Man of the West

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 .

"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.

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.

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

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.