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There is a bit wrong with this film. Gary Cooper's age versus Lee Cobb's. The coincidental stranding of Julie London and Arthur O'Conell after the train robbery. The abrupt ending.

There is quite a bit not wrong also. The outdoor photography. The interior train scenes seem to have been entirely shot on a real train going down the tracks, not a set with rear projection. All the settings are real looking not Hollywood whitewash. Gary Cooper is low-key but builds his conflicted character well. The villains are among the nastiest one can see in pre-1960's westerns. They really lay the groundwork for the stock western psycho in later Spaghetti Westerns. Jack Lord plays a real maniac!

Mann's eye for visual composition really adds to the psychological atmosphere. You can see the influence on Leone and it seems like Leone imitated a couple of shots from this film. The set design for the town of Lasso could have been used in any Italian western.

A good, if depressing, alternate western.

Tense , violent ,epic Western in which Gary Cooper , Lee J Cobb and Julie London stand out . Brilliant and taut Western with wonderful use of locations and top-of-the-range cast . Gary Cooper is the Man of the West , a reformed outlaw called Link Jones (Gary Cooper , he bravely did his own horse-riding scenes despite physical pain from a car accident years earlier though) becomes stranded after an aborted train robbery with two other passengers (Julie London , Arthur O'Connell) . Cooper is forced to rejoin his ex-colleague (Lee J Cobb) and ex-boss to save himself and other innocent people from the band's (Jack Lord , Robert J Wilke, Royal Dano) mistreatment .

Magnificent Western plenty of thrills , shootouts , violence , gorgeous landscapes and results to be pretty entertaining . This excellent Western deserves another look at 1958 , nowadays is better considered then the 50s when was dismissed . In spite of its violence that influenced in Spaghetti Western , ¨Man of the West¨ turns out to be an essential and indispensable Western for hardcore aficionados . Jean-Luc Godard, a film critic before he became a director, raved about the film saying it was the best film of that year ; because of his recommendation, the film has been reevaluated and is now considered a classic western . Gary Cooper is frankly well in the role that fits him like a gun fits a holster .Gary Cooper was, at 56, a decade older than Lee J. Cobb who played his "Uncle" Dock Tobin , in the film Cooper and John Dehner talk about being children together , Dehner was actually fourteen years younger than Cooper . However , Stewart Granger was originally announced for the lead role and James Stewart eagerly sought the role played by Gary Cooper, but since Stewart had fallen out with director Anthony Mann he did not get the part . Very good support cast formed by notorious secondaries such as Jack Lord , Royal Dano , Robert J Wilke , Arthur O'Connell , Frank Ferguson and special mention to Lee J Cobb . Colorful cinematography in CinemaScope by Ernest Haller . Powerful and thrilling musical score by Leigh Harline .

This top-drawer Western was stunningly realized by the master Anthony Mann , infusing the traditional Western with psychological confusion , including his characteristic use of landscape with marvelous use of outdoors which is visually memorable . Mann established his forte with magnificent Western almost always with James Stewart . In his beginnings he made ambitious but short-lived quality low-budget surroundings of Eagle-Lion production as ¨T-men¨ , ¨They walked by night¨ , ¨Raw deal¨ , ¨Railroaded¨ and ¨Desperate¨ . Later on , he made various Western , remarkably good , masterpieces such as ¨The furies¨ , and ¨Devil's doorway¨ and several with his habitual star , James Stewart, as ¨Winchester 73¨ , ¨Bend the river¨ and ¨The far country¨ . They are characterized by roles whose determination to stick to their guns would take them to the limits of their endurance . Others in this throughly enjoyable series include ¨Tin star ¨ and ¨Man of the West¨ is probably one of the best Western in the fifties and sixties . After the mid-50 , Mann's successes came less frequently , though directed another good Western with Victor Mature titled ¨The last frontier¨. And of course ¨Man of the West ¨ that turns out to be stylish , fast paced , solid , meticulous , with enjoyable look , and most powerful and well-considered . This well acted movie is gripping every step of the way . It results to be a splendid western and remains consistently agreeable . Rating : Above average , the result is a top-of-range Western . Well worth watching and it will appeal to Gary Cooper fans .

