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The Day of the Outlaw

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Robert Ryan is not usually thought of as a Western actor, but his credits in that genre are numerous and uniformly excellent, from HORIZONS WEST to THE PROUD ONES and the HOUR OF THE GUN, not to mention THE WILD BUNCH. THE DAY OF THE OUTLAW, in stark black and white, is one of his finest, and perhaps the finest directed by the underrated Andre De Toth. Burl Ives makes a superb "baddie," almost along the lines of Donald Pleasants. Set in the snowy high altitudes, the film exudes a superbly shaped "coldness" that is also reflected in the lean dialogue. All in all, a very worthy film, well worth owning.

This film was never even released on VHS, this great western is finally being released by MGM with a few other westerns like MAN OF THE WEST, THE WESTERNER, NAVAJO JOE, but this one is easily the best of the bunch. This rare gem stars the great Robert Ryan and Burl Ives and is directed by the great Andre De Toth (Play Dirty)... also highly recommended.

"Now listen," says Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives), renegade former captain in the U. S. Army, to the frightened men and women of Bitters, population about 20, four of them women. It's deep winter and Bruhn and his men have just barged into the saloon as rancher Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) was about to gun down farmer Hal Crane. "Do as you're told and you can go about your business just like we're not here, almost. But we are here so it's best you know with what you're dealing. Pace here gets pleasure out of hurting people. Tex, rile him and you're going to hear some screaming in this town today. Denver, half Cheyenne. Him hate white man. He doesn't feel half so badly about white women. Vause, bones covered with dirty skin but even half drunk he's the fastest draw in Wyoming Territory. And Shorty. We soldiered together. The young fella, well, he's a fresh recruit but he's learning fast."

For the rest of the day and through the night Bruhn by force of will is going to control his motley, dangerous gang. He'll deny them liquor, deny them the town's women, and undergo an excruciating operation by the town vet to extract a bullet from a lung. They're on the run with $40,000 in gold in their saddlebags. The U.S. Cavalry is on their trail. Bruhn is a complex man with an odd sense of honor. He was responsible for a massacre by soldiers under his command. His justice is ruthless. His authority is complete...as long as he lives. Right now he is the only one capable of keeping his gang of killers from tearing up Bitters by its roots.

And that includes Blaise Starrett, an angry rancher...angry at being rejected by Hal Crane's wife, Helen (Tina Louise), angry with Crane for the barbed wire that Crane will be putting up next to his land, angry at the farmers moving into the town and the territory that he cleaned up and made safe. That showdown with Crane that Bruhn interrupted would have been no more than murder. Crane wore a gun but couldn't use it well, and Starrett was purposely goading him. And in this complex, austere western both Starrett and Bruhn are going to find in themselves a capacity for surprising decisions. For Starrett, it will mean the realization that killing Crane won't solve anything, the realization that Helen Crane will not leave her husband for him, and the realization that the only one capable of outfoxing Bruhn is Starrett, himself...by leading Bruhn and his killers through a way out of town in the deep winter that will most likely kill them all. For Bruhn, he survives the operation. He's given a little morphine. He's back on his feet...and he's starting to cough. Let's just say Bruhn knows what's going to happen

All the while in this achingly cold western, snow is on the ground and the weather is frigid. When Starrett leads the gang out of town there is freezing white mist in the air and the snow is nearly up to the horses' bellies. The last 30 minutes of the movie are exhausting, with the horses struggling through the deep snow, with the wind blowing too hard to start a fire, and with men dying.

It's no spoiler to say that Blaise Starrett survives. It might be a spoiler to say that while he may no longer be the angry man we met at the start of the movie, he'll probably be just as lonely.

