Mordbrenner von Arkansas

This is a gritty and well directed film. Unfortunately, the entire premises strains belief. We are supposed to believe that one man rides into a town and kills people and burns it to the ground while everybody just sits around and watches. In the real world this guy (Aldo Ray) would have been shot down about five minutes after he walked into the saloon. In 19th century America, everyone was armed and would have taken any action needed to protect their lives and property. I thought it was a silly movie when I saw it as a child and it remains silly today.

A struggling small town in the late 1800's is invaded by a psychopathic gunman. Nobody is willing to stand up to him, therefore he has his way and rides off. New residents come and re-build, only to find the man returns. The townspeople must either have the courage to face him or perish. Excellent western dealing with injustice and the unwillingness to resolve it.

'This sparse and grim epic of the plains is loaded with character and with allegory as well. The bad man who comes down from the hills and destroys the town is analagous to Moby Dick, more about dark fate than satanic evil. The excellence of the film comes from its relative faithfulness to the book, a masterpiece by E. L. Doctorow, the storyteller who gave us Waterworks and Ragtime. I give the movie four stars out of the five, and the book all five. Henry Fonda is the big name star, but this is really an ensemble movie. Catch the late Aldo Ray acting up a storm. (If you have seen the movie, read the book. It adds some dimensions including graphic violence that wasn't put into film when this one was made.) I saw this film on TV late one night many years ago, and it stuck with me like a haunting.

There are a lot of interesting aspects to this above average adult western -- Fonda plays a wimp, Keenan Wynn plays a pimp who operates out of a bible tent, and Ray plays a "badman" who seems to have no motive for his destruction of the town of "Hard Times" (they could've picked a better name, eh?) than pure sadism. In Fonda's quest to prove his manhood and make a stand in Hard Times, a lot of fairly complex human themes come to the fore. Rule plays a believably highstrung Western Woman, bent on teaching her adopted son how to kill because she doesn't think Fonda has the guts.

One of Kennedy's better later westerns before he switched completely to the comedic mode, notable for a solid script based on an interesting story with great character performances throughout.

One thing about Henry: he was versatile. From dottering old Norman Thayer in "On Golden Pond" to the child-murdering gunman in "Once Upon a Time in the West" and everything in between, Henry Fonda showed us his multi-faceted talent over and over again, as he does here as a waffling, semi-cowardly man initially unwilling to confront a bully that terrorizes a small community in the old west.

Aldo Ray's is ideally suited for his character as well, as the murderous brute intent upon destroying a small town and anyone who tries to stop him.

As usual, mild-mannered Good eventually triumphs over seemingly unstoppable Evil, but then, by 1967 Clint Eastwood already had a lock on the other outcome. Still, I enjoyed it quite a lot, and recommend it highly, for among other reasons, to see Aldo munch on a giant green onion as he drinks coffee, in celebration of a murderous rampage he just finished.