Stranded in the middle of nowhere after their train is robbed, a former outlaw, a schoolteacher and a gambler take refuge with the gang that the former outlaw once belonged to in this dark western drama. Taking refuge does not come easy to the once-outlaw, played by Gary Cooper, as he has to pretend to still be a tough lawbreaker despite reforming his ways, and there is a lot of tension in the air as the gang members are equally as uneasy about his return. The plot actually has a lot in common with David Cronenberg's 'A History of Violence' with Cooper having to face the violent past that he thought he left behind. Cooper never quite seems right in the role though; aside from being two decades older than his character, it is hard to ever imagine Cooper once being a hardened outlaw. As a character, he is not as well developed as Viggo Mortensen in 'A History of Violence' either with the train robbery happening before we even have a chance to know him. The film is also set back by a melodramatic music score from Leigh Harline that comes off as overbearing half the time. The film does have its moments though. The long distance shots of Cooper entering the supposedly abandoned cabin are great, capturing the eerie isolation of the place. The scene in which Julie London is told to strip at knife point is nail-bitingly intense too, and while he looks too young to really be Cooper's uncle, Lee J. Cobb is delightful in the role, radiating both danger and a sense of longing, wanting so much to reconnect with the outlaw nephew he thought he lost forever.

Of all the western movies that I have seen in my time, I would definitely have to say that "Man of the West" is one of the best. Gary Cooper does an excellent job of portraying an ex con who must confront his past and deal with a gang who does not trust him but would like him to help them out. He acts just as though he did in many of his films, playing a quiet, easy going cowboy who knows how to act in tight situations. I also thought Cooper had a very supportive cast that included Jack Lord as a wild and rebellious killer, John Dehner as a cool but equally violent person, Lee J. Cobb as a filthy old man who was the leader of the gang and who surely was the example for the other gangmembers and Arthur O'Connell and Julie London as the innocent bystanders who Cooper must look out for. I also thought that the content and violence was very well done to help people get the feeling of what people could be like. All in all, "Man of the West" is not only one of Cooper's best but one of the best westerns ever.

I have to admit that I am not a fan of Gary Cooper, but he fits the role of a ' supposedly ' reformed outlaw very well. The film itself is dark as any Film Noir, with violent scenes succeeding each other and I do not feel it has anything in common with ' King Lear ' or redemption that some claim it has. Anthony Mann goes to the limit and I wonder how much he thought of his own Film Noirs while making it. As for the story there is a hold up on a train and it is the gang that Cooper once belonged to who attack it. Julie London is on the train as well and both she and Cooper are taken to a hideout run by an over acting Lee J. Cobb. After a long and ranting scene with him the nastiness really begins. Viewers should know there are two forced scenes of the unwanted removal of clothes, one for titillation, one for revenge. Cooper remains mute in one a knife to his throat, and in the other he is the enforcer and mutely enjoys the violation of a human body until he gets down to the underwear. I believe the UK censors cut one but not the other. No more spoilers but Cooper is at his laconic best, as if he was forced to speak while having teeth pulled. I give this a six for Julie London's restrained performance and for the occasional good use of Cinemascope. Frankly I think Anthony Mann should have made it in black and white and dispensed with widescreen. Noir is black and there is absolutely no redemption for any of the characters. Mann's bleakest Western and an opening for even more violent Westerns in the 1960's.

Film critic Jean Luc Godard was right when he liked this film. Though the film has its weak spots, the good bits outweigh those. Gary Cooper is outstanding in the main role--a performance as creditable as his role in High Noon. The character of Beasley (Arthur O'Connel) is interesting to note when his role is only a sidebar plot in the main structure. Lee J Cobb is almost unrecognizable (recognizable by his voice) thanks to the beard and other make-up. Julie London is also notable. The cameo of the Mexican lady and then of her Mexican husband returning to a dead town called Lassoo are, for me, high points. But the concept of the ghost town having a bank with lots of money for the gang leader (Cobb) is a very interesting way to look at the way the Wild West was evolving. What does not add up is Cooper's character at the end. Does he eventually hire Billie (London) as the schoolteacher? Does he get married to her, after stating that he has two kids and a wife? An unusual western indeed.

