Missouri border wars, one character tells us, explaining it all) and hints that he was once the odd-man out during a lynching party, we're spared the gruesome details. McLyntock's past is left unexplored, the point being that he has the capacity to be very bad, and is trying his best to start anew. I can't think of any other actor, then or now, capable of convincingly playing a basically decent character who, when pressed, allows the devils to erupt.
The same can, and can't, be said for Arthur Kennedy's Emerson Cole, another gun sharp who, like McLyntock, has a capacity for goodness but seems a little weaker when confronted with temptation. McLyntock and Cole are from the Kansas and Missouri area, "good, clean country" moral center and settler leader Jeremy Baile (Jay C. Flippen) says, "'til man came in to steal and kill. Can't let it happen here." Of course Baile doesn't know anything about McLyntock's past and trusts him completely, a trust McLyntock values enough to make him that much more concerned about keeping his secrets secret.
A strong cast and story makes BEND OF THE RIVER one of the best movies of the 1950s. As usual in a Mann western, the story is played out against a glorious, Technicolor background. In this case Mount Hood, Sandy River, and Timberline, all in Oregon. The story is credible and, as usual, Stewart is excellent as the outlaw trying to reform. Strongly recommended.
Good movie ... worst DVD EVER
I would like to echo the other reviews here ... Universal has done an incredibly shoddy job on this DVD. The film is a good one ... not as good as The Far Country, but a respectable and enjoyable Western by the reliable Anthony Mann. The picture quality is often poor, and why the movie had to be panned and scanned when it was not widescreen to begin with is beyond me. Cost can't be an excuse ... the Hammer DVD's of The Curse of Frankenstein and The Horror of Dracula by other studios were similarly priced yet far better in quality. Universal should be ashamed of issuing a classic Western in this condition. I want my money back!