Yellow Sky

This western has adventure, romance, passion, and a very heartwarming ending. The stars, Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter, have great chemistry and their acting is just wonderful. Anne Baxter is feisty and really shines in this movie. Although the movie is over half a century old, it is nonetheless very entertaining and delivers on all fronts.

Yellow Sky (1948)

A classic and somewhat formulaic, beautifully photographed Western with a couple small twists. The main thing you might not catch is that this is an adaptation of "The Tempest," by Shakespeare. Here, the band of travelers crosses a metaphoric sea (the desert) and reaches a "New World" where they sort out what matters between them. The set was built (and deliberately destroyed) from an old silent film set that was left over.

Of note--Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark together for their only time, and they inevitably end up as enemies. The setting is the amazing and deadly Death Valley, and the locations shooting is shot there for authenticity. William Wellman was one of those consistently excellent directors who never really made a bad film, but didn't always make exceptional ones, and this one is right in his usual mix of strong visuals, tight editing, fairly simple dramatic plots, and a key actor or two to identify with.

Ann Baxter is the third leading character, and she's pretty much right on, with some grit and determination, but also a little too isolated for her own good. She's a kind of parallel to the really touch Mercedes McCambridge in "Johnny Guitar," a far more inventive movie, but one where an isolated woman (or two) have to fight off the greedy male rabble. Sort of like life, sometimes. Note that "Johnny Guitar" is four years later.

Besides Wellman's expertise, cinematographer Joe MacDonald's work is really worth noticing, for once again he helps elevate a fairly straightforward plot into something hard bitten, layered, and beautiful. MacDonald, born in Mexico, really came into his own by the late forties, and is behind a whole bunch of noir and western classics (as well as the famous "How to Marry a Millionaire"). In all, it's a really good movie, no question.

It's interesting that when it comes to Westerns, most people don't think of Gregory Peck--even though he's made some of the very best films of the genre. Sure he made a lot of other types of films, but this film, THE GUNFIGHTER and THE BIG COUNTRY are absolutely top-notch films.

This film is odd in that Peck is the lead but he isn't exactly a hero. In fact, when the movie begins he's running with a gang of slimy desperadoes. However, through the course of the film, his character changes--revealing SOME decency underneath all that filth. However, despite this change, his character is still very believable and compelling--not preachy or one-dimensional. As a result, this is more of a "thinking person's" film--not just some cardboard characters fighting it out in the middle of the town (something that almost NEVER happened in the Old West). So, take my advice and see this film. The acting, direction and especially the writing make this a must-see Western,...even if you don't particularly like Westerns!

UPDATE: I just saw a remake of "Yellow Sky" called "The Jackals". Instead of the old west, it's set in South Africa and is also quite good.

Stretch is the leader of bank robbing desperadoes, after their latest job they find the US Cavalry hot on their tail. Their only conceivable route of escape is to traipse over an enormous salt flat, low on water and bitten by the scorching sun, they happen to come across a ghost town named Yellow Sky. Here was once a prosperous town, now the only inhabitants are a crusty old prospector and his tomboy granddaughter. Soon the talk turns to hidden gold and it's not long before these desperate men will become conflicted in more ways than one. Be it greed, lust or the Apache, the day of reckoning is coming to Yellow Sky.

Yellow Sky is a technically stunning picture, directed with panache by William A. Welman, boasting starkly affecting black and white photography from Joseph MacDonald, and utilising the wonderful use of natural sounds. This picture is to me one of the shining lights of 1940s Westerns. Once the pulse racing pursuit of the robbers by the US Cavalry has finished, the film shifts into a master class of visual and dialogue driven delights. As the gang trundle across the desolate salt flat, the need for quenching the thirst hits the audience as much as it does the gang; I myself found that I was swigging rapidly from my cold can of beer! The Alabama Hills location is a sprawling, beautiful, never ending ode to the West, and then the actors kick in and do their stuff, and then some.

Gregory Peck plays the leader Stretch, an actor normally associated with a straight laced gait, here he is is weather worn and tired, his portrayal of Stretch as convincing as a role I have seen him tackle. Richard Widmark, in what I believe to be his first Western entry, is truly magnetic, a smirking, snarling Dude that you just know you couldn't trust if your life depended on it. Anne Baxter plays the sole female character of the piece (Mike), and she is pivotal to the whole film's strength, tough and full of spunk, her grasping of the situation in amongst these ragged men gives the piece it's time bomb ethic, and boy does Baxter do well with it.

All told there's no weakness' in the casting, they all do good work, and although the plot structure of the film is nothing out of the ordinary, the technical aspects coupled with the excellent writing on the page (W.R. Burnett story, Lamar Trotti screenplay) lift it way above many of its contemporaries. The ending has caused some consternation amongst Western critics over the years, and if I'm honest then it's not totally satisfactory to me personally, but it is in no way what so ever a bad ending, you just feel that the mood that had preceded it deserved something better. But as ever, it's up to the individual viewer to decide for themselves. 9/10

This is not just your ordinary western. Top stars, great scenery and a well acted, but ordinary story. Gregory Peck leads a gang of bank robbers into the desert with the law hot on the trail. Peck ends up romancing Anne Baxter; and dealing with an Arizona ghost town while trying to calm down his angry pack of thieves. Also in the cast are: Richard Widmark, John Russell, Harry Morgan and Jay Silverheels. Beautiful black & white western action.