Due to his reputation as a 'genre' director, Anthony Mann's film-making skills are apt to be undervalued but his cycle of exemplary fifties Westerns of which 'Man of the West' is the capstone, marks him out as a master of his craft.

This is his penultimate Western as indeed it is for its star Gary Cooper and one wonders why the film fared badly at the box office. Perhaps audiences were perplexed by the absence of James Stewart whose professional partnership with Mann had already yielded eight films, five of which were Westerns. As it happened they had a falling out and alas never again worked together but for this viewer at any rate the casting of Cooper is better suited to this material. Stewart's persona in his Westerns with Mann reveal what one critic has termed an 'underlying hysteria' whereas Cooper's innate vulnerability, if anything deepened by age and ill-health, gives his performance as Link a gravitas which contrasts wonderfully with Lee J. Cobb's demented Dock Tobin and his assorted gang of misfits played Jack Lord, Royal Dano, Robert Wilkie and John Dehner. Cooper's softly-softly, low key approach makes his later acts of violence even more effective. Despite the age difference his cleverly lit scenes with sultry Julie London work really well and their simpatico is palpable.

Mann has had the courage here to make Miss London's forced striptease as slow as possible(who's complaining!) whilst the drawn out fight between Link and the Coley of Jack Lord is stunning in its rawness and brutality. He and his cinematographer Ernest Haller have given us dark and gloomy interiors as well as varying their palette in the changing landscapes whilst the final confrontation in the old ghost town is brilliantly staged. Leigh Harline provides another superlative score.

Time has treated this piece well and it is now rightly seen not just for the masterpiece it assuredly is but also as bridging the gap between the traditional and 'adult' Westerns that were to come.

I am loath to agree with Jean-Luc Godard but when he wrote that with this film Anthony Mann virtually 'reinvented the Western', he hit the nail on the head.

Released in 1958 and directed by Anthony Mann, "Man of the West" stars Gary Cooper as a reformed owlhoot who becomes stranded with two others (Julie London & Arthur O'Connell) in the Arizona wilderness after their train is ambushed. They eventually make their way to a hidden ranch in the rolling hills, which ushers in phantoms of the ex-outlaw's past.

This is hailed as a cult classic and it's obvious why: To compete with so-called adult TV Westerns of the mid-late 50s, like Gunsmoke, Cheyenne, Maverick and the brutal The Rifleman (for which Sam Peckinpah directed several segments), Mann made "Man of the West" so 'adult' that there would be no comparison. He obviously wanted to spur people away from their TV sets and into the theater, along with the added attractions of widescreen, color, spectacular locations and just all-around superior filmmaking.

What's so 'adult' about "Man of the West"? The portrait of the West it paints is decidedly harsh with its band of psychotic killers and an ex-outlaw as a protagonist who's constantly on the verge of letting loose his long-held-in-check violent nature to stamp out the specters of his past. On top of this you have risqué and risky moments for the era (which are rather tame today), like London's character being forced to strip in front of the dudes and an off-screen rape. The other gang members, by the way, are played by Jack Lord, John Dehner, Royal Dano and Robert J. Wilke.

Some reviewers criticize the film for reasons that aren't very justified; for instance, the fact that Lee J. Cobb, who plays the half-mad uncle of Link (Cooper), was ten years younger than Cooper. Yet Cooper's role was originally slated for the younger Stewart Granger. (James Stewart, Mann's go-to man in five of his previous Westerns, desperately wanted the role, but Mann overlooked him due to their falling out during the pre-production of 1957's "Night Passage" wherein Mann pulled out). In any case, Cobb is made out to be about 10-12 years older than Link and I think it works for the most part, particularly since Cooper was still lean & mean at 56 during shooting, although his character is supposed to be 20 years younger. (Cooper would incidentally pass away a mere four years later). True, Link's face looks withered, but it could be argued that that's what a hard life in the Old West does to a man.

Another criticism is the idea that Dock believed the bank in Lassoo would be full of money when the settlement turns out to be a virtual ghost town. Yet ghost towns were birthed overnight back then when mines would suddenly shut down, etc. The looney Dock obviously based his scheme on data from years earlier and an update on the town's status hadn't yet come to him or his gang. They were used to hiding out in their spare time and there was no internet or cell phones. Where's the beef?

