Day of the Outlaw

In the end of the Nineteenth Century, the tough cowboy Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) arrives in the snowing village of Bitters with his foreman Dan (Nehemiah Persoff) with the intention of killing the farmer Hal Crane (Alan Marshal) using the pretext of the barbed wire he is running around his farm. However, Blaise really wants his wife Helen (Tina Louise) with whom he had a love affair. During the showdown between the cowboys and ranchers in the saloon, the violent gang of outlaws led by Captain Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) appears out of the blue interrupting their quarrel. Jack Bruhn, who is a notorious captain of the army responsible for the massacre of a village of Mormons, disarms the men and explains that they have robbed the payment of the army and a cavalry is chasing them. He is wounded and wants to spend the night in the village and he gives his word to the locals that his gunners will not touch the women. Further he orders the barman to hide the booze from his men. When the local veterinary removes the bullet from the chest of Jack Bruhn, he realizes that he might have an internal bleeding and not survive. Blaise decides to lure the criminals and lead them in a journey with no return.

"Day of the Outlaw" is a bleak and original Western in a snowing landscape and based on a historical fact of North America: the violent confrontation between farmers and ranchers that ran barbed wire around their own land and public land that they used for grazing without permission and people that cut the barbed wire. The cinematography is magnificent and the sequences in the snow are impressive, with the horses submitted to a great effort to ride through the mountains. The performances are stunning with Robert Ryan and Burl Ives in the role of strong and tough characters. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Quadrilha Maldita" ("The Damned Gang")

Well, this is one of those movies you watch without any preconceptions because you have never heard of it before and it creeps up and socks you in the jaw. Starts, seemingly simply enough with Robert Ryan as the old school cowboy coming up against the more conservative farmers and settlers. There is the added ingredient of sexy Tina Louise, married to one of the new boys but clearly still having the hots for old flame, Ryan. Just when we think we have the measure of it and Ryan has picked his fight and the bottle is rolling down the bar, its crash to signal the start, the door bursts open. Knowing that Burl Ives was in the film and having mixed feelings about his acting abilities, i had wondered whether the miserable and bearded drunken side-kick to Ryan was he, but there was no doubting anymore as Ives and his crew of degenerates tumble in. Tensions abound throughout, the incredible barnyard type dance without liquor but plenty of vigour and barely disguised rape fantasies, is probably the most dramatic but there is an effective fist fight, various confrontations with the sexy lady and all this before the sublime and so very snowy last section as beauty and good intentions clash with cruelty and betrayal. Very fine and essential quirky western with solid dialogue and fine cinematography.

Underrated Western with some genuinely unusual features. As a long-time fan of Westerns, I've seen only a handful hardy enough to film in the mountains in winter. But the results here are riveting, especially in grainy b&w. Those bleak snow-scapes with the horses trying to plow across are a rare glimpse of trail blazing before the 4-lane highway. The toll on man and beast must have been excruciating. Those memorable scenes are, I believe, the movie's high point, and to the credit of the producers, I could spot only one minor exterior set to break the continuity. Then too, the weather-beaten town looks authentic as heck. I just wish IMDb had been able to identify the locations so I'll know where not to winter hike.

Unusual too is the absence of a good-guy hero. The two leads, Ryan and Ives, are both strong characters, but with a wobbly moral compass that wavers somewhere between low- down meaness and high-type nobility. In short, you never know what they're going to do. That makes for two interesting non-stereotypes to drive the plot. I expect one reason the film was passed over by critics is because of sexpot Tina Louise as an audience draw. Known more for her Amazonian measurements than her acting skills, she nevertheless does well enough here, while watching her get bounced around the dance floor, hair flying, is not anything you'll see her Ginger do on TV's Gilligan's Island. Speaking of vintage TV, there's Ozzie & Harriet's elder son David as a good kid who's fallen in with the wrong crowd, and a teenage Venetia Stevenson who looks and sounds more like a malt shop than a frontier town. Somehow, you just know they'll end up together.

Nonetheless, it's a payday for a lot of sturdy Hollywood veterans in supporting parts, including the always dependable Dabbs Greer and my favorite plug-ugly bad guy Jack Lambert. Then too, maybe you can figure out what Elisha Cook Jr.'s role is supposed to be, but who cares, just seeing the little fall-guy resonates across a couple of memorable Hollywood decades. And who better to manage scriptwriter Phillip Yordan's parade of shifting alliances than a central European like Andre de Toth, whose 1947 Western Ramrod remains another hidden gem. Anyhow, no movie that pits the steely Robert Ryan against the immovable Burl Ives can afford to be passed up, especially when stretched across an unusually polar landscape that still gives me the cold shivers.

This is an excellent western by Andre de Toth. It is mainly remembered for its final thirty minutes,an extraordinary ride in the snow ,where the director makes the best of black and white pictures while he's filming all the tired horses ...Hell freezes over.

But the first hour is absorbing as well with its depiction of an one-horse town lost in the snow,a dead end where one never really knows which ones are prisoners and which ones are guards .The "ball ",during which the four women are really having a bad time (particularly Tina Louise)is one of the most violent scenes ever filmed in a western .And all they are doing is dancing.It has to be seen to be believed! Robert Ryan is ,as always,excellent ,as a tired blasé man who just wants to live in peace.

I must admit up front that I am not a huge fan of Westerns and the biggest reason I watched this film was because it had Robert Ryan in it. For some time, I have thought that Ryan was one of the best "unknown" actors, as he appeared and even starred in quite a few films but most people today have no idea who he was. My admiration for him is because he looked a lot like an ordinary guy (since he wasn't overly handsome) but despite this, his performances always seemed so realistic. He really was a heck of a good actor and his work in this film is no exception.

DAY OF THE OUTLAW isn't a great Western but it is different enough from the average film that it seems fresh enough to merit watching. What I particularly liked is how the first 15 minutes or so of the film turned out to be not at all directly related to where the film went next. Not knowing the plot, this really took me off guard--and I like when a film isn't easy to predict.

I also liked the idea of a gang of thugs invading and holding a town hostage--though this idea has been done before in Westerns (FIRECREEK) and non-Westerns (THE WILD ONE). What made this one stand out more from the others is that this group wasn't just bad in the usual sense, they were moral degenerates--rapists and sadists, not just socipaths or thieves. Plus, the idea of a strong but wounded leader (Burl Ives) trying to control these sick freaks was fascinating--as was the final showdown.

All in all, a very good film and one you should try to find due to its intelligent script and excellent acting.

By the way, one reviewer said they felt Burl Ives was wrong for the part since in real life he was a nice-guy folk singer. Well, with gritty previous roles in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and THE BIG COUNTRY, I would certainly have to disagree with the sentiment, as Ives played the heavy in movies about as often as he played a good guy.