L'étrange incident

An excellent movie that avoid the western cliché, bringing a Theatrical Drama about reason, justice and piety.

Everything works perfectly, in terms of sound, ambiance and plot. Exception made by the role of Mary Beth Hughes. The protagonist's frustrated romance does'nt add nothing relevant to presents Gil Carter's personality.

The letter reading scene is absolutelly beautiful and very meaningful, totally worth the movie. This Western deserves more recognition from the overall public.

When I first saw this film, I couldn't get it out of my head. Three men are executed by vigilante justice, put forth by a bigoted, but respected man. I couldn't help but put myself in the place of those men, trying to logically remove myself from the the grasp of these people. There is no reason to hurry the verdict. It is about people who get caught up in a mob mentality and give up their common sense and integrity for expediency. The hard thing is that there is nothing anyone can do to right this. There is no bring people back to life. About all we can determine is that these men will have to live with this decision for the rest of their lives. The problem with mob rule, is that they all have excuses for their actions. I thought. I thought. I thought. See this film but be prepared to think about it for a long time.

It is said frequently that psychological or "adult" westerns -less action and more substance in the plots- appeared in the early 50's with films like "The Gunfighter" or "High Noon". However in my opinion, the "Ox-Bow Incident", of 1943, was the first real "adult western (the previous "Stagecoach", though an excellent product in the genre, still maintains the original standards).

Director William Wellman obtains here a fantastic grey and sort of sordid atmosphere to display a story of men taking justice by their own hand and making an unrepairable mistake. The final sequence at the saloon when Henry Fonda reads in a loud voice the letter to his wife left by one of the innocent men hanged is most disturbing but at the same time rewarding for us viewers who get the feeling that justice has been done: the executioners will have to live with their terrible crime in their consciences for the rest of their lives.

Fonda and Andrews are very good in their parts and the supporting cast is excellent mainly with the always accurate Jane Darwell and a young Anthony Quinn.

"The Ox-Bow Incident" stands as a little classic among westerns, or dramas if you prefer.

The Ox-Bow Incident is directed by William A. Wellman and adapted to screenplay by Lomar Trotti from the novel of the same name written by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. It stars Henry Fonda, Henry Morgan, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, William Eythe and Jane Darwell. Music is scored by Cyril J. Mockridge and cinematography by Arthur C. Miller.

Gil Carter & Art Croft ride into the town of Bridger's Wells, they hit the local saloon to imbibe after a log hard cattle drive. Whilst there a man runs in and announces that a popular man from the town has been shot by rustlers. The sheriff is out of town and a lynch mob quickly forms to bring what they see as swift justice to the culprits, Gil & Art join the posse so as to make sure they themselves don't get blamed for the shooting. The posse finds three weary workers and convince the majority that these guys are guilty and that instant hanging is the only way to do things. There are, however, one or two dissenting voices...

What a fabulous movie this is, a powerful indictment of how the lynch mob mentality can grip and lead to pain for many. William Wellman directs superbly, with a big ensemble in such a small area (Ox-Bow), he manages to get the right blend of emotive reactions from the leading players. Henry Fonda as Gill Carter is perfectly sedate and compassionate, even though he is far from being a flawless character, Dana Andrews as Donald Martin is heart achingly real, while others like Frank Conroy as Major Tetley are suitably full of ignorant bluster. It's quite an experience to see Wellman pull them all together with so much style. The photography from Miller is excellent, shadowy low tone black and white that is in keeping with the downbeat nature of the film, it infuses the picture with a gritty hard bitten noirish look. While Mockridge scores it suitably as sombre.

Ultimately it's the story that triumphs the most, claustrophobic in nature, it is simple yet tragic as it spins out to tell us how a group of seemingly sane individuals turned out to be a mass of incoherent reasoning. When a letter is read out during the finale, it is devastating in its effect, we see men broken, heads bowed in shame, others heavy in heart, their lives never to be the same. The emotional whack is hard hitting, and rightly so. For this is unashamedly a message movie, and a worthy one at that, so much so its reputation has grown over the years, where both the film and novel have made it into some educational curriculum's. It's very much a landmark Western, by choosing to forgo action for dark characterisations, it opened up the Western genre to being more than just shoot-outs and trail blazing. Had it been made seven or eight years later I think it would have garnered higher critical praise.

In spite of being one of Fonda's favourite movies that he made, the film didn't make money. The public were not quite ready for such sombre beats (Orson Welles, tellingly I feel, loved it), the critics of the time were irked by Wellman's decision to film the key trial and lynching sequences on the stage. Yet the closeness this gives the narrative serves it well, thrusting the many characters close together so they, and us, can see the whites of everyone's eyes, this is about focusing on the faces of those about to commit a capital crime. The close confines also gives off a pervasive sense of doom, where pessimism seeps through, there is no short changing here, the makers are dealing in bleakness and the right choices are made to produce one of the finest and most upsetting exponents of mob mentality played out on film. 9/10

... and while marsupials didn't roam the US countryside a kangaroo court establishes the desires of the baying mob that only a lynching will do, while only a select few have the will and decency to defy their savage rage for revenge.