That said, there are some justifiable criticisms, like the surreal and lame melodramatics, the slow-pace and the dubiously choreographed fist fight sequence. These elements are so bad they might send modern viewers running away screaming. Thankfully, lame aspects like this went out of vogue by the 60s.

If you can roll with these issues and enter into the world of the movie, however, it has a number of attractions, including the subtext: Cooper's character is named Link because he represents the link between the barbaric and the cultured, the primitive (his old gang) and the civilized (his new life). Unfortunately, with the gift of volition some people inevitably choose to eschew progress and continue in their ape-headed, animalistic ways (which is actually offensive to animals).

After the aborted train robbery, Link starts to recognize his old stomping grounds and is drawn to the hidden shack for shelter & refreshment; yet perhaps also to revisit his past and "the good ol' days." He vacillates between his new identity and the temptation of regressing to the wild "freedom" of his lawless youth.

Interestingly, "Man of the West" is very similar to the slightly superior "The Law and Jake Wade," which debuted four months earlier. As good as the subtext is in "Man" it's meatier in "The Law" (see my review), which is also a little less talky and melodramatic. Yet "Man" has since emerged as a cult classic while "The Law" has fallen into obscurity; no doubt because the latter lacks the two strip sequences and the iconic Cooper.

Although obviously flawed, "Man of the West" was the precursor of the Leone and Peckinpah styled Westerns that came into fashion in the mid-late 60s. The grim, laconic Link is the predecessor of future antiheroes, like Eastwood's 'Man with No Name,' but Link is better IMO because he has more human dimension.

BEST LINE: "There's a point where you either grow up and become a human being or you rot, like that bunch."

The film runs 100 minutes and was shot entirely in California (Santa Clarita, Red Rock Canyon State Park, Jamestown, Thousand Oaks, Newhall, Sonora and the Mohave Desert, with studio-bound scenes done in West Hollywood). The script was written by Reginald Rose from Will C. Brown's book "The Border Jumpers."

GRADE: B-

MAN OF THE WEST (C+): One of those Westerns that love to spend most of its time in talking scenes once it has unveiled the stakes of the plot. Gary Cooper plays a reformed outlaw who, along with two innocent souls on the train with him, winds up accidentally with his old outlaw gang headed by scene chewing Lee Cobb. He has to then trick them that he is into returning to the old life in order to protect the lives and honor of his innocent companions. The key theme here is whether or not Cooper can trick them and get away without re-igniting the old evil self in him. It's a nice concept, but I found the film a bit too plain and obvious. The train robbery and an extended fight sequence are interesting, but Cooper here is kind of boring and while the film engages, it's hard to buy Lee Cobb believing that Cooper is interested in returning and putting up with the chaos it causes his crew. Decent stuff here, not a bad watch, but not something that struck me as must see.

I am a big fan of Director Anthony Mann. When it comes to Westerns, he has to belong in the top directorial echelon - WINCHESTER '73, NAKED SPUR, THE MAN FROM LARAMIE, THE LAST FRONTIER, all deserve praise for their gritty realism and anti-hero approach.

MAN OF THE WEST stars Gary Cooper, often in Westerns but seldom working under Mann. I have no idea why, but Mann allows a few incongruencies to poison the script, easily the worst in any Mann movie I have seen: 1) Link Jones (Cooper) going on a train with money belonging to a village whose residents want him to bring back a schoolmarm - I find it hard to believe that a teacher would require a large sum of money to be contracted, and even harder that he would surrender that info to the inquisitive Beasley (O'Connell) who immediately finds the ideal schoolmarm (London) aboard the train. 2) Tobin (Lee J, Cobb) plays a much too loud outlaw leading men who would kill their own mother but bungle a train robbery, and look well fed enough that they must enjoy comfortable living... despite failing in their attacks on banks and trains. 3) Tobin's master plan to rob the bank in the town of Lassoo is ridiculous, seeing that it has become a ghost town ever since the local mine shut down.

