Libre comme le vent

The plot is straightforward and the milieu is entirely familiar-- open range vs. fenced farming, reformed gunslinger vs. trigger-happy kid, lots of grizzled guys and leather vests, a pointless saloon girl-- but it has enough originality and a solid enough script to transcend formula. It also has two crucial bonuses:

First, the location. There's only one long shot showing the entire Western town, but I've never seen a more decrepit or believable one- - because it's a real one. Rosita, Colorado, west of Pueblo, was well on its way to becoming a ghost town in the late 1950s (it actually is one now, in the middle of exurbs). It had only three or four wooden buildings, plus a few scattered homesteads between them and the mountains. It delivers total verisimilitude. Quite a few scenes are shot in the wilderness, too, with meadows bursting with purple wildflowers. A real Western settlement in a gorgeous wilderness-- it is iconic, far more than John Ford's Monument Valley, which is unrepresentative of any other Western landscape.

Second, the supporting cast. The faces are all more familiar than the names. Royal Dano and Irene Tedrow as squatters, Charles McGraw, Ray Teal (Bonanza's sheriff), Douglas Spencer, and as barkeeps, the wonderful Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones, tribble salesman) and the forever-unheralded Jay Adler (Stella's brother). Adler's worth his weight in silver-- Rosita was a silver-mining settlement-- and he's in the first scene so catch that at least.

The reason that mother lode of character actors matters is because-- along with always-fine Donald Crisp and better-with-age Robert Taylor-- they carry this movie. The relative novices involved-- writer Rod Serling, actress/singer Julie London, and fish-out-of-water John Cassevetes -- handle their duties well enough. But they just can't measure up to that roster of seasoned pros, a cast that has been in so many Westerns, they feel as authentic as Rosita.

In the 1950s, the best way to attack an intolerably conformist society was to take a harmless 'popular' genre and subvert it, overturn its assumptions. Sirk did it with the woman's picture, Minnelli with the musical, Hitchcock with the thriller; Robert Parrish does it here with the Western, with a vision of Eisenhower family-values capitalist America as a medieval feudality, where everyone must pay obeisance to a landowner, where the stable family unit consists of a killer and a wild sexual neurotic, and where capitalism is actually destructive to the family and continuity, a sterile thing.

Whether John Cassavetes is an embodiment of the Western hero gone wrong, the pressure of capitalism turned in on itself, or a rebel without a cause, the film is full of powerful incident - Cassavetes' first insane shooting spree, which he ends by shooting his own puddled reflection; the drunken attack by Cassavetes and friend on a family of homesteaders, uncomfortably reversing the old attacking-Indians routine; the Leonesque showdown between Cassavetes and Ellison backed by his own brother. Very much a post-'Searchers' Western, land here is synonymous with spilt blood not destiny.

Saddle the Wind is the result of a creative conflict between golden era Hollywood and the cool method acting world of New York in the late 1950's. Both the writer, Rod Serling (of Twilight Zone fame) and John Cassavetes represented the new, "cool" world of New York. Robert Taylor, holder of the record for the longest employment by one studio) represented Hollywood with a capital "H." The director, Robert Parrish, was more on the New York wavelength.

From what I've read, Cassavetes tried to antagonize Taylor with his difficult behavior and, when he failed, got even more outrageous. The New York crew regarded Taylor as incredibly "square." The result of all this is a fascinating conflict of styles. Taylor prided himself on not "mugging" and here his reserved style worked well as Cassavetes' older brother, a retired gunman. The pain of a man watching someone he brought up as son, not a younger brother, turn into an unstable, erratic killer is evident on Taylor's craggy face. The younger brother is in constant motion--he seems to mistake activity for accomplishment.

Through a number of plot twists including disputed land ownership, romance (with Julie London) and brother-to-brother conflict, the film moves quickly and stylishly towards its inevitable end. The photography is excellent, making the best of the glorious scenery. Julie London is underused but does what she can.

In the end, New York and Hollywood work well together to make a highly watchable film. Review by me for the IMDb.

This movie will keep your interest in an unexpected way. Probably due to the work of Rod Serling's screenplay. It is well casted and well acted and well directed. John Cassavetes performs magnificently in his role but unfortunately his role is highly annoying. I would have reduced his adolescent behavior and given him a bit more gravity which would have Improved the picture immensely. Rod Taylor and the others played their parts extremely well which always makes a movie enjoyable. The scenery was grand and the music very pleasant and fitting. Excellent work and strongly recommended.

