Santos del infierno

This film starts off in a way that had me thinking the template for standard Westerns hadn't changed a whole lot over the years - three bad guys ride into a dusty town, meet up with another, act like general dickheads and then rob a bank before skedaddling, guns blazing. Where it diverges is out in the desert, when they come across a woman who has been abandoned in a covered wagon. When the leader (Charles Bickford) growls at the others "I saw her first," we feel real menace in what might come next. I won't say anything further about the plot, though the film was remade by John Ford a couple of decades later in '3 Godfathers', which true fans of the genre may know of. Anyway, what seems like a creaky old film with early sound technology gives way to a lean, unsentimental, and gritty story. William Wyler makes us feel the tension and the dirtiness of the setting, and the film zips by in a little over an hour. It's not completely fleshed out, but that's part of what I liked about it. It seems to me a raw little gem.

I've only seen this once but found it to be a remarkable and compelling early film from the dawn of the "talkies." It's title is misleading as a Christmas movie but this is a great film for Christmas with wonderful symbolism throughout the movie. Peter B. Kyne wrote the story about three desperate villainous outlaw bank robbers who are ironically confronted with the wife and newborn son of a man they had just killed and must now risk their own lives to try to save the child. Screenwriter Tom Reed adapts the novel in this William Wyler directed film. Wyler who had an illustrious 45 year career directing movies had been a silent film director and had just made the transition from silents to talkies the year before this film in 1929's Love Trap, his first full talkie feature. Wyler would go on to direct such classics as Jezebel, Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben Hur and Funny Girl among many, many more fine films so it's interesting to see a film by him here at the dawn of his greatness. This film had been done once before as a silent in 1916 titled Three Godfathers starring Harry Carey and would be done again in 1936 as Three Godfathers with Chester Morris and again as Three Godfathers in 1948 with John Wayne and Carey's son Harry Carey Jr. This is so stark and gritty and imaginative that it is my favorite of the two remakes that would follow. Charles Bickford stars along with Fred Kohler and Raymond Hatton. Bickford enjoyed a long career in films and television but Hattaon was a screen actor for almost 50 years in a career that began in early silents in 1909 and continued through a small role 1967's In Cold Blood. Considering this was 1930 and what was accomplished here in story, dialog, sound and photography I have to knock this up a notch and give it a 10.

Although the manner of film narration dates this picture badly, it can be appreciated for its considerable merits, not merely as an historical curiosity. The juxtaposition of figures and landscape (particularly desert) is powerful, accenting the isolation and desperation of the outlaws. Its final scene, like that of "The Informer" (which it pre-dates), may be highly melodramatic, but works effectively within its context. Charles Bickford, in the early portion of the picture, is terrifying as a human rattlesnake: mean, ruthless, just plain down and dirty nasty to whoever crosses his path.

There is a production still photo (reprinted recently in Scott Eyeman's 'The Speed Of Sound') that has haunted me ever since I first came across it in 1968. It was in a humanities class text. We had studied von Stroheim's "Greed" and upturned the story of how. while shooting on location in the Mojave Desert, the cameras had to be iced against the heat while the crew's cook died from the solar furnace. And here, four years later in the Panamint Hills, is a black and white of a sound film crew out in the desert. A long black cable in the sand leading up to an airtight meat locker housing the camera and its operator. The sun blazing down, I wondered, what kind of a film could get done under these conditions? Further research heightened my frustration as William Wyler was listed as the director (must be a good film), but it was for Universal, already notorious for keeping their early talkies tightly vaulted.

Flash forward 34 years (and a big Thank You Ted Turner and TCM). It is 2:30 AM and I can't sleep. In the next room, a VCR awaits its task of making sure I don't miss this. But I'm pacing the floor for an hour and a half, heart pounding with anticipation. "I can't be very good", I tell myself, "Bickford isn't Gable". Fade up, dozens of bat-wing parchments of nitrate flap before some lamp and credits roll, I'M FINALLY SEEING IT! The camera's lens prowls back and forth across barren landscape, as though it was looking for something. Three riders appear on horseback. The dialogue begins and it's good, the camera moves right along with the riders. The lighting is remarkable as the faces well-saturate the negative [something anyone who has attempted photography in bright sunlight will appreciate]. In town, this gang's leader is in the saloon making time with the ladies. Bickford establishes his character in this sequence as one who is harder and more heartless than anyone else in westerns. He'll tell the sheriff he's going to rob the bank (across the street). A high establishing shot shows the whole town, then a shot tracks with Bickford approaching the bank as his gang rides up. This is cinema, a montage of perceptions that completely fill the viewer's consciousness. This film is very, very good.

George Robinson's photography is extraordinary, with fine compositions and contrasts. His vistas are jam packed and firmly place the viewer into this nothingness. The actors' beards progress with the time frame, and the place is so dirty you'll run for the Pledge.

It's filled with those two second throwaways that tell so much about the characters but do nothing to advance the plot. Such as when the gang leans on the teller's counter, one cowboy's boot scuffs at the bottom for a bar rail. At the saloon, a short skirted woman dances for the patrons, a low angle shot gives a glimpse of garter. The sheriff, seated nearby, drops something and pretends to pick it up. He stares lecherously at the dancing knees. Yet, a moment later, when Bickford invites him to drink, the sheriff's back on his moral high horse. Bickford bites and slaps the girl, after all this is pre-code.

The characters are complex and juxtaposed images abound. Charles Bickford's portrayal is unforgettable. Here is a picture that deserves recognition as one of the classics, a film that transcends its primitive equipment. Makes one wonder what else is locked up in the vaults of the Big U.

I viewed this film as a historical piece on locations. It is footage of the town of the old mining town of Bodie, pre-fire which destroyed 90% of the remaining town in 1933. It is now a state park and the official ghost town of Calif. Having visited several times, it was amazing to see actual businesses and buildings that no longer stand. And the ones that do - 80 years later. The church that is seen in several of the exteriors is still there today, but none of the buildings seen between it and the main street exist. This would have been, in 1929, a long way to travel for a location shot with crew and equipment. I'm glad they did.