To add to the need to suspend your disbelief, Tobin is supposed to be Jones' uncle, but Cobb clearly looks younger than Coop - and so he should, seeing that Cobb was born in 1911 and Coop in 1901.

Sultry beauty London tries valiantly to make the most of a rather irrelevant part. She was first and foremost a wonderful singer, and I can only lament that she did not sing a note here, even though the introductory credits announce a song composed by London's then husband Bobby Troup... but no song is heard at all.

Supporting actor O'Connell does not start off too badly as the nose poker of a passenger but then disappears for long whiles. Ultimately, his role is justified by the need to stop a bullet intended for Coop. Jack Lord looks like the most dangerous of Tobin's sidekicks but after a few threats he is just no match for Coop's fast hand.

As a curiosity, Coop underwent cosmetic facial surgery after completing this shoot, but unfortunately cancer would soon set in, so he had little time to enjoy his regained looks.

Forgettable Westerner, I doubt I will ever rewatch it. 6/10.

There's a lot to like about this excellent Anthony Mann Western.

• Great "passing of the West" theme.

• Great tension and dramatic plot development

• Really good supporting acting. Lee J. Cobb gives a bravura performance. Jack Lord is tremendous as the henchman. Great work by John Dehner as Link's cousin. It's hard to take Dehner seriously, because he appeared so many "B" pictures and TV westerns. But here he comes across as a legit "A" list supporting actor. Julie London is surprisingly effective and Arthur O'Connell provides solid support as well.

However, there were a number of things that prevented this movie from being better:

• Gary Cooper's just way too old for this role. The logic of the its own plot says he should be 40 or so, while he looks like he's 60. That also hurts in the creepy romantic subplot with Julie London, a woman nearly 30 years his junior.

• As is typical in many Anthony Mann movies, there are gaping plot holes. Mainly the preposterous coincidence that Link gets left by the train within short walking distance of his old hideout - and his whole gang is sitting right there, even though he hasn't been anywhere near the place in over a decade.

• Another plot hole, how could Tobin possibly not have known that Lassoo was a ghost town. He seemed to know a ton about the gold kept there. Also, it also wasn't much of a town, what, 10 buildings in total. How much money was in that bank? Another case of Mann deciding he wanted a climactic shoot out in a small ghost town and not ensuring that the plot sets it up properly.

• I thought the rape scenes - graphic for their time - were gratuitous.

• I didn't see the point of killing the Mexican woman in Lassoo. Mann seems sadistic at times.

• At the end Link and Billie ride off into the sunset, but isn't the whole territory out looking for Link now? Claude said the telegraph wires were "burning" that the sheriff had identified him. What about his horse back in Crosscut? Also, he told everyone where he was from. Won't they hunt him down in his home town now?

• It may sound like I'm nitpicking, but all these things add up and most of them aren't necessary. Mann was just very sloppy with plot details. I like to give credit to directors who went to the trouble to preserve the integrity of their stories.

(1958) Man of the West ADULT WESTERN

Adapted from the novel by Will C. Brown( called "The Border Jumpers" which the set up has involves Link Jones ( Gary Cooper) crossing paths with old reckless cohorts bringing forth his dark past, when he was trying to run away from it, with each new revelation as the film progresses! What stands out the most are the ruthless killers, Cooper used to bond and got away from who're some of the most sadistic killers ever portrayed for a Western film! Not the best Western, but with it's bright colors without losing focus in terms of it's story warrants this film a pass! A film intent for James Stewart to star in, but turned it down!

Man of the West, the film that Jean-Luc Godard called the best one of 1958 when he was at Cashiers du cinema, is both brutal and sad in how it places its characters into states of being no one can really get out of. One may call it fate or just bad luck when Link Jones finds himself off the train taking him back to his home and finds the one place he'd rather not go to is the only one close by (and happens to have his Uncle Dock Tobin and his cousins), but much of it comes back to the domination of MEN in this world; the 'Man' of the title is meant to be Gary Cooper, and yet it could be any of the men in here. What does it mean to be a man here? For those people wanting someone with honor and integrity, one might look to Cooper's character.

