{"id":17055,"date":"2021-08-27T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=17055"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:14:10","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:14:10","slug":"classic-corner-the-ranown-westerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/classic-corner-the-ranown-westerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Corner: The Ranown Westerns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The conventional film history wisdom surrounding \u201cThe Ranown Westerns\u201d \u2013 the six films starring Randolph Scott and directed by Budd Boetticher in the late 1950s \u2013 is, unsurprisingly, repeated on their current Criterion Channel showcase page<\/a>, which defines them as \u201ca crucial link between the classicism of John Ford and the postmodern revisionism of Sam Peckinpah.\u201d This assessment is both accurate and vastly oversimplified. The first of the Ranown Westerns was released in 1956 \u2013 the same year Ford released The Searchers, <\/em>a film in which the psychological complexity and genre subversions of both Botticher and Peckinpah are very much in place. And this was a full six years after the release of Winchester \u201973<\/em>, the first of five noir-tinged Westerns directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, which similarly complicated the tropes of the genre. And that<\/em> series began two years after the release of Red River<\/em>, Howard Hawks\u2019s loaded examination of masculinity and authority on a cattle drive, with John Wayne as a hero that quietly becomes a villain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of which blunts the impact or importance of these pictures; quite the contrary, in fact. It\u2019s important to understand that the Ranown cycle was part of a quiet but ongoing movement to rethink and reimagine what the Western was, and what it could be, even as the more mainstream oaters of film and television continued in much the same key. But these six films \u2013 7 Men From Now<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>(1956), The Tall T<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>(1957), Decision at Sundown<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>(1957), Buchanan Rides Alone<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (1958), Ride Lonesome<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (1959), and Comanche Station<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>(1960) \u2013 were something special. Lean and mean (none of them run over 80 minutes), they carved out their own particular niche, their own specific way of telling a story, and serving a persona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching them altogether on a streaming service like Criterion, where the interface organizes them like a TV series, makes them feel like one; an anthology, perhaps, as Scott isn\u2019t playing exactly<\/em> the same character in each one. But he\u2019s playing variations on one, a similar kind of man, usually something like but not precisely a man of the law (he plays bounty hunters in two entries, and former sheriffs in others). By the later entries, our familiarity with the actor, the director, and the frequent screenwriter Burt Kennedy has the same effect as watching a TV series. The baggage they bring in fills in the blanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott had starred in Westerns since the early 1930s, so his onscreen identity was defined; Boetticher alternately used those preconceptions and subverted them. Scott is a big, sturdy oak of a man, often haunted by a backstory and its demons (frequently a wife who was taken from him). He makes a virtue out of opacity; he\u2019s often hard to read, giving even his most loaded lines a hard, flat delivery, frequently diverting the conversation from lofty talk to the business at hand. He\u2019s very good at replying without saying anything, and because he never shows his hand, he\u2019s able to play his adversaries like a piano. At other moments, he can insert a slight air of bemusement into his low, flat voice \u2013 moments when another (lesser) man might lose his temper, and he\u2019s so calm and cool that when does finally raise a fist, it\u2019s a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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His true identity and motivation is often kept until deep into these (short) films; Decision at Sundown<\/em> even begins with him pulling a gun on his stagecoach drivers, offering the brief but tantalizing possibility that he\u2019s the villain. Such a thing would never fly, of course, but the way Kennedy\u2019s scripts flirt with his identity speaks to the pliability and perception of \u201cgood guys\u201d and \u201cbad guys\u201d in the period. Yet he\u2019s also not boxed into the \u201cman of few words\u201d characterization; scattered films allow him to show a paternalistic warmth, as in his relationship with a friend\u2019s son in The Tall T <\/em>(giving us the memorable image of him riding around with several giant sticks of peppermint candy sticking out of his breast pocket), or the soft-spoken kindness he shows the young Mexican man he stands trial with in Buchanan Rides Alone <\/em>(\u201cIt was an honor knowing you,\u201d Scott tells him when they part company, and he means it). And in Comanche Station<\/em>, when he senses the hesitation and doubt of a young gunman, he tells him simply, \u201cThink it over, son,\u201d and there is quite a bit going on in that \u201cson.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Scott is so willing to play the anchor, and so good at it \u2013 so solid and present  \u2013 the supporting players (especially the villains) can really wild out. Lee Marvin in magnificent in 7 Men from Now<\/em>, threatening and insinuating and vaguely sexual; in The Tall T, <\/em>the great Richard Boone conveys a grudging sense of respect that puts genuine suspense on the outcome, particularly when he appeals to Scott\u2019s sense of honor and fair play when he\u2019s got the drop on him. Claude Akins creates a vile<\/em> villain in Comanche Station<\/em>, but that allows some shading for his henchmen, who know what they\u2019re doing is wrong, but \u201ca man sorta gets used to a thing.\u201d When Dobie (Richard Rust) muses, \u201cSure hope I amount to something,\u201d we\u2019re getting into weightier territory than the typical oater \u2013 that\u2019s frontier poetry right there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to those films, the villain of Decision at Sundown <\/em>isn\u2019t a traditional outlaw \u2013 it\u2019s a respectable fellow, in a nice suit, a man about town about to be wed (and who sends others to do his dirty work). Similarly, the town in Buchanan Rides<\/em> alone is under the the thumb of a single, corrupt family, which is allowed to run rampant until someone fights back. In both films, the townfolk that have enabled them have to come to terms with their complicity (\u201cKimbrough couldn\u2019t have changed Sundown if we hadn\u2019t helped\u2026 by doing nothing, just like we\u2019re doing now\u201d), an idea explored in other, higher-profile Westerns of the era like High Noon<\/em>. And these films, like that one, carefully and subtly remind us that this is not a question that died in the 19th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That thoughtfulness is typical of the way that these seemingly bare-bones programmers slyly grapple with complex themes and relationships. Throughout the cycle, the momentum of the narrative is rarely provided by shoot-outs or fistfights; the action is dictated by what these characters want, and the bargains they\u2019ll strike with each other with each other to get it. And motivations are never simple; Scott\u2019s disgraced lawman in 7 Men <\/em>is haunted by guilt informed by failure, while his character in Decision at Sundown <\/em>is set up as a hero, a good and righteous man, but then (much like Wayne in The Searchers<\/em>) that perception is complicated by his wounded pride, stubbornness, and vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Tall T<\/em>, one of Scott\u2019s old pals, a stagecoach driver, despairs, \u201cThey layin\u2019 tracks over yonder, faster than a nervous hen.\u201d Stagecoaches like his are on their way out, and the train \u2013 representing change and progress and increased speed \u2013 on the way in. That spirit haunts much of the Ranown cycle, that sense that the end of the West is just around the corner, and that, simultaneously, the Western as they knew it was changing as well. But as with the stage and the rail, that shift was ultimately for the better. And these crisp, efficient, and entertaining pictures helped point the way towards what the genre could truly accomplish. \"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ranown Westerns are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In six masterful late \u201850s Westerns, director Budd Boetticher and star Randolph Scott brilliantly reimagined the Western and its hero. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":17059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1431,1422],"class_list":["post-17055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-classic-corner","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22199,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17055\/revisions\/22199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}