Cielo amarillo

Stretch is the leader of bank robbing desperadoes, after their latest job they find the US Cavalry hot on their tail. Their only conceivable route of escape is to traipse over an enormous salt flat, low on water and bitten by the scorching sun, they happen to come across a ghost town named Yellow Sky. Here was once a prosperous town, now the only inhabitants are a crusty old prospector and his tomboy granddaughter. Soon the talk turns to hidden gold and it's not long before these desperate men will become conflicted in more ways than one. Be it greed, lust or the Apache, the day of reckoning is coming to Yellow Sky.

Yellow Sky is a technically stunning picture, directed with panache by William A. Welman, boasting starkly affecting black and white photography from Joseph MacDonald, and utilising the wonderful use of natural sounds. This picture is to me one of the shining lights of 1940s Westerns. Once the pulse racing pursuit of the robbers by the US Cavalry has finished, the film shifts into a master class of visual and dialogue driven delights. As the gang trundle across the desolate salt flat, the need for quenching the thirst hits the audience as much as it does the gang; I myself found that I was swigging rapidly from my cold can of beer! The Alabama Hills location is a sprawling, beautiful, never ending ode to the West, and then the actors kick in and do their stuff, and then some.

Gregory Peck plays the leader Stretch, an actor normally associated with a straight laced gait, here he is is weather worn and tired, his portrayal of Stretch as convincing as a role I have seen him tackle. Richard Widmark, in what I believe to be his first Western entry, is truly magnetic, a smirking, snarling Dude that you just know you couldn't trust if your life depended on it. Anne Baxter plays the sole female character of the piece (Mike), and she is pivotal to the whole film's strength, tough and full of spunk, her grasping of the situation in amongst these ragged men gives the piece it's time bomb ethic, and boy does Baxter do well with it.

All told there's no weakness' in the casting, they all do good work, and although the plot structure of the film is nothing out of the ordinary, the technical aspects coupled with the excellent writing on the page (W.R. Burnett story, Lamar Trotti screenplay) lift it way above many of its contemporaries. The ending has caused some consternation amongst Western critics over the years, and if I'm honest then it's not totally satisfactory to me personally, but it is in no way what so ever a bad ending, you just feel that the mood that had preceded it deserved something better. But as ever, it's up to the individual viewer to decide for themselves. 9/10

This is not just your ordinary western. Top stars, great scenery and a well acted, but ordinary story. Gregory Peck leads a gang of bank robbers into the desert with the law hot on the trail. Peck ends up romancing Anne Baxter; and dealing with an Arizona ghost town while trying to calm down his angry pack of thieves. Also in the cast are: Richard Widmark, John Russell, Harry Morgan and Jay Silverheels. Beautiful black & white western action.

Yellow Sky (1948)

A classic and somewhat formulaic, beautifully photographed Western with a couple small twists. The main thing you might not catch is that this is an adaptation of "The Tempest," by Shakespeare. Here, the band of travelers crosses a metaphoric sea (the desert) and reaches a "New World" where they sort out what matters between them. The set was built (and deliberately destroyed) from an old silent film set that was left over.

Of note--Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark together for their only time, and they inevitably end up as enemies. The setting is the amazing and deadly Death Valley, and the locations shooting is shot there for authenticity. William Wellman was one of those consistently excellent directors who never really made a bad film, but didn't always make exceptional ones, and this one is right in his usual mix of strong visuals, tight editing, fairly simple dramatic plots, and a key actor or two to identify with.

Ann Baxter is the third leading character, and she's pretty much right on, with some grit and determination, but also a little too isolated for her own good. She's a kind of parallel to the really touch Mercedes McCambridge in "Johnny Guitar," a far more inventive movie, but one where an isolated woman (or two) have to fight off the greedy male rabble. Sort of like life, sometimes. Note that "Johnny Guitar" is four years later.

Besides Wellman's expertise, cinematographer Joe MacDonald's work is really worth noticing, for once again he helps elevate a fairly straightforward plot into something hard bitten, layered, and beautiful. MacDonald, born in Mexico, really came into his own by the late forties, and is behind a whole bunch of noir and western classics (as well as the famous "How to Marry a Millionaire"). In all, it's a really good movie, no question.

Yellow Sky is an excellent western, especially to a western buff like me. Along with a top-notch cast, fabulous lighting and great cinematography, I truly enjoyed picking out the locations, most of which were from the Inyo County area of California. Due to my passion for mining in my free time, I was able to spot the Alabama Hills (where the set of the town was located) and the Dunes north of Panamint Springs as two of the locales from the film. Action sequences were well done. The plot, though predictable, has interesting twists, especially those involving Peck and Sheridan. Peck's character is also interesting in that it follows more along the lines of John Wayne's character in the Searchers, someone hardened to life who finally comes around to his humanity. I first encountered this film about a week ago on AMC. I do not know if it is availible on VHS or DVD. If someone could let me know if it is availible in these formats, I would appreciate it. All in all, a great film!

Some westerns don't allow people to change, or reform, during its run on the screen. "Yellow Sky" allows peoples' true natures to emerge, once the influence of a gold strike in a near-empty ghost town appears. Filmed in b&w in 1948, the film stars a youthful Gregory Peck, a starlet named Anne Baxter, and a superb villainous performance by Richard Widmark.

The story begins with the band of outlaws, led by Peck, hold up a town and escape the clutches of the law by fleeing to the desert sands. They can't go back, because the legal authorities will capture them, and they have to continue to cross the flats, with an ever-dwindling water supply. One outlaw, in fact, filled his canteen with whiskey in the town they held up, and now he's begging to swap a belt of whiskey for just one sip of cool water.

Finally, just before giving up all hope, the band comes to a town called Yellow Sky, which once prospered, but now has all but expired. The two remaining occupants of the town, Anne Baxter and her grandfather, agree to let them rest, spend a few days, and that's when the outlaw band, or rather, Widmark, figures out that the two have a gold strike in the mountains nearby. Why else would they stay in a town going nowhere? Peck wishes to split the gold claim with the two occupants, while the rest of the gang, spurred on by Widmark, desires the whole cache, and if Peck doesn't agree, then they can fix that problem, too. The final shootout in the ghostly buildings of Yellow Sky resolves the conflict.

Look for good supporting performances from John Russell and Harry Morgan, as two outlaw gang members, and providing comic relief is Charles Kemper, whose career in the movies came to an end just a few years after this film was released. He plays the whiskey-guzzling Walrus to the hilt, and some film viewers would wish he had left more film roles on the screen. Overall feelings, a solid 8/10, and happy to see the release of this western classic on DVD.