What's fascinating is how much of an inner struggle he is having as he comes back to his former home, where his uncle taught him to be a "man" along with his cousins and it was in the ways of being a robber and a killer. He tried to leave that life behind, but somehow, some way, he's pulled back in to it (not that his face possibly tipping off an old-time marshall won't get the old wanted posters out again). So when he happens along to his former criminal, gunslinging, bank-robbing kin when off of this train with a good woman (Julie London as Billie) and Arthur O'Connell as a man who seems like a possible annoyance at first (and who isn't so much once the drama really unfolds), it creates an instant conflict.

This is Mann's territory, of the dysfunctional families out in the west (see also Winchester 73 with the brothers who have gone down very different roads of killing, or The Furies with its father-daughter power struggles), and he mines it for some rich dramatic terrain. it's amazing so much of this movie works even when knowing what isn't quite right about it - the age disparity is hard not to see, with Cooper trying to play younger (and, to be fair, not doing a terrible job), and Lee J. Cobb as his *uncle* with a gray wig and some make-up that isn't wholly convincing, certainly on first glance, not to mention his character was a "kid" with one actor half his age - because the acting sells every tension-packed moment. And few moments are more tense and sad and almost tough to watch as when the men demand that Billie take off her clothes in front of them (it takes a knife to Cooper's throat to convince her to start doing it).

That, by the way, has the feel of a rape scene because it is (later, off-screen, there is another, and Mann shows us enough of the aftermath and London is heartbreaking in every moment that Billie is put through the wringer), and yet the only thing that stops that violation of her agency to go further is that "Uncle Dock" says it's time for bed. Man of the West is the kind of film that gains in uneasiness and violence, including a fight scene midway through the movie that does not look fun like many, more possible hacky directors (or just more "commercial" minded) might have done. At one point it's Cooper vs one of this gang and it goes on and on, feeling not unlike something out of the fight scene from They Live only without the sense of over the top spectacle. This is rough and ragged and there's a point where the "movie" ness of it goes away and it's just watching two bedraggled men duking it out - including, ultimately, a "humiliation" that Link does that seems to set off this guy more than a simple shot to the head might do.

What on the surface may seem like a straightforward thriller turns into a moral tale about the implicit terror that masculinity brings to people in the old west - not unlike Winchester 73 a subtle commentary on the form while getting to be it, in the 1950's of course - and Cobb makes this uncle an imposing presence over everyone (how could he not, after all, he's Lee J friggin Cobb!) Cooper brings a sad dignity to the man, someone who no longer wants to kill, and at the same time can spring into action if he's pushed into a corner, which, you know, is what this movie could also be called: Cornered in the West or something like that. Mann and his writers have here less a story that's meant to arouse excitement as much as contemplating what it fully means when someone gets shot, what that violence entails, or what happens when a woman is stripped away down to what she's "made" for (when she Billie says to Link that he's the first man she can remember in a long time, if ever, to not look at her as something to be "had" or defiled, we believe it). And yet London as an actress gives her a ton of screen presence and little moments that don't make her one dimensional.

It may fall short of being a "best of 1958" like Mr. Godard said, but I can see his love for the movie: it's more concerned with ideas and notions of the old west than having it be just empty action and gunfights, and exploring the psychology, to be pretentious about it, of the west itself, of what an outlaw family entails and then what it means to be a *good* person in a world where it's so easy to get a gun and go out and shoot for cash and gold. 8.5/10

Man of the West (1958) : Brief Review -

A greatly performed and written western by Gary Cooper and Anthony Mann, but something's less somewhere. My introduction to Gary Cooper in the western genre was "High Noon" (1952)-a cult classic in my opinion. There, this man was ruling the entire film with his persona, and that somehow made me his fan again. I was already his fan for the work he had done in the late 30s and throughout the 40s, but the impact of that true macho-hero-driven character took until 1952 to come. Anthony Mann was already ruling this genre, so I was excited to see Mann and Cooper's collaboration. Now, when I think about the story calmly, I can understand how great it was. However, the on-time impact while watching the film was lukewarm. It took a while because the film ends with a specific note that defines the characters of the hero and heroine. I was having so-so feelings for these two only while watching the film. Man of the West is about a reformed killer who is left behind after the train is attacked by robbers. He, along with a lady and man, walk miles to find a shelter and arrive at the deserted house where he used to live once. He finds the robbers and his uncle (ex-boss) in the house, and he is trapped. He must take the job of robbing a bank in Lassoo to save himself and the two people he brought in with him. The screenplay kind of didn't excite me much, as everything was looking predictable. The torture, revenge, and romance-every single thing was too predictable. Only the romance ended on a strong note; other things were completed just like they had been done by many western flicks for years. Gary Cooper has done a great job, and so has Lee J. Cobb. Julie London gets the limelight in some scenes. Anthony Mann puts in a lot of effort but fails to match many of his own great Westerns. Overall, good, but something amiss.

