"Gunsight Ridge"

I'm back. Sorry I didn't write last night but it was the usual double whammy of reasons : 1) I didn't have a movie to review, and 2) I could think of nothing to ad-lib about. Grim came over again and wanted to read me some articles about Trump, so we went over to campus and sat at the same table from a few nights ago. This was last night. Tonight I did watch a movie, which is why I am back. I'd rather write about watching a Western than about having a Trump discussion with Grim. All I want concerning Trump is to not have to think about him any more.

Tonight's movie was "Gunsight Ridge" (1957), starring the ultra reliable Joel McCrea as an undercover agent for a stagecoach line. This line, fictionalised for the movie but similar to Wells Fargo, carries not only passengers but also large sums of cash for bank transactions. The stage McCrea is riding in is intercepted on the trail and then robbed by two men. One man's bandanna falls from his face during the robbery and he is identified. Other passengers riding in the stagecoach know him from town. This robber turns up dead, though, discovered by McCrea and the local Sheriff in the brush near where the robbery took place. This narrows the search down to a hunt for a single robber, who is now also a killer.

It's a great setup for a plot that has unusual elements not ordinarily seen in a Western framework. For one thing, the lead stagecoach robber (played by handsome Noir actor Mark Stevens) is a psychologically damaged pianist, who gave up playing when his concert career failed to materialise. He plays occasionally now, when he spies a piano in a rooming house, but when a pretty woman compliments him, it only fuels his anger and frustration. He needs to play music and yet it torments him.

Now that is indeed an unusual character trait in a Western.

He has an everyday occupation as a gold miner, barely scraping by, who supplements his meager income by playing cards in the local saloon. His demeanor is so smooth that he is known as "Velvet". But the observant Joel McCrea sees something in Velvet's eyes and body language that causes him to suspect the outwardly law abiding Velvet as the man who led the armed robbery on his stagecoach.

As McCrea's suspicion mounts, Velvet's nerves unravel and he commits more brazen crimes, like a bank robbery in full view of the town square. Now Velvet is coming unglued and piling up a body count. Only Joel McCrea can stop him.

"Gunsight Ridge" is one of the movies included in my Western four pack dvd set that I got from Amazon for about $3.50. I had already watched and reviewed one of the movies, "Gun Belt", a week or two ago, and was impressed with it's quality. Now I am doubly and even triply impressed with this set, because "Gunsight Ridge", while also technically a B-Movie, has top level production values throughout. Shot in phenomenal black and white in an amazing sandstone sector of Arizona, the film's look is as iconic as any by John Ford or Anthony Mann. The acting, especially by Mark Stevens, elevates the Western Bad Guy basics to a humanistic level. Velvet is a violent criminal, but not a cliche. He is equal parts desperate, wanting to get caught, and outlaw, flaunting his villainy. And he is a musician.....

There is a ton of other stuff going on in "Gunsight Ridge", which - just because of it's name - should be considered a classic of the genre. All kinds of characters step in and out of the story, including an elderly Sheriff intent on proving his mettle one last time; a gang of troublesome local ranch hands who get blamed for one of Velvet's murders, and a young lonely farm girl, played by the tragic Caroline Craig, who is so desperate for company that she protects and feeds Velvet when he shows up at her house in his final act as a fugitive.

It's beyond classic, because it's got a ton of story, it's shot in black and white in a location I would love to see, because it starts Joel McCrea and because it looks and feels authentic. /////

That's all I know for tonight (as Dad would say).  xoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo  :):)