Last night I watched a Western for the first time in weeks. We only saw a handful of 'em in 2020, a disturbing trend that has to be reversed, so I chose "Trooper Hook"(1957) from yet another Youtube list. It sounded good on paper : Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck in the lead roles, a script written by Charles Marquis Warren, the creator of the "Rawhide" TV series, which made Clint Eastwood a star. And a solid sounding story about a US Cavalry Sergeant (McCrea) who is charged with returning a white woman (Stanwyck) and her half breed son to her husband. Stanwyck is a captive of the Chiracahua Indian chief "Nanchez", who kidnapped her years earlier in a raid. He had a son by her and brainwashed her into Apache culture. When we first see her, she has the blank stare of a zombie, but holds on to her son with the protective instinct of any mother.
Some of the soldiers in Joel McCrea's regiment question why he would bother providing escort to such a woman. The underlying message, left unsaid, is that - because she has a half-Indian child (a small boy) - she must have been "asking for it" from Nanchez. In other words, they think she lusted after him. But nothing could be further from the truth. She's a victim of kidnapping and rape, and in her years as a captive she has withdrawn inside herself. McRea, as "Sergeant Hook", understands all of this, but the people he encounters as he brings Stanwyck home do not. At every stop they make, she is harangued with prejudicial comments, such as "White Squaw", meaning an Indian lover who willingly left her husband to join with the Apache.
Worse, her little boy is vilified. If not for Trooper Hook's protective presence, he would likely be killed by some white man on the desolate frontier.
It was a good concept, with a heartfelt script, and you can't go wrong with the pairing of Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck, two major stars who've acted together in previous Westerns. But the execution was slow as molasses. I found myself nodding off here and there as Warren - who also directed - subjected his audience to yet another cramped scene inside a stagecoach.
It's safe to say his forte is television. Besides "Rawhide", he was also the co-creator of "Gunsmoke" and "The Virginian", each a legendary series, but in tv you move quickly. Scenes are short - 10 to 30 seconds. Warren is expert in that format, but here, in "Trooper Hook", he seems lost at maintaining dramatic tension in a lengthier presentation. There is a flatness to the plot, and the performances are professional but slightly wooden. McCrea in particular recites his lines bloodlessly, as if he was on set waiting for lunch break. And he never phones it in; he was one of the greatest Western Stars of them all.
It's not worth it to pick on this film, because it's still watchable and it means well. But there's next to no action and the conflict, despite the serious subject matter, is minimal. All in all, it's better thought of as a nice story than as a motion picture. Give it a shot if you want, but my thumbs are both pointed sideways. ///
We're gonna keep heading out on the dusty trail, though, because we are humongous Western movie fans and we haven't been watching nearly enough of them. Remember that Motorhead song, "Shoot You In The Back" from "Ace of Spades"? That was an ode to Westerns, and Lemmy even used the line "in the Western movies".
Man, I was a huge Motorhead fan back in the day. In 1981-82 they were in regular rotation on my Denon turntable, not just "Ace of Spades", but also their albums "Bomber" and "Overkill", and then "Iron Fist", the last one with Fast Eddie Clarke on guitar. I got to see that original lineup a couple of times, and they made such an impression on me that I even carved "Motorhead" into the newly poured cement of the gutter in front of our house, at 9032 Rathburn Street. I had a bunch of favorite bands in those days, and at the top were always Rush, Van Halen, Judas Priest or Rainbow, but Motorhead were also included for a while, and they had a different image from the other groups. They really did look like outlaws from the Old West. ////
That's all I've got for tonight. I finished reading "1915" by Lyn Macdonald and "The History of Warfare" by John Keegan, and now I'm continuing in the same vein with a book about the bombing of Dresden called "The Fire and the Darkness" by Sinclair McCay. I know it's grim stuff, but besides being a history buff, and especially war history, I really feel it's important to know what has happened in the world due to the dark side of human nature. The dark side never rests, and the only way to keep it down is to be aware of it.
Peace and love for the week ahead, and for the final ten days of American Psycho.......
xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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