Horizons West

After the American Civil War, the brothers Dan (Robert Ryan) and Neil Hammond (Rock Hudson) returns to their father's ranch H Circle in Austin, Texas with their friend Tiny (James Arness). The greedy Dan does not adapt to ranching again and has the intention of raising a fortune of his own. He borrows one thousand dollars from a friend and play cards with the wealthy Cord Hardin (Raymond Bur). However he loses five thousand dollars and Hardin humiliates Dan. He recruits dangerous deserters and other scum to form a gang, and together they steal the cattle of Cord and other ranchers. Dan raises a large amount and returns to Austin, telling that he made a fortune in New Orleans. When Cord kidnaps Neil to interrogate about the business of his brother, Cord's wife Lorna (Julia Adams) goes to the hotel and tells to Dan what is happening in the ranch. Dan goes to Cord's ranch and kills him in self- defense. He is judged innocent and sooner he marries Lorna. But his ambition is not satisfied and Dan uses the force to raise an empire. However, his father and Neil decide to bring Dan to the court with tragic consequences.

"Horizons West" is a western about greedy in the Post-Civil War dividing a family of ranchers. Robert Ryan is excellent, as usual, in the role of a man that loses his values in the war and returns cruel and ambitious. Julia Adams is very beautiful, wearing wonderful costumes. There are excellent lines in the dialogs and in the end this is an entertaining film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Império do Pavor" ("Empire of Fear")

"Horizons West" is the kind of unpretentious, fast-paced Technicolor western that Universal-International churned out in the 1950s. The pared-down narrative combined with tight cutting ensures that the movie proceeds briskly even though "Horizons West" was directed without any dramatic intensity. The basic narrative material could have been stretched out to 120 minutes or more, but director Budd Boetticher and editor Ted Kent brought the film in at less than 85 minutes.

Dan Hammond (Robert Ryan), his brother Neil (Rock Hudson) and their ranch colleague Tiny (James Arness) return to Texas from the Civil War. Neil and Tiny are content to return to their previous way of life, but Dan has much bigger ideas. He recruits a gang of army deserters and rustles cattle in a big way. He is very successful and expands into land grabbing and claim jumping. Soon money and success go to his head, and hubris clouds his judgement. Eventually his loyal and loving family turn against him and take it upon themselves to bring him down.

Robert Ryan was always a good, unshowy actor, and he brings out the many sides of Dan Hammond very well. John McIntire, another reliable actor, is also very good as the simple, unambitious father. Julia Adams for once is not given a peaches and cream part, and she too is successful at showing the different aspects of her character. Rock Hudson and Dennis Weaver are still at the beginnings of their careers, and their inexperience and lack of screen presence shows. As was so often the case in those days, Raymond Burr plays an unpleasant character and really makes the audience dislike him.

"Horizons West" is a very minor film and is unlikely to make it onto DVD, but if it appears on television, it is well worth watching.

UPDATE: A Region 2 DVD of this movie will be issued in France in November, 2008. It will have the original English language soundtrack with French subtitles.

Home from the Civil War, young Neal Hammond : Rock Hudson and his older brother : Robert Ryan are glad to return to Austin Texas ranching. However , brother Dan wants more and he takes over properties . As 2 brothers go their separate ways after Civil War , one leads a peaceful life as a rancher , but the other corrupted by the war engages in a violent campaign to build his own empire ,and carrying out terrorisation . His attempt to enter business is thwarted by carpetbagger Cord Hardin : Raymond Burr . But among the growing opposition to his band is the new sheriff , to become his his nemesis , his brother Neal, along with an old friend : James Arness .

It begins as a sluggish , slow-moving Western but follows to surprise us with complex characters , thrills , breathtaking patches and decent plot about two differen brothers ; as both of them end up on opposite sides of the law . The simple tale is almost rudimentary though full of clichés, as the monotonous script lines too often settle for crude routine . Suspense and tension builds over the time in which the outlaws and the starring await to take the farmer's lands . The action is decently made , as when the nasties shoot without remission and rustling cattle . The highlights of the film are the facing off between Robert Ryan and his enemies and the climatic showdown on the ending . Robert Ryan gives a nice performance as the ex-officer who forms a rustling gang and parlays his ill-gotten gains into a land empire . Rock Hudson provides a slighly laborious acting as new Marshal of Austin , but his interpretation is really eclipsed by the great Robert Ryan . His acting as the mobster-tycoon reverberates all the movie in a manner that sometimes anticapates ¨The rise and fall of Leg Diamond¨ considered to be Boetticher's the best . Support cast is pretty good , such as : Burr as as the nasty owner who beats and humiliates Ryan in a poker game , John McIntire as the honest father though he was only 2 years older than Ryan , James Arness , Dennis Weaver , Mae Clarke , Tom Powers , Douglas Fowley , among others.

It displays an atmospheric score by Herman Stein and Henry Mancini , both of whom uncredited . Colorful cinematography in Universal style by Charles Boyle . The motion picture was professionally directed by Budd Boetticher in ordinary and traditional wake.Still apprentice work , so don't expect anything quite so stylishly spare as the Randolph Scott/Boetticher cycle , but Burt Kennedy's intelligent scripting was probably the decisive factor in those later films . Boetticher formed a production company called ¨Ranown¨ along with Harry Joe Brown and Randolph Scott and as usual writer Burt Kennedy. The first Harrry Brown-Boetticher-Scott movie was 1956's " Seven men from now" , following ¨Decision at sundown(57)¨, ¨Buchanan rides alone(58)¨,¨Westbound(59)¨ ,¨Ride lonesome(59) ,in the decades since, they have produced and directed one Western ¨Comanche Station(60)¨ . Boetticher was a great expert on Western genre and also on the bullfighting world as ¨Bullfighter and the lady¨, ¨The magnificent matador¨ and ¨Arruza¨ . Rating : 6/10 . Well worth watching .

How many westerns (and others) feature two brothers ,the good and the bad,Abel and Cain?It was already in Genesis after all.It's more Ryan too old to be Hudson's brother than the other way about;sixteen years between the two leads is much and it shows.But Robert Ryan was as excellent as ever in his part of an ex-confederate soldier who does not want to work on a ranch and dreams of building an empire ,abetted by a femme fatale -a rare character in westerns.But as Springsteen sings,a king ain't satisfied till he owns everything and as Shakespeare wrote,(man)gains the world and loses his soul.On the contrary ,brother Hudson is a loyal good son,probably remembering the prodigal son parable ;Hudson would play a similar part in Sirk's modern western (the sport car replacing the horse)"written on the wind" (1956):some kind of adoptive child opposite a wealthy bad son (Robert Stack);he was also the good guy in "Giant" in which Dean became a racist tycoon.

"Horizons west" is an entertaining western,its last pictures summing up its moral in admirably succinct style.

I have the deepest admiration for films directed by Budd Boetticher, even lesser ones. They reflect a level of realism and human contradictions seldom seen in this genre.

Charles Boyle's simple but highly effective cinematography only deepens character building, ushering pleasant introductory vistas that steadily disappear as the materialistic nature of oldest son Dan (superbly portrayed by Robert Ryan) increasingly dominates action. Rock Hudson as the younger brother and John McIntire as the pater familias have smaller but nonetheless strking roles, as does the villainous Cord Hardin (Raymond Burr), thereby initially giving Ryan's character some apparent decency by comparison.

In time, though, their true natures emerge and the film churns along to a credible conclusion. Definitely worth watching, more than once, too. 8/10.