The Sinclairs and the Deneens are two ranching families who share the open range in their remote western valley. Steve Sinclair is a fine, strong man who has put his gunslinging days behind him and is now a figure of rectitude and stability in the affairs of the valley. His younger brother Tony, however, is a hothead who is beginning to regard himself as a handy guy with a six-gun.

Robert Taylor plays Steve with manly, tight-lipped stoicism, contrasting markedly with John Cassavetes' Tony, a jumpy dynamo of attention-seeking energy. This thoughtful MGM western sets up a whole web of conflicts and tensions: there is the inevitable clash between the two brothers, the uneasy modus vivendi with Old Man Deneen, friction between ranchers and homesteaders, as the latter try to settle on the free range. When Tony returns from a trip to the city bringing with him the beautiful Joan (Julie London) as his bride-to-be, yet another source of conflict arises.

"Steve's gonna like you," Tony tells his new fiancee with unconscious irony, not knowing that it is Steve and Joan who will fall for each other. The romantic closeness between the saloon girl and the older man is never made explicit, but it is plain that they are destined to be a couple. The psychology of this tentative relationship is sensitively portrayed, for instance in the scene where Joan remarks, "I've seen reformed gunmen before." Steve reacts with a mixture of shame and hurt which tells us that he desires her good opinion.

Prefiguration is a stylistic leitmotif running through the film. Larry Venables refuses to have his saloon table cleared, and then later Tony prevents Manuelo from clearing another table. Deneen's young son was killed in a futile gunfight, an event which has impacted on the life of the whole valley, and we see the tragedy re-enacted as other men lose their lives needlessly. Tony and Dallas act out a playful 'mock' draw on the exact spot where Ellason is later gunned down.

A good deal of the film's psychological import is conveyed, not in dialogue, but through visual communication. Joan's reaction when Venables makes trouble in the saloon suggests that she knows the bad guy but is trying to conceal the fact. After the shooting, we see Tony fail the 'test', though nothing is ever said directly. Joan wants to be taken home, and Tony's immature decision to stay drinking with the boys signals the breaking-point of the relationship. Joan moves away from the group and sits alone. The ploughshare which is used for shooting practice symbolises the threat posed to wholesome farming life by irresponsible gunmen. Tony places his arm on Steve's shoulder, and Steve dislodges it with the subtlest of movements, showing the rift that is growing between the brothers, but which neither wishes to acknowledge. In the very next image, Hank tries to take the whiskey bottle away from Tony, but Tony clings to it, his pattern of destructive self-indulgence now well established. Once Deneen (the marvellous Donald Crisp) has decided to choke the range with wire fences, we see bales of barbed wire thrown down onto the ground with force. They glint harshly, their steely newness a hostile presence, harming the soil. When the brothers finally meet, we see each of them silently preparing his gun.

The scene in which Steve and Joan ride back from town is nicely done, with its change of tempo from hard anger to a quieter, more reflective mood. Steve shows himself to be a man of complex emotions beneath his stern facade.

The film is shot in Cinemascope and MGM's own colour process, Metrocolor. In the first scene, Venables menaces the bartenders in the saloon, a drab brown man in a drab brown setting. This is this creature's element. A very striking effect is achieved as the scene changes and we see the open range, the beautiful sunlit countryside contrasting powerfully with what has gone before. By the end of the film, the sage is in bloom, and the image of the young man dying on a brilliant purple carpet of natural luxuriance is almost unbearably poignant.

Elmer Bernstein was the Musical Director, and in his characteristically understated style he did his usual excellent job. By 1958 it was beginning to be ambarrassing for audiences to see a character breaking into song, but the restrained guitar accompaniment as Julie London croons the theme tune salvages this one from seeming too obtrusive.

Everybody is looking for his place in the world. Deneen dreams of establishing a paradise where violence is unknown, and Steve is striving to be a good rancher and to live down his past. Tony wants to make a name for himself, while Joan is hoping to escape the squalor of her earlier years. Venables wants the kudos of having killed Steve Sinclair, and Ellason is yearning for the homestead of his dreams. Some achieve their persoanl nirvana, but most don't. The film's message is that violence and confrontation don't move anybody forward in life.