You could flip a coin to decide who holds this movie together more impressively, Robert Ryan or Burl Ives. Ryan brings all his impressive presence to his role. Ives, however, by force of acting and authenticity, makes his ability to impose his will on this gang believable. It's a first-rate performance. But, oh, if only this movie could have been made without the women. Two of the four actresses can't act, and those two are ones the story lingers on. Tina Louise as Helen Crane is completely out of her skill range. Her lack of acting ability severely undercuts the notion that a man like Blaise Starrett, especially when played by such a fine actor as Ryan, would ever carry a torch for her. Tina Louise's Helen Crane is too dull to lust after. And while all the men look like they seldom see a bar of soap more often than once a week (and in the case of Bruhn's gang, once a month, maybe), all the women look as clean and groomed as if they'd stepped out of a Sears Roebuck catalogue. Some of their tidy polish gets rubbed off, however, at one of the most ominous dances in a western. Bruhn has decided that the women will dance with his men to lower their resentment over being denied whiskey and assault. Bruhn keeps control during the dance, but these leering, groping villains take advantage of the four women every chance they get, and the women dare not do anything about it. It's a nasty, uncomfortable, well-staged scene.

Day of the Outlaw is a corny title, but even with its flaws the movie is engrossing. I almost put on a sweater while I watched it. It's one of the bleakest, coldest looking movies I've ever seen.

The DVD transfer looks fine. There are no extras.

This is a grim, taught film, almost more noir than Western, with surprisingly little gunplay but plenty of wide-open nature. The town looks like another blizzard would blow it away, and the snow and the cold do much of the work, e.g. Tex and Starret at the end. The dance sequence is brilliantly violent sexuality barely kept in check, almost a rape sequence. The acting is uniformly excellent, with Ryan and Ives leading, but the henchmen and the townspeople are perfectly presented. Excellent pacing, real tension. First rate.

The films of Andre De Toth are slowly being paid due recognition in the DVD market. As prolific and versatile as De Toth was there is, of course, hits and misses. While some of De Toth's weaker films, such as "The Stranger Wore a Gun" (1953) and "The Indian Fighter" (1955), are readily available, other, far more notable works such as "Ramrod" (1947) and "The Bounty Hunter" (1954) still languish in obscurity. De Toth is best known for being the one-eyed director of the 3D "House of Wax" (1953), the noir classic "Crime Wave" (1954), and as one of the great western revisionists of the 1950s (he wrote the story for 'The Gunfighter' 1950).

Snow extraordinarily sets the bleak tone, even more than it did in De Toth's "Springfield Rifle" (1952). An older hero is at the center of many De Toth films, as in "Day of the Outlaw." Blaise (noir fan favorite Robert Ryan) and Dan (Nehemiah Persoff) are traveling to the aptly named town of Bitters. They are frostbit and struggling to move through the thick snow drifts. Blaise whips his horse with determined intensity. The horse stumbles lethargically. Blaise, a rancher and gunfighter, is furious over the barb wire fence that has been put up by framer Hal Crane (Alan Marshal) and vows to kill Crane. A very tired Dan tells Blaise (in horse voice), "A wire fence is a poor excuse to kill a man." Blaise' motive runs deeper still. That motive is Crane's wife Helen (Tina Louise), whom Blaise had an affair with.

The Scene shifts from the seemingly endless snowy abyss to a claustrophobic saloon where, it seems, confrontation looms. First, Helen confronts Blaise. She tells him the affair is over and warns him not to harm her husband. Blaise promises nothing. Blaise then confronts Hal, provoking an inevitable showdown. Blaise represents the seasoned renegade spirit (a frequent De Toth theme) at odds with the arrival of civilization in the form of younger, weaker men (Hal and the farmers).

Despite Helen's pleas, Blaise fully intends to kill Hal . She reprimands Blaise for his lack of mercy. "You won't find mercy anywhere in Wyoming" he retorts. Bitter indeed. It is the sound of a bottle hitting the wood floor that will leave Helen a widow and rid Blaise of an annoying farmer, but the bottle is suddenly interrupted by true threat in the form of outlaw Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his gang. At this point, De Toth's narrative takes a dramatic and refreshingly unexpected shift.

Bruhn, like Blaise, is a dying breed and is literally dying from a gunshot wound received in a recent bank robbery. Stark tension permeates "Day of the Outlaw" as Bruhn faces certain death under a paramount struggle to maintain control of his gang and the situation. The feeling of claustrophobia is a prism to both Bruhn and Blaise. They engage in a battle of wills while finding an uncomfortable, identifying ground. Both men discover their own fallibility in the process and willingly take a contrarian, fatalistic course of action, which then shifts the narrative to its bleak and cynical finale.

