Tonight we concluded our Inger Stevens mini-fest with a movie called "Firecreek"(1968), starring (in addition to Stevens) James Stewart and Henry Fonda. I'd never heard of this film before, and I'm very surprised it's not well known because it might just be the last of the great Westerns, or one of the last anyway. The trend after 1969 was to go the route of "The Wild Bunch" and turn the genre into a bloodbath, or to continue to make Spaghetti Westerns, which I think mostly sucked because - besides being poorly made - they verged on parody. But in 1968, you still had "The Stalking Moon" with Gregory Peck, and the newly discovered "Firecreek", two classic Westerns in the grand tradition.......and then that was it. But boy, was it great while it lasted.
Jimmy Stewart stars as Johnny Cobb, a farmer in the town of Firecreek who is also the "honorary" Sheriff. Firecreek is so out of the way that it's citizens figure they don't need a full-time lawman. Nothing ever happens in their town, and in fact, that's the reason many of the residents moved there, to be away from the dangers of the Wild West. But the sameness of day to day life in Firecreek has led to complacency on the part of it's people, so when Henry Fonda (pronounced Hen-REE Fahhn-dah) rides in with his cadre of stone cold killers, the citizens revert to cowardice, much like they did in "High Noon". They leave it up to Stewart to deal with the bad men, and at first he tries to appease them, because he says, while they are certainly nasty and belligerent, they haven't done anything wrong. Nothing he can arrest them for, at any rate. The translation for this is that he's scared of them, too, or at least wary, and he doesn't want to provoke trouble.
Fonda's men aren't actual outlaws. They work as hired gunmen for ranchers. Their jobs have included clearing land of poachers and squatters, which often meant killing someone, but in Fonda's eyes it was all justified by the fact that he and his men were paid to do a job. Besides, he says, how can something be against the law when there is no law to begin with? He's talking about the frontier, which had yet to be settled or taken in by the United States.
There is a young man in town, named Arthur, who works at the livery stable. He is mentally deficient, but forthright, and he idolises Sheriff Jimmy. He isn't smart, but he can see that Fonda's men are up to no good, drinking and partying and talking dirty about an Indian woman who runs the town restaurant. Arthur believes in right and wrong and tries to get Jimmy Stewart to do something, but again Jimmy demures. "Don't worry, Arthur. They'll be gone in the morning". That was the original plan, anyway. Fonda told Stewart that he and his men were just stopping for the night, to rest and eat. But Fonda has a wound that needs bandaging, and when he checks in to the hotel, Inger Stevens - the owner's grandaughter - volunteers to have a look at it. She can see it's a bullet wound, so she asks him about it. "It didn't happen in a gunfight if that's what you're worried about", Fonda replies, but Stevens doesn't believe him. She is a taciturn woman who wants the men gone as soon as possible. She wraps the wound anyway and gives Fonda some medicine, and whataya know?........soon he will fall in love with her.
Meanwhile, over at the bar, Fonda's men are whooping it up, fighting and breaking windows. Two of them - Gary Lockwood (of "2001" fame) and James Best (from "Rolling Thunder") have an eye on the Indian woman from the restaurant across the street. She lives in the back; they can see that her bedroom light is on, and they get to talking. "Betcha she'd like her a nice young cowboy", Best muses. "Well why doncha go over and find out", suggests Lockwood. He's a real SOB in this movie, who's been making trouble ever since he came to Firecreek. Best ain't too bright, and he's drunk as a skunk (a bad combination), so he takes Lockwood's advice and walks across the street and into the woman's abode.
Arthur the stable boy happens to be wandering by, and when he passes the restaurant he sees the door ajar. Sensing something wrong, he enters the establishment to check on the Indian lady. There are noises coming from the back room. Arthur looks in to see James Best on top of the woman, and calls out for him to stop. Best is irritated but not deterred. He gets up just long enough to throw Arthur out of the place, and then goes right back to what he was doing. When Arthur re-enters and jumps on Best's back, a fight ensues, spilling out into the street. Arthur manages to get Best's gun, and - I probably shouldn't tell you this but I'm going to (Spoiler Alert!) - he shoots Best in the back. He didn't mean to do it. Sheriff Jimmy has told Arthur never to play with guns, but what else could Arthur do? James Best was raping a woman. Arthur only meant to stop him, to hold him at gunpoint. But he didn't know that Best had his pistol filed down to a hair trigger. It went off as soon as he grabbed it, and now Best is dead. Gary Lockwood watched the whole thing from his table at the bar. He wants instant frontier justice. Jimmy Stewart runs down the street to intervene. He takes Arthur into protective custody and places him in jail. Stewart has another pressing concern : his pregnant wife is about to give birth, but it's a complicated labor. He needs to be with her, so he asks the local storekeeper to watch Arthur until he gets back.
This is where the plot turns, so I shouldn't reveal any more. You can imagine that Gary Lockwood is gonna try to take advantage of Sheriff Jimmy's absence. Lockwood isn't very "Frank Poole"-like in this movie. If he were, he'd be much more thoughtful about the situation; scientific even. But here, he's a real a-hole from the get-go. The only person who can stop him now is his own boss Henry Fonda, who as mentioned has fallen for Inger Stevens and doesn't want any trouble. He's been trying to get Lockwood to behave the entire time, but Fonda is older and not quite as tough. He knows he can rein in his men only so far. At a certain point, they're gonna ignore his orders, and with the shooting of James Best, that point has been reached. In the interest of keeping his gang intact, Fonda decides to back Lockwood's demand for justice. And now I really can't tell you any more.
As noted, this is classic stuff, very well directed by Vincent McEveety and beautifully photographed in widescreen Technicolor at rustic locations around Thousand Oaks. Besides the star power of Stewart, Fonda and Stevens, and in addition to Gary Lockwood and James Best, you get a whole host of veteran supporting actors, including Jack Elam as yet another Old West Crumb Bum, Dean Jagger (again!) as the elderly shopkeeper, Morgan Woodward as one of Fonda's gunmen, and the venerable Jay C. Flippen as Inger Steven's grandpa, the hotelier. And oh yeah, you get Ed Begley, too, in a brief role as a fire breathing preacher. Standing out among them all is the performance of a young actor named Robert Porter as "Arthur". He was so good that I had to look him up on IMDB when the movie was over. It turns out he lived on a horse ranch in real life, in Malibu, and only acted in a handful of films, but he deserved an Oscar nomination for this one. I've gotta ask again, and especially with a cast like this : How the heck has "Firecreek" gone unnoticed all these years? I'm a Western fanatic and I'd never heard of it before my Inger Stevens search, but I don't think it's just me. I doubt whether most fans have heard of it, perhaps because it was released near the end of the genre's popularity.
Let's resurrect "Firecreek", and we'll start by giving it Two Gigantic Thumbs Up, and our Highest Recommendation. ////
That's all for the moment. It's still super windy out, so I'll again postpone my walk and head over to the Libe instead to look for more movies. I will be viewing some Christmas classics, so don't worry. We'll be getting in the Holiday Spirit in the next day or two. With Christmas, it's different than Halloween season when we can watch Horror Movies for an entire month, because unlike the hundreds of horror flicks, there are only a dozen or so Christmas films to choose from. But we will catch a few of them, maybe a half-dozen, so stay tuned. I'll see you tonight at the Usual Time. :)
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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