Les Années sauvages

The only western that Tony Curtis was to star in his long career was The Rawhide Years. In the tradition of B westerns I'm not sure what Rawhide had to do with the story.

Despite that, it's a decent enough western which starts out on a riverboat where Curtis is the protégé/come-on shill of gambler Donald Randolph. After feeling sorry for a sucker they trimmed one night, Curtis allows a friend of the sucker played by Minor Watson to win the money back. Later on during a pirate raid on the riverboat Watson is killed, Curtis thrown overboard and later suspected of Watson's death.

His fugitive status also puts his marriage plans on hold with Colleen Miller. Curtis comes back after three years and finds she's married to saloon owner Peter Van Eyck. But it all gets straightened out in the end.

Arthur Kennedy is also in The Rawhide Years, a rather rouguish trail companion that Curtis picks up along the way back to Miller. You're never quite sure whether he'll be friend of foe in the end. He gets the acting honors in The Rawhide Years.

In his memoirs Curtis liked doing the film as a change of pace from what Universal usually cast him in. And he liked hanging around with stuntmen who gave him some good tips about behavior in front of the camera. Something they have to know as well as the players they are doubling for.

The Rawhide Years is solid western entertainment a good credit in the Tony Curtis filmography.

I watched THE RAWHIDE YEARS (1956) on the Encore Western-HD channel, mainly to revel in the beautiful Technicolor photography and picturesque settings ranging from western locations in Lone Pine, California to well-appointed Universal Studio sets and backlots. I'm assuming that the riverboat used in several scenes is the one left over from earlier Universal westerns with a riverboat setting, namely BEND OF THE RIVER (1952), THE MISSISSIPPI GAMBLER (1953), and THE FAR COUNTRY (1954). The director, Rudolph Maté, was a former cinematographer who also directed THE MISSISSIPPI GAMBLER and knew how to make the most of the studio's ample resources to craft good-looking films no matter how ludicrous the story might get. In this case, I'm guessing the studio's directive was to create a Tony Curtis vehicle that made use of the standing riverboat and waterfront sets. The plot is wildly unpredictable and full of twists and turns that come at the viewer pretty fast, although the absurdities begin to pile up as well and the final set of plot twists, while thoroughly unexpected, are just too implausible to allow us to take this very seriously. There's a reason why we see these films on Encore's Western channel and not in Tony Curtis western box sets.

Curtis plays a gambler's shill who, on the run from a murder accusation, goes out west to become a cowboy and make enough money to come back to Galena, the river town where the trouble started, to try to clear his name. Along the way he picks up a fast-talking hustler played by Arthur Kennedy who makes no bones about trying to separate Curtis from his money belt. As they share adventures, they develop a symbiotic relationship and wind up getting each other out of jams from one incident to the next. Kennedy's character may be seen as a softened version of the good-bad guy he played in BEND OF THE RIVER who initially sides with James Stewart but eventually turns against him. Curtis is handsome, charming, and athletic (although doubled in the more strenuous fights and stunts), but he looks like a carefully groomed movie star in every shot and not a western hero, although his legions of fangirls in 1956 would not have complained.

The real surprise for me in this movie came from seeing German actor Peter van Eyck in the role of Boucher, the oily Frenchman who runs the saloon and gambling hall in Galena. I'm familiar with him from several of his German films (Fritz Lang's THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE) and the international productions he appeared in during the 1960s (THE LONGEST DAY, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, SHALAKO, etc.), but I'd forgotten about his Hollywood period in the mid-1950s. I found the sight of him alongside such stalwart Hollywood veterans as William Demarest and William Gargan an amusing bit of culture contrast, a bridge between two distinct eras of film history.

Colleen Miller plays the pretty showgirl from whom Curtis is separated for three long years. During that time she takes up with Boucher, which creates problems when Curtis finally comes back to town. She sings three songs in the saloon and one of them was written by Peggy Lee and Laurindo Almeida and even includes a Spanish dancer as backup. Whoever dubbed Ms. Miller's vocals has a great voice and I'd sure like to know who she was, but IMDb doesn't identify her.