The final quarter of the film is replete with desolate symbology. Insatiable greed is juxtaposed against Russel Harden's sumptuous camera work of the merciless, ominous landscape. Underneath the shifting terrain lies a steely, determined goal of self-obliteration.

"Day of the Outlaw" vividly stays with you long after the credits have faded, imprinting an indelible image of coarse whites. It may indeed be De Toth's finest work, and that is saying quite a bit.

*my review was originally published at Raging Bull Movie Reviews

Andre De Toth's "Day of the Outlaw(1959)" is one of the grimmest and most tense Westerns of the 1950s. The genre had really come of age that decade with a much stronger emphasis on adult themes and the lines between hero and villain starting to become blurred for all time. This film may include a B-movie title but does not properly convey what is a suspense classic with a high level of intelligence.

The film tells the story of a rancher(Robert Ryan) who is one conflicted dude. He is being forced out of town by the very people he had protected, getting his land stomped upon and is bitter that one of the town's lead ranchers has married the love of his life(Tina Louise). He is about to duel the husband and two other men when a gang of outlaws arrive in town led by Burl Ives. He is a former cavalery Captain who now leads a group of bank robbers who are making off with a load of stolen gold with Cavalery on there trail. Ive's men are homicidal maniacs and lay siege to the small town. They listen to Ives but he is dying from a gunshot wound and it's only a matter of time before the outlaws tear the town apart.

The film is highly tense with wonderful Black and White cinematography that combine a sense of naturalistic beauty with the snow and wilderness and a high sense of dread. The segment where all the girls in the town are forced to dance with the outlaws is one of the more tense and disturbing filmed in a Western.Beautiful Tina Louise particularly stands out as the camera stays on her being flung from man to man her tied up hair loosening with each swing until it hangs free and she becomes increasingly disheaveled and sexy as her classy refined demeanor is stripped away in real time as she dances about the room. It's incredibly well done.

The conclusion is a surprise and shocking, certainly one of the most unique ever seen in a Western and adding truth to an inevitable that Robert Ryan's character knows to be the entire time as the outlaws meet there fate in the snowy wilderness.

The performances are all sharp led by Robert Ryan, a great underused actor, who delivers a world weariness more effectively than about any other actor this side of Robert Mitchum. He isn't just mean and tough but human and flawed. His level of intelligence and strength and the demons that drive him make him a interesting and complex Western hero.

Burl Ives equals him as the outlaw's leader bringing a gruffness and toughness that fits well but also a sense of dignity and righteousness as a soldier who hides a bitter secret. Ives is able to evoke sympathy for his Captain turned bandit and it's probally the anchor to the picture.

Tina Louise is gorgeous in Black and White and it's difficult to remember that she'll be most famous on the silly sitcom, "Gilligan's Island" and proves that she was an adept Dramatic actress as well as being gorgeous. Her character offers alot of complexities as well even if her and Ryan's relationship is underutilized and not as explored as it should have been.

This DVD looks great with a stunning Widescreen transfer and a decent price. Western and Noir fans should check this out if they are interested in the dramatic aspects of Western filmmaking. This film deserves a wider audience.

A CLASSIC B/W WESTERN MADE WITH EXCELLENT STARS & CO-STARS, THE MAIN STAR OF THIS PICTURE, ROBERT RYAN, IS EXCELLENT: BUT I THINK THE ROLE WAS "STOLEN" BY CO-STAR BURL IVES! A MUST HAVE FOR ANY ONE THAT LOVES WESTERNS!!
LARRY WISEMAN

Bitters, Wyoming provides the setting for this brutally visualized creation...comes with a daunting, moody, and merciless soundtrack. Performances by Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise and company are pinned to multiple conflictual pairings. From one scene to the next, the physical distance between the characters and their psychological dimensions maneuver amongst individuals and groups. Farmers and Ranchers make up distinct classes at odds with each others stake in the use of available land, the laws handled by them to provide for individual needs for it, as well as, the types of roles that each chooses to play when another, more sinister, company bursts into the picture and reconfigures the parameters of the conflicts that are immediately established from the beginning credits. Multiple viewings are suggested here for the sake of style. This western is layered with complexities and surprises for which there are scarcely any models that lend it justice paying careful attention to the moment balanced with a nicely spaced out direction of time and space. Hint: listening is as much of the experience as seeing. Watch it more than once, it's really great theater. You can't count the ways it physically and emotionally tickles the nerves in true fashion. At the same time, it's as lyrical as Homer, Greek poet, as much as it is as philosophical as-say-Trotsky...

