Rancho Notorious

When I was in school not too many years after this film came out, as I recall vividly, we were taught the evils of totalitarianism (notably of the Communist variety). One of the scariest evils, so we were told, was that people could be made not to exist - not just in the sense of being murdered, but in the sense of being erased even in memory. They did not exist. And they had never existed, even if they had. History books were doctored. Names were whited out of the index. The memory of history changed. That was the great difference between us and them. It could never happen here. We all, patriotic little kids, nodded - not here. Watch this movie and you will see it happen, here. All the characters are played by actors. All except one. One is played by a phantom. He doesn't exist. Of course, he does. He's Lloyd Gough. His character, Kinch, is the central pivot of the entire story, from the first scene. But he has been removed from the cast: no mention of his name.

Lloyd Gough and his wife Karen Morley refused to grovel before HUAC and so were blacklisted. He was also erased, retroactively. They couldn't erase his image, because he was in too many and too important scenes. But they could erase his memory. That they did. They didn't blot out his name from the many other films he had played. But they could have. Why not? It's only a short step from one retroactive erasure to many. Not too hard to reshoot the credits of old films. is it? Didn't happen. But it started. Think about that and be scared. Oh, yes, I forgot. We're past that now, just an aberration of the 1950s. Right?

"Rancho Notorious" is a beautifully atmospheric and suspenseful film. Best known for his expressionist black & white suspense thrillers, director Fritz Lang brings the same qualities to this Technicolor western.

Although she must have been in her fifties when the film was made, Dietrich looks absolutely gorgeous. She also seems to be having lots of fun with the part, in a sense reprising her character from "Destry Rides Again." It's never explained how this woman with the strange German accent ended up in the Wild West, and we don't really care. By the way, Dietrich's performance in these two films was the basis for Madeline Kahn's great parody in "Blazing Saddles."

The one thing that really stands out in my mind about this film is how effectively the suspense builds. The tension leading up to Vern's discovery of the killer's identity is almost unbearable, and Lang makes us wait until the film's last five minutes for the inevitable score-settling gunfight.

In a period of film history when westerns were a dime a dozen, this one really stands out as a true classic.

I'm not a Marlene Dietrich fan and don't really see Arthur Kennedy as being charismatic enough to interest her, and am not usually keen on background ballads, but I enjoyed this film from beginning to end.

Director Fritz Lang keeps the pace lively and brightens up the generally sombre mood with a couple of light-hearted sequences - first the "horse-race" with saloon girls riding cowboys and then the crooked politicians awaiting their fate in gaol.

"Variety" Film Guide calls the plot "corny", but it's no more so than many other films of the 1950s, or indeed of any other decade, and it's different to most Westerns of the period. And for those times it's also relatively direct in its treatment of sex; we are left in no doubt that Kennedy's fiancée has been raped and that the man Kennedy suspects of the assault is obviously out for what he can get from women.

One is not told how Kennedy acquires his gun-fighting skills - at the beginning a posse member points out his lack of these. The only weakness are a couple of "outdoor" scenes obviously filmed in the studio, where the rock formations are eye-catchingly unrealistic.

The acting is generally good, with Kennedy doing well as the grief- stricken hero seeking revenge and Mel Ferrer showing screen-presence as the slightly sinister and somewhat sensitive fast gun.

The Western is so unique, so internalised, and so full of instantly-recognisable motifs, that many Westerns from the classic era take on the look and feel not of the western United States, but some surreal and separate country, as far removed from America as anywhere else. This was especially the case when the increasingly European production crews in Hollywood produced their skewed yet affectionate takes on this "most American of genres".

Rancho Notorious at first comes across as a "noir" Western, at least if one looks at the Sylvia Richards story and Daniel Taradash screenplay, but it's much more than that. Director Fritz Lang probably had much less to do with the screenplay than is sometimes claimed (he was never a particularly great writer, even in his native German), but he has a whole lot to do with the tone of the picture. Far from turning this into an anti-western, he makes use of sweeping landscapes, rough-looking saloons and typical cowboy business, the sort of thing some revisionist filmmakers eschewed, but they are all given that typical Lang look of zigzagging paths and stark diagonal lines. He also injects that stylised rhythmic feel that harks back to his silent pictures or the bizarre semi-musical gangster movie You and Me (1938). A montage of gritty faces underscores a few of the songs, while a mysterious puff of smoke drifts onto the screen as Marlene Dietrich decides whether or not to gamble the last of her money. The impression is of a Western full of exaggerated cliché, and yet totally remote from the cosy cowboy flick.