The title, THE RAWHIDE YEARS, would seem to refer to that period in the film when Curtis' character has fled west to work as a cowboy for three years, a montage segment that lasts for maybe two or three minutes of the film's 85-minute running time before he starts his trek back east, with Kennedy tagging along. Perhaps that section was longer in the novel on which this film is based, in which case the title might have made sense. It doesn't here.

Tony Curtis is a riverboat gambler who has a murder pinned on him, so he heads out west to find out who did the deed before he is lynched.

It had been six years since Curtis had last been in a western. In that time he had risen from someone barely on the first cast card to one of Universal's biggest stars, so he is well supported in this movie, with the familiar players including William Demarest, Arthur Kennedy and William Gargan. Under the usually psychologically twisted direction of Rudolph Maté, he gives a competent, although not particularly interesting performance.... except, of course, to the young girls whose appeal lay in his beautiful face and lower-class accent. I suppose it made him seem approachable. The resulis a good if not outstanding star vehicle.

Have a high appreciation for Westerns and 'The Rawhide Years' has some very talented names in front of and behind the camera. 'The Rawhide Years' was yet another film too recommended to me, finding myself on an unexpected but interesting Tony Curtis film completest quest. He may not have been the greatest of actors but there was a great deal of likeability about him.

'The Rawhide Years' turned out to be a fun watch. Not one of the best Western films by any stretch, but does its job well and for a film that didn't try to be one of the greats, try and do more than necessary, knew its target audience and what it wanted to be 'The Rawhide Yeats' is generally successful. It is good fun and there is not an ounce of shame having watched it, would hesitate in calling it a favourite but it is deserving of more attention than the near-obscure one it has as of now.

Admittedly, 'The Rawhide Years' is reasonably formulaic and the script has some campiness and doesn't always flow.

Coleen Miller is pretty bland here, not much to her performance, and her chemistry with Curtis does not convince in the slightest, it doesn't ever have spark or passion.

However, regardless of whether he convinces as the type of character he's playing (not quite), Curtis is very heroic and likeable, his acting was getting more comfortable, with some steel that makes his plight worth rooting for. The supporting cast standouts are a stoic William Demarest, deliciously hissable Peter Van Eyck and particularly humorously roguish Arthur Kennedy, his chemistry with Curtis being the most convincing in terms of character interaction of the film.

Visually, 'The Rawhide Years' is handsomely photographed and designed, and directed with assurance. The story is always exciting and easy to follow, some familiar genre tropes here but handled with enough freshness and charm. The characters and enough of the script are fun and amiable and the music fits nicely. The songs may be anachronistic somewhat and may not add much to the story but are lovely in their own right, "The Gypsy with Fire in His Shoes" especially.

In short, entertaining and an easy watch if not something to be blown away by. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This has to be one of the "best looking" films around. Very scenic, as a Western should be. Maybe the best looking two leads together ever.

It's a "fluff" Western, and that isn't always an insult. That's what this was meant to be. Lots of B Westerns were made with different goals, but roughly 2/5 were made like this, to be just eye candy, with a few side dishes added on.

Here, Arthur Kennedy is the "mystique" character. he comes on with too much of a likable rogue, and we wonder if he'll be the masked murderer who leaves Tony Curtis with the blame for a killing of a respected cattle baron.

This is lifted up a bit over the usual fluff with a few red herrings, as we get a bit of a mystery. And the clues come to us the same way they come to the character played by Curtis, which is refreshing. We actually feel along the way with him, as this is very well directed.

The review that claims Korman may have copied the villain for Blazing Saddles looks to be close to the mark I dare say. That kind of gives it a retro appeal that they hadn't counted on in 1955. It is an appealing film. Not memorable, but appealing.