Montagne rouge

I quite like Director William Dieterle's work. He first impressed me with PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948), a rather whimsical love story, and SEPTEMBER AFFAIR (1950) only confirmed in my mind his penchant for directing love stories with a sensitive touch.

Of course, RED MOUNTAIN does have a love angle, too, which ultimately symbolizes the union of North and South, for the US to become one nation. But it involves a triangle: Ladd, playing Captain Sherwood, carries a torch for lovely Lizabeth Scott... pity that she is married to Arthur Kennedy!

The film opens with the murder of an assayer weighing gold on a scale. The assailant's face is not shown but by the short steps I had an inknling as to the killer's identity: "Nah, can't be Ladd!" - I thought - "He doesn't sneak up on unsuspecting souls and ice them so coldly!"

How wrong I was, but then nothing in RED MOUNTAIN really pans out normally: Ladd is a Confederate, but you do not see him in Confederate uniform, only in Union colors as he saves Kennedy from hanging and for a while you do not know why he does it, until you learn that he was the real finder of the gold motherlode. That ain't all, either: This Ladd is a real bad lad!, thick as thieves with scheming Confederate General Quantrill until the latter reveals his real hand and his nefarious plans with the Indians.

Unfortunately, that denouement involves a deluge of talking, with repeated situations where Ladd saves Kennedy, Kennedy saves Ladd, Scott also saves them. Finally, Ladd realizes that Quantrill is a criminal. As the old saying prior to the 5th amendment had it, a criminal who kills a criminal deserves 100-year pardon.

Such is the dubious moral standard embodied against type by Ladd, normally a standup guy.

Pleasant cinematography, mediocre script. 5/10.

Colorado territory: 1865. The American Civil War is drawing to a close. But on both sides hatred dies hard. Two men and a woman are caught up in these lawless days of murder and greed. Divided among themselves they face a common enemy: a gang of guerrilla raiders - led by the dreaded General Quantrell.

Red Mountain is an action western gem, its pulse voraciously ticking with vibrancy, the locations are not just stunning but play a part in hiking up the suspense that culminates in shootouts. It also contains some striking images: the close-up shot of spurs in the opening shot, the attempted lynching and Quantrill's hideout. Characterisation is solid - Alan Ladd is at the peak of his career, expertly balancing between good and grey areas, John Ireland eating up the scenery as the infamous rascal Quantrill, and Arthur Kennedy doing a good job, so is Lizabeth Scott as the love interest.

This exciting western, which I had seen many times on UK TV, ends with a brilliant showdown between Ladd and Ireland out in the open space, charging at each other with guns blazing .

Red Mountain comes at a point in Alan Ladd's career when he was starting to get known as a western star as well as a noir star. This was the third western he had done after Whispering Smith and Branded. The same year of 1951 he also made Shane, but Paramount held up its release for two years. And he and agent/wife Sue Carol made the decision to leave Paramount around this time. It turned out to be his worst career move.

But doing Red Mountain was far from that. Ladd plays a Confederate officer who in the dying days of the Civil War goes west to join Quantrill's Raiders. He's one Southerner not looking to be reconstructed. But along the way he kills a government assayer and Arthur Kennedy gets blamed for the crime who is also a Confederate veteran. Ladd rescues him from a lynch mob and Kennedy and wife Lizabeth Scott go along with him to join Quantrill. Along the way Kennedy breaks his leg.

Arriving at Quantrill's camp at Red Mountain, the three of them discover that John Ireland as Quantrill has an agenda all his own that has nothing to do with the Confederate States of America. He's setting himself up with an alliance of Indian tribes as a new western emperor. Similar in many ways to Jeff Chandler's character in The Jayhawkers. His ally is Ute chief Jay Silverheels and Quantrill think the Indians fight best in their own established way which doesn't sit well with Ladd.

Quantrill is an interesting figure and none of the Hollywood movies have ever gotten him quite right. Such people as Walter Pidgeon, Brian Donlevy and now John Ireland have played him as one bloodthirsty individual. In Red Mountain he's the deepest dyed kind of villain and quite pretentious as well.

The film was shot on location in Gallup, New Mexico and the battle scenes are well done and the pace from director William Dieterle is a good one. Red Mountain is a good western made at a time when the western was maturing in Hollywood.

Paramount has a fast-paced drama in this underrated, colorful western that has Union and Rebel soldiers clashing after the close of the Civil War. Alan Ladd stars as a rebel sympathizer and point man for General Quantrell who wants to carve out territory for the Confederacy in Colorado with the aid of wild Indian tribes. John Ireland, in one of his best roles, plays the renegade Southern general and Brett Sherwood and Quantrell remain on a collision course that results in a thrilling face-off in the film's final moments. The movie has plenty of shootings, claim-jumping, a lynching scene, Indian fights and a dusty, noisy battle where the soldiers fight at close quarters in well-staged cavalry action. Lizabeth Scott is good as Ladd's romantic interest as is Arthur Kennedy, always good at playing compromised characters. A solid cast of western supporting actors is on hand to keep the story moving at a good clip. Camera work and Franz Waxman's music are good.

I can watch both Alan Ladd and Lizabeth Scott in anything, but to my knowledge this is the only film that paired them up. In fact without minute checking I believe it is, and they are unlikely as possible lovers, and without spoiling the plot the question of that consummation is left dangling. What happens in between that possibility is a rugged Western set in a rocky landscape and it is a pity it was not made a few years later when Cinemascope was in its beginnings. That quibble put aside both Ladd and Scott give good performances and basically this is a Native American fight against the background of the American Civil war as it drew towards its close. Historically I am ignorant of the facts of that ending, but according to the film you get the impression that Ladd ends the war almost single handed versus the last of the Confederates. Judged simply as film the improbable situations work and suspense is held all the way through. I prefer the UK title of ' Red Mountain ' to its American title, and given the amount of action and in your face action at that, as if rehearing for the imminent arrival of films in 3-D, it is never boring. I saw it many years ago and liked it and thought it was lost until it showed up on UK television. By the amount of reviews it has not been seen by many, so catch it when you can. Ladd was at the time at his peak and ' Shane ' his finest Western was waiting in the wings, and although his acting is not top notch his presence is and he deserved his popular appeal from the last part of the 1940's to the late 1950's. Nobody alive now who was a child then will forget his escapist films, and ' Red Mountain ' is high up there in its position of being pure, basic and fun to watch cinema.