In the 1950s, westerns took a turn to the more intellectual with less reliance on mindless action, Day of the Outlaw is one of those psychological westerns. Rancher Blaise Starrett (what a cool western name) owns a spread in the mountains of Wyoming, but he's having trouble with the local farmers who want to fence off the area. But just when the confrontation is coming to a full boil, a gang of vicious renegades on the run ride into town to rest up after being chased by the cavalry for robbing an Army payroll. Now Blaise and the townfolk must band together if they hope to survive against these ruthless killers. Being a psychological western, there isn't a ton of action here, but when it comes it's surprising and meant to catch you off guard. Not many westerns filmed in winter settings, but the snowy locations add to the dark, cynical feel of the movie and the use of black and white really adds to the effect. Take advantage of this new DVD, the movie's well worth a watch.

The always reliable Robert Ryan leads a strong cast as Blaise Starrett, the Wyoming rancher who's always been interested in his own problems but now finds himself having to look out for the well-being of others. Starrett makes a noble transformation by the end of the movie, something you actually believe in because it's Robert Ryan. Singer Burl Ives gives a startling performance as Captain Jack Bruhn, a cavalry officer with a checkered past now leading a band of ruthless renegades. Bruhn is not like his men and single-handedly keeps them behaved. A pre-Gilligan's Island Tina Louise shows what a good actress she is as Helen Crane, a farmer's wife who has feelings for Starrett but neither of them know what to do if they want to be together. Jack Lambert and Lance Fuller are very good as Tex and Pace, two of Bruhn's gang and maybe the most dangerous of them all. Other recognizable western faces here include Nehemiah Persoff, Elisha Cook, Dabbs Greer, Alan Marshal, and David Nelson.

The DVD has a widescreen presentation of the movie in its original black and white format. The Andre De Toth directed movie looks great with all the snowy locations, but unfortunately there's no special features here. The movie's a good one though, especially Robert Ryan and Burl Ives, so give Day of the Outlaw a try!

United Artists presents "DAY OF THE OUTLAW" (24 December 1938) (92 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- Set in an isolated, snow-covered town in the far West, this powerful western sees the renegade army officer Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his henchmen riding into the town threatening their worst to the men and women there --- Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) decides to agree to Bruhn's demands for someone to lead them away from the pursuing law to safety.

Great acting by all concerned, particularly Ryan and Ives, taut direction, beautiful cinematography,

Under the production staff of:
André De Toth [Director]
Lee E. Wells [Novel]
Philip Yordan [Screenplay]
Leon Chooluck [Associate Producer]
Sidney Harmon [Producer]
Alexander Courage [Original Music]
Russell Harlan [Cinematographer]
Robert Lawrence [Film Editor]
Jack Poplin [Art Directiion]

BIOS:
1. André De Toth [aka: Sāsvari Farkasfawi Tóthfalusi Toth Endre Antai Mihály]
Date of Birth: 15 May 1912 - Makó, Csongrád, Hungary, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]
Date of Death: 27 October 2002 - Burbank, California

2. Robert Ryan
Date of Birth: 11 November 1909 - Chicago, Illinois
Date of Death: 11 July 1973 - New York City, New York

3. Burl Ives
Date of Birth: 14 June 1909 - Hunt City, Illinois
Date of Death: 14 April 1995 - Anacortes, Washington

4. Tina Louise [aka: Tatiana Josivovna Chernova Blacker]
Date of Birth: 11 February 1934 - New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death: Still Living

the cast includes:
Robert Ryan - Blaise Starrett
Burl Ives - Jack Bruhn
Tina Louise - Helen Crane
Alan Marshal - Hal Crane

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 Stars
Performance: 5 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 4 Stars
Overall: 4 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 92 min on DVD ~ United Artists ~ (05/13/2008)