RATING - 6/10*

By - #samthebestest.

"Man of the West", being an Anthony Mann directed western, contains a good deal of violence. Usually starring James Stewart, this one stars Gary Cooper in one of the best roles of his career.

The story centers on Cooper as a reformed outlaw who boards a train with Julie London as a saloon girl and Arthur O'Connell as a fast talking gambler. Along the way, the train is held up and the three are left behind. They stumble upon a shack that turns out to be the hide out of the men who had held up the train. Led by a slightly mad Lee J. Cobb, the gang includes Jack Lord as Cobb's sadistic henchman and veteran western performers John Dehner, Robert J. Wilke and Royal Dano as the other gang members. Turns out that Cooper had once been a member of Cobb's gang.

There is a violent fight between Cooper and Lord that is the highlight of the film. There is also an graphic (for the time) shootout in a deserted town and the ultimate showdown between Cooper and Cobb at the end.

Cooper was a little long in the tooth at the time to be believable as Cobb's protege (Cobb was actually 10 years younger), but that can be overlooked due to the excellent performances by both actors. London has little to do but O'Connell is excellent as the gambler who finds his courage.

"Man of the West" is arguably one of Cooper's best.

Basinger said of Mann that his films exemplify "an ideal architecture of form and function, where all cinematic devices are placed at the service of the story.

His films do not require complex analysis; but rather function efficiently and effectively through the careful combination of form and narrative.

Unlike Hitchcock, who revealed his personal signature in his films, Mann never put himself as the director in the spotlight.

Mann's last Western is extremely violent and terrifying and instead of Stuart Gray Cooper, who is certainly no less of the Western icon than John Wayne and Stuart Mann's writer Reginald Rose focuses the story on four distinct locations: a train, an abandoned cabin, a ghost town, and the Mojave Cliffs, the site of the final duel.

And Mann decorates each of these spaces with a different color palette.

The further Link delves into his past, the more desolate and desolate his surroundings become.

This visual contrast perfectly reflects Cooper's difficult path to escape from his violent past and his internal war, and this complex role of Link Jones is a perfect match for Cooper's stony face, which reveals secrets that will never be revealed, the formidable anti-hero for whom he sheds tears, Doc Tobin, played by Lee Cobb, who reveals a near psychological collapse. The eternal content of "Man" is a story of fratricide in the most brutal form of the Western, but like a lasso, there is no trace of the Tobins left, and the West is over for the Western man. A glorious farewell to the Western.

Anthony Mann directed this surprisingly tough (for its era) and gritty western about an ex-outlaw (Gary Cooper) who, along with a card-sharp and a pretty woman, is left stranded after gun-toting thieves rob a train, only to end up taking refuge with the bloodthirsty gang--his former partners, led by his uncle. Screenwriter Reginald Rose, adapting Will C. Brown's book "The Border Jumpers" (a better title!), appears to have been given free reign in regards to the adult content of the story, and some of the sequences--particularly a nasty one wherein knife-wielding Jack Lord commands Julie London to strip in front of the men--are unsettling. Cooper is too old for the lead, and his budding relationship with London seems to bloom off-screen (at first she's a wise, jaded cookie, but too soon becomes the proverbial lovestruck female, turned soft by her victimization). Ernest Haller's cinematography is excellent, as is Leigh Harline's score, but the picture is almost overwhelmed by its own unpleasantness, and by Lee J. Cobb's growling, snarling performance as Cooper's grizzled relative. ** from ****