Roughshod

Born in 1965, I cannot count how many westerns I watched as a child, not including TV western series' reruns ad nauseum, such as Gunsmoke and Bonanza. I stopped watching them in the '80s, except for maybe the critically acclaimed feature films that are few and far between since then. But when I saw Ms. Grahame was in the cast, it piqued my interest; and I'm glad I gave it a go.

It's your average plot. Good guy 20s-something cowboy and his teenage brother set out to deliver ten horses to a buyer. Hot on their trail are three escaped convicts bent on revenge. To spice things up, the two brothers encounter four stranded women along the way and agree to let them ride in their wagon.

You can pretty much figure the rest. If you can't, then you must be a newcomer to the genre. But what really propels this one into the much-better-than-average category is Ms. Grahame.

Usually associated with sassy, unstable dames that deliver sarcastic quips with a dangerously sharp tongue, here she's given a much more approachable, likeable character to play. And she does a great job of showing us her softer side. But don't be fooled, she can still keep up with the rest of them.

The cast is good The direction is good. The editing is good. And the music score fits very nicely, especially with a melodic yet bold opening theme that sets the tone, composed by Roy Webb, a sadly overlooked, strong contributor to film music.

As good as it is, it's still like pulling teeth to get me to watch a western. Just like war movies. Grew up on those, too.

I stumbled into this by not changing channels after watching another movie. I was engaged within 5 minutes by the not-quite-formula everything - dialog, setup, even acting. I don't want oversell it. It's competent and interesting, partly for surprisingly good dialog occasionally, for a "western". I would call it a skillful addition to the short list of actually adult westerns. It could reasonably be called a skillful addition to the short list of actually adult westerns.

There's an exchange that serves as a good example of how the movie succeeds. At one point Mary Wells (Grahame) and Clay Phillips (Sterling) get to the moment that any film buff knows must come, where she confronts him about his attitude towards her past, we get this exchange:

MARY: Well, why don't you just say it.

CLAY: Okay, it's said.

There's a lot of that, economy of dialog and action where lesser writers would drag in familiar stuff from the standard inventory.

Other reviewers have analyzed plenty that's good. I mainly wanted to toss in another high rating for it.

Gloria Grahame is Roughshod's major attraction, but bonuses are Jeff Corey in a small role, John Ireland as a lean young killer, and Claude Jarman Jr. carrying as serious a teenage role as a western may offer. Robert Sterling honestly manages the male lead. All the supporting roles are a testament to the kind of dependable quality the studios were delivering in the mid-20th century.

The most pleasant surprise may be the number of women's roles--the four bar girls, each of whom has her own denouement, including the accidental reunion of one with her decently grieving parents. As other posters have noted, the movie handles such scenes with minimal sentimentality or chatter, so that the strong feminine presence operates within the proper western decorum.

As a student of plot, I felt continually (if mildly) impressed by the story's layers and crossings. The bad guys' journey interweaves with the good guys' journey, which involves driving 10 free horses and assuming responsibility for the bar girls who break down on their path. One genre hallmark of a western is the story's geography or landscape. The good guys take another trail to avoid the bad guys, which leads the brassiest of the saloon-girls to hitch up with a gold prospector. The only wince-factor is the dependence on Gloria Grahame's character's reckless driving, but when that results in some of her clothes spilling in the river, those clothes float downstream and signal to the bad guys where the good guys are.

A lot happens in about 90 minutes, but it's all a bit subdued like its male lead. Director Mark Robson worked with Orson Welles and Val Lewton, so the quality-floor is high throughout. The best visuals are the long shots through the landscape where the different parties see each other; otherwise the film's composition, in keeping with its feminine content, is tight, personal, and intimate. The final gunfight is modest but, again, honest in its way, like the whole movie.

Gloria Grahame elevates this old western and makes it worth seeing, and John Ireland is also strong as the leader of the bad guys. The story-telling from director Mark Robson teeters at times a little too much on the overly wholesome side because of the presence of the boy, but overall it's well-balanced and doesn't overstay its welcome at 88 minutes. I also liked how he left the fate of one of the dancehall/working girls (Myrna Dell) to our imagination in a chilling moment, maybe the film's best. I'm not sure I can imagine liking the film without Grahame though, she's just stunning.

The first western by Robson who had already made some extraordinary movies (who says they were Val Lewton's work?) such as "the seventh victim" 'the ghost ship" or "bedlam".And his western is quite good ,if not as mind -boggling as his precedent efforts.

First of all,Gloria Grahame,who was often cast in films noirs ,shines in her part of a dance hall gal who dreams to be a housewife and to educate her young protégé,Robert Sterling's kid brother:my favorite scenes show her teaching him the alphabet and the "true" culture;it's a destruction of the bad gal cliché;and I love when Sterling tells her that he knows a lot of things she can't teach him: the nature ,the animals,the weather,an empirical knowledge for sure ,but one that is more useful than the culture you get from the books,when you are in the wilderness tracked down by outlaws (John Ireland is the ideal bandit,but his part is underwritten and his relationship with the hero is skimmed over);it seems the director was more interested in the Sterling/Grahame relationship:a hero who is (perhaps?We are not told about it) illiterate but who demands a "respectable" woman for his wife :the other one is just good for a kiss,but you cannot marry a chick with a racy past;his kid brother knows better than he does:the young actor is excellent and endearing.

A rare thing in the forties (and in the westerns of the era),the action begins a few seconds before the cast and credits.