Na Encruzilhada dos Facínoras

If you're going to watch a Jeff Chandler western, this is the one to see. I'd hestitate to call it a masterpiece, but it's a damn good try. Produced and directed by the team of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, it is a tale of conflicting loyalties, megalomania, love, hate and a number of other issues I can't remember, in pre-Civil War Kansas on the eve of the Civil War. Star Jeff Chandler, who portrays the megalomaniacal but withal personally decent and charismatic bad guy, is quite good here. He had spent a decade in action pictures and romances, with an occasional comedy thrown in for good measure, and yet had not achieved major stardom. A mid-level star of the kind of medium grade movie that was going out of fashion, he was on the verge of becoming an anachronism; and had he not died a couple of years after this film one wonders what would have happened to him and his career. In The Jayhawkers he shows what he might have become: a fine, commanding, aristocratic character actor.

As the second-billed good guy, Fess Parker, fresh from his triumph as Davy Crockett a few years earlier, was attempting a mainstream, post-Disney career. Low-key and phlegmatic, and not without appeal, he lacks the edge of a Mitchum that might have propelled him into the big leagues, and is for the most part an uninteresting hero. Nicole Maurey is the incongruously Gallic love interest, and one can't help be curious as to why she was cast in this film. She was a lovely young woman, but way out of place here.

Loyal Griggs color photography is as good as his work in Shane, and far less mannered. The music of Jerome Moross is stirring and in its way as good as anything Dimitri Tiomkin ever did. With its larger than life good-bad guy, and reasonable (for a movie) historical accuracy, this could have been a major film. The problem with it is that though Panama and Frank were quite good at light comedy, they were inexperienced in the western genre. Frank does a good, derivative job of drawing from Ford and Hawkes; and there are some breathtaking vistas. There is even a touch of Nicholas Ray in his creative and interesting use of interiors, especially the main hideout. And Chandler gives an at times daring performance, with occasional lapses into mild effeminacy in his vocalizing and posture, his work is well-rounded and sophisticated, suggesting that his character's feeling for Parker is more than just friendship. Alas, this daring aspect of the story is never gone into with any depth or insight, and the result the movie is a near-miss, but a fascinating one.

Tightly acted and directed Western with outstanding performances from Jeff Chandler and Fess Parker.

The latter is the conscience, and Parker is terrific as the guiding force who proves effective at carrying out a difficult task while maintaining his humanity in a war-scarred environment. He lifts his screen game from the aw-shucks, King of the Wild Frontier character to legit leading man.

This is the best I've seen from Chandler, always a capable and gifted performer. Here, he holds firm to the ruthless power-monger of his Darcy character while speaking about, and occasionally showing, his human side.

So many Westerns are black versus white, good v. evil. This one gets into the gray areas, actually spends most of its 1:40 run time in the gray. I expected a B-movie, instead saw a solid A effort with a special nod to Melvin Frank, who directed and was part of the writing team.

It's a Western that shakes off the dust and sets down the six-guns, if you dig deep and think about it.

"The Jayhawkers" was released in 1959 and starred Jeff Chandler as an ambitious person eager to control pre-War Kansas, and Fess Parker has to try and stop him in his scheme. Reason: Parker, as Cam Beeker, had broken out of a federal prison to try and come back to his wife, and his ranch in Kansas. He finds that his wife has died, and the ranch has been sold to a family, headed by French actress Nicole Maurey. He also learns that Luke Darcy, played by Chandler, was the reason behind his wife's death and the ranch being lost. Beeker becomes a member of the gang in order to win his pardon from the territorial governor of Kansas. Upon joining the gang of raiders calling themselves the Jayhawkers, he starts to accept the ambition of Darcy, because the man seems intent on bringing peace to the territory, but under his rule. The viewer of this watchable western will be asking which way Parker's character will finally go; either turn Darcy over to the governor, or become part of the plan to control the territory. A good 7/10

I would say that this film is for Melvin Frank what THE TRAP was for his former buddy Norman Panama, both who earlier in their careers made comedies, only comedies, light ones. It could have been far far worse for those directors whose this was their first try in the western, crime, action genre. Of course, this is not John Ford nor Howard Hawks or even Delmer Daves nor hank Hathaway, ut Jeff Chandler is here and helps a lot. Good western.

A fun to watch western containing Fess Parker's best performance, the show is stolen by Jeff Chandler's performance as the baddie you hate to see taken down. However, as outstanding as Chandler is, the real star of the film is Jerome Moross' pulse-pounding score, which predates his legendary music for THE BIG COUNTRY. It's every bit as good, if not better. Henry Silva is (of course) scuzzy as a hired gun.

Catch it. Any western fan won't regret it.