The second crucial figure in Rancho Notorious is the other German émigré, Fraulein Dietrich. Although Dietrich is not really known as a Western star, her only other appearance in the genre being Destry Rides Again in 1939, her character in Rancho Notorious seems to be a play upon her old screen persona. It seems to chime particularly true with her real career trajectory that everyone remembers Altar Keane's name, a few have some sordid stories about her, but no-one seems to know quite what has happened to her now. Dietrich plays the part sublimely, conjuring up some of her old magic, tinged with the weariness of middle-age. Her best moments are in the series of flashbacks in which her character is introduced – her gleeful cheating in the "horse" race scene, or the disdainfulness with which she brushes off a would-be admirer in the gambling joint. She has the air of someone who has been round the block a bit, and yet makes it eminently clear why men still love her and fight over her. The very worthy Arthur Kennedy is ostensibly the lead player, although it is appropriate he is billed below Dietrich not just because she was a bigger star, but because she really is the heart of this movie.

Rancho Notorious is rather a cheap and cheerful offering, with the all the production values of the trashy B-Westerns that this era was full of. And yet it has something that even some of the most prestigious and professional pictures do not. Everyone involved seems to have been working on the same wavelength. There is the stripped-down production design of Wiard Ihnen and washed out Hal Mohr cinematography, which help to give it this bleak, distant imagery. Then there's the casting in smaller roles, stereotypically Western yet almost comically over-the-top, like the coroner who pronounces a man "reeeaal dead", or the moustachioed old-timer who imagines the ranch as some sort of romantic hideaway. And finally those haunting and twisted takes on the cowboy ballads penned by Ken Darby. Together they create a compelling view of the west, not as it really was, but as it has been imagined – in this instance, a dream of the Old West a few shades away from a nightmare.

When his fiancé Beth is raped and murdered during a robbery, peace-loving rancher Vern Haskell sets out to track down the man that did it. Driven by a desire for revenge more than justice, Haskell follows the trail to a casino and bordello called Chuck-A-Luck. Here he follows his leads to Alter Keane and gunslinger French Fairmont; they take him onto their staff at their horse ranch and gang HQ and Haskell hopes to use his cover to get his closer to finding out who it was that raped his girl. However in keeping his cover, Haskell finds himself drawn into their world more and more.

The staples of westerns of the period are all here – revenge, Technicolor, songs and romance; however this film opens with a rape (and it is fairly obvious that it was a violent rape) and a nice man who descents into violent anger. In a way the film makes this its central theme but it doesn't continue in this very strong vein and softens it somewhat with the addition of romance and musical interludes. From here on in it is still enjoyable but never marks itself out as more than a solid genre western; the complexities that I had hoped would consume him were not to be found in Haskell to any great degree. Despite this the plot still works well enough to engage and the gruff pace avoids sentimentality and makes the tough romance easier to swallow in context. The action is roundly enjoyable and Lang directs well within the sets, providing some good shots that stick in the mind.

The cast are mixed but generally meet the standard required of them. Dietrich may have demanded she be made to look as young as possible but her age helps stand her apart from the usual love interest actresses. She is tough and enjoyable in her role but I could have done without the songs. Kennedy is reasonably good but not too comfortable with his character – he is either a white knight or a gurning ball of rage; subtlety is not his key word. Ferrer is lively and fun and makes more of his character than the genre usually allows the "other man" character to do. Support from Elam, Reeves and others is all solid enough to make it work.

So an enjoyable genre western then but a bit disappointing for throttling back after such a tough start. The standard revenge plot is made more interesting by the change in Haskell but it could have been better; meanwhile the usual action, songs and romance all work pretty well and will easily please genre fans.