Raw Edge

I know close to nothing about John Sherwood, more often than not assistant director. He did direct RAW EDGE, though not to any memorable extent: its leading male figure, Rory Calhoun, hardly has a longer role than baddie Neville Brand, and the two female leads appear to be there as eye candy more than for any other reason.

As it turns out, RAW EDGE opens with an unusual written panel saying that in Oregon in 1842 a woman could be claimed on sight by any man and she would belong to the first claimer. When I read that, I rubbed my hands in anticipation of watching many fisticuffs over such beauties as de Carlo and Corday.

Alas, the two ladies already have husbands at the film's start, so in no time I rated myself a gullible dope.

Anyway, I did not stop (intrigued by which ogre had assaulted and tried to bed de Carlo) and soon learned of "Indian" Mara Corday losing her hubby, which should prompt a male race for her hand... alas, it did not. She was allowed to run to her Indian tribe, get support from it, and ultimately engineer her revenge.

The fellow I thought would seek revenge at all costs was the brother of Corday's hanged hubby - you guessed it, Rory plays that part, but never with any particular scent for blood and looking nothing short of aloof at times. To boot, he makes quite a few mistakes, allows his gun to fall into baddies' hands, and twice has other bodies stop bullets intended for him. Lucky boy!

By the end, the premise of women with no rights in Oregon is well and truly forgotten, even if Brand and his pa have designs on de Carlo, once her rich husband has been disposed of.

That is when characters start getting their guns out and by that point the action rekindled memories of 10-year-old me and my brother shooting plastic bullets at each other, and claiming that we had been hit in the shoulder, the ear, the foot, and other "safe" body parts and we hadn't croaked yet.

Neville Brand probably steals the show, Rex Reason - what a name! - plays a most affable gambler who dies... hmmm... affably and forgetably enough.

Calhoun looks like he may have wanted to be involved in some other production

Relative shortness (75 min) and lovely landscapes cut some of the viewer's losses. Sadly, those superb vistas are repeatedly partially blocked by superimposed Indian smoke signals on just about every Oregon mountain, though the Indians on the war path threat never really materializes.

The script by Essex and Hill stays within the confines of sheer mediocrity, with unintentional laughable moments, particularly when shootouts result repeatedly in shots in the shoulder, and the victim often manages to survive.

All told, 75 minutes wasted. No rewatch for me! 6/10.

From the deep, dark depths of Universal's back catalogue comes Raw Edge, a truly bizarre western. It's really awful.

The movie is set in the 'lawless' 1842 Oregon, where if a woman is widowed, they are up for grabs to whoever 'claims' her first. The land baron who set this rule has a beautiful wife (played by Yvonne DeCarlo) who all the men covet. When she gets assaulted, an innocent man is lynched and his wife is widowed. It's gonna take tough gunslinger Tex Kirby (Rory Calhoun) to avenge his brother and sort out the greatly misogynistic tyrant.

This movie's biggest failing is the story which is pretty ridiculous. The premise is unbelievable, even for the Oregon of the Wild West. The plot itself wasn't particularly engaging either, the revenge story had been done dozens of times before and much better than this. It's also not very exciting and there are barely any fights that were fun to watch.

Rory Calhoun is fine in the movie, he says his lines and does bring a sort of stoic personality to his character. Same goes for Yvonne DeCarlo, she's fine. Neville Brand plays an over the top villain who's out to get DeCarlo, he was entertaining enough.

Overall, this film is really bizarre and barely entertaining enough to warrant a watch. The acting is serviceable but the plot is all kinds of strange. But I think it could be fun for the sheer weirdness of it.

This is really a shame that director John Sherwood gave us only three films: this one, CREATURE WALKS AMONG US and MONOLITH MONSTERS. This western is very unusual concerning not the cast but the topic. It is very smart of have shown how West was in those times, where there were so few women for so many men. And no one can miss a western starring the flaming Yvonne De Carlo, co starring here Mara Corday and the likes of Neville Brand, Rory Calhoun. Excellent directing, excellent locations, settings, and for a short length, only seventy five minutes. Not a masterpiece but an Universal western to remember.

Raw Edge is quite a fascinating little (a brief 75 minutes long) western given it was made in 1956 and that the overarching theme being examined in the film is the place and status of women in the "Wild West"; a theme which in the light of ongoing contemporary events, still resonates strongly in the second decade of the 21st century.

I have no idea whether there is any historical basis at all to the fictional events depicted in Raw Edge. Unlike one or two other reviewers at this site however, I'd respectfully suggest that the sort of story we see, set in a frontier settlement with no organised legal. judicial or religious institutions, is not unimaginable. Historically men are drawn to civilisation's peripheries in far more dominant numbers than women.

Besides its very intriguing story, the film looks great in technicolour and makes very good use of its location photography. Rory Calhoun and Yvonne De Carlo are fine in the lead roles, displaying an innate chemistry occurring between their characters, in spite of their frequent antagonistic clashes. Good to see the Native Americans are treated in a very sympathetic light too, with the status of their female characters contrasting markedly with those of the whites.

The main bone of contention that does need to be raised is the frequent anachronistic aspects employed in moulding this fringe story into an action western setting. Therefore though set in 1842 Oregon, the film in its fashions, weapons and even buildings (Montgomery's palatial lodge) seems to be occurring 30 - 40 years later in time. A small price to pay in my opinion for an engrossing oater.

Kirby (Rory Calhoun) comes to town and finds that his brother was hanged for a crime he didn't commit. There is a lot of tension between the men everywhere because too many of them are after two beautiful women, Mrs Montgomery (Yvonne De Carlo) and Paca (Mara Corday). Everyone who dies will mean less competition in the chase for them...

'Raw Edge' was shown in my country under a title that means 'The Pack Is Lurking Everywhere', and indeed it feels as if men behave like a pack of hounds here, no character is entirely sympathetic. The makers did not bother much about historical accuracy, because several pieces of clothing and weaponry look way too modern for Oregon in 1842. But surely the aim of the movie was to tell a story about the dark side of human nature, and it fully succeeded at that. A sinister and unusual western ahead of its time.