Customer Reviews

The Law and Jake Wade

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

John Sturges' name is not spoken nearly enough when the great film directors are being listed. You would think that after directing The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Old Man and the Sea that he would be revered and recognized, but that is not the case.

Sturges was at his best making Westerns, and The Law and Jake Wade was a great one. It was the last great movie Robert Taylor made, and one of the best that Richard Widmark ever made.

Taylor plays Jake Wade, a lawman who breaks Richard Widmark out of jail. They used to ride together as outlaws, and Widmark's character saved Taylor's life, so he feels indebted to Widmark. All Widmark cares about is the stolen loot hidden from their last big heist, and he forces Taylor to take him to its location.

Tense, suspenseful, and well-acted, The Law and Jake Wade is a must-see Western.

'The Law And Jake Wade' came out in the same year as Anthony Mann's last Western, 'Man Of The West', with which it shares many narrative, thematic and visual affinities. Both centre on ex-outlaws who have tried to turn away from a life of crime, but who are violently dragged back by companions from the past; the struggle in both is intensified by the presence of a woman as hostage/prize. Both feature aging Hollywood stars at or near the end of thir careers, and both climax in the heavily symbolic arena of a ghost town. The difference in quality between both films can be seen in the contrasting stature of their stars - Gary Cooper was one of the great icons of the Western, and a potent projection of America's self-image - his face scarred with age, and body wracked with cancer added to the phantom surroundings to create a genuine, austere, end-of-the-genre atmosphere. Robert Taylor, a matinee idol, brings no such baggage with him - void of iconic presence and resonance, 'Law' seems comparatively shallow.

The film is still terrific entertainment, particularly in its second half, with the tensions within bad guy Richard Widmark's crew threatening violence; a fierce Indian raid, with the best-ever use of arrows in a Western, seeming to swoop down from a great distance at the viewer; and the long, mythical shoot-out. The film's characters and themes develop predictably - Taylor, who wants to rejoin civilisation by working as a lawman and marrying the daughter of a rich capitalist, must exorcise his violent, blood-stained past - and there are the usual homoerotic and Oedipal complications. There are interesting inflections - the crew's criminal activities are seen as extensions of their 'legal' duties as soldiers during the Civil War; while Taylor is one of the genre's more dim-witted heroes, a plan dodge a pursuer by taking convoluted by-ways is foiled by the fact that he has given the pursuer his horse - all Widmark has to do is let him go and follow him!; the great ritual of (moral) rebirth is cynically set in a ghost town's cemetary.

What is most interesting about the film is its visuals. Sturges may lack the true intellectual rigour of a Mann or Boetticher, both of whom he imitates, but there is a compositional care in 'Law' absent from his more famous blockbusters. The widescreen patterning of characters against the landscape contributes to the film's meaning, and often works against the script; the central interior scene, as kidnappers and abductees wait for a Commanche attack, is like a very skip of civilisation. Although the relation between individual and landscape is not telegraphed, there are three brilliant Boetticher-like shots when the camera tracking Taylor slowly descends, levelling the ground and revealing the impassively monumental mountains behind him, exposing both his lack of solidity and a natural world indifferent to his fate. There is hardly a shot of a character that is not in some way framed by its environment; the disorienting mix of breathtaking location shots and deliberate backdrops furthers the theme.

The source of this very good film released through MGM on June 6, 1958, was a book written by the incomparable Marvin H. Albert. Mr. Albert has written many westerns (Clayburns) and mysteries (Lady In Cement), with many brought to film (Duel At Diablo & Tony Rome), from novels that are very near classics of the writer's art.

This film was shot on location in California's High Sierra Mountain Range, Lone Pine location, and in Death Valley. Both the filming sites and the actors allow great realism in this western. The 88 minute film was shot in both great color and wide screen.

For Robert Taylor (1911-1969) this film would be one of the better ones he had left to make, with Richard Widmark (1914-2008) having yet a longer string of films to make with some very good ones to come. Neither actor could have had any bad feelings concerning their stellar performances in this film. Both Taylor and Widmark do show their age somewhat in this film, however, their combined performance is a veritable thing of beauty to behold. For one seeing this film for the first time elements of suspense are encountered with the ending scoring a point for the 'good guys' believing in rule of law.

Great story, sustaining suspense, admirable locations, and a plethora of very good actors, help turn this western story into more than just a western. The label 'classic' isn't too far behind this movie. All-in-all, Hollywood seldom did a western any better than THE LAW AND JAKE WADE. Watch it and you will probably understand why I enjoyed this one so much.

Semper Fi.

The Law and Jake Wade is an entertaining western about a reformed outlaw trying to escape his past. Jake Wade, played by Robert Taylor, is trying to go straight only to run into his former gang led by Richard Widmark. A past incident involving hidden money leads Widmark to kidnap Wade and his fiancee. He leads them into the desert where they fight off Comanches as well as themselves.

This is a good movie that most western fans will enjoy. Taylor and Widmark are very good as ex-partners who reunite. As another reviewer points out, there seems to be a real friendship between the two men. The showdown at the conclusion is very well done if a little predictable. Nevertheless, this is a good movie that looks better in letterbox as I saw it on TCM. Very entertaining and well worth the watch!

This neglected Western is one of John Sturges best. Richard Widmark and Robert Taylor are compelling as former partners now on opposite sides of the law. There is a lingering sense of regret between the two protagonists that is rare in movies. And for all his villiany, there is something very likable about the Widmark character. This is a character driven Western at its best. Except for the Boetticher and Mann films, there is not much better. Another great Western with this theme that is hard to find (because it is out of print) is Last Train from Gun Hill.

Not a classic like "my Darling Clementine" or "High Noon", of course, but this film has a lot to offer. Richard Widmark always made one of the best villains in the movies. He really puts on a show in this film, as the leader of a former Civil War guerilla outfit that just kept on robbing banks after the war ended. Widmark, and the scipt, give the character a borderline psychotic persona, with a 1950's-ish vague hint of homosexuality in his obsession with his former second in command, played by Robert Taylor.

Taylor, playing the lead and title character in this movie, was a somewhat limited actor, often appearing stiff and wooden in his roles, though that did not keep him from getting some of the best movie roles of the 1950's - Ivahoe int he movie of the same name, Marcus Vinnicius in Quo Vadis. And he made some highly entertaining action films in the post-war years. In this film his unemotional stiffness works in his favor, as his character is unusually stoic, even for a western "hero". Not that Jake Wade is exactly a typical western hero. He used to be the gang's second in command, but now he's trying to reform, having become a well respected sheriff and engaged to one of the towns most eligible single girls. This film was probably the aging Taylor's last really good big screen role, and he pulls it off pretty well.

The easily described plot is that Jake took off with some money after a robbery 1 year before, and hi old gang wants it back. Widmark's character Clint, wants more than just the money, he wants to punish Jake for having deserted him. The gang finds Jake and kidnaps both him and his fiancee and demands that Jake lead them to the loot. Jake knows they will kill him after he hands over the money, and he tries to reconcile with his fiancee, who is understandably confused and taken aback to learn of Jake's sordid past.

The movie is a kind of a bridge (albeit one of many) between the less morally ambiguous westerns of the 1940's and 50's and the anti-heroic westerns of the 60's ad 70's.

The tension builds up on the trail to the buried money, not only between Jake and his former comrades, but also between the gang members themselves, as they realize that Widmark's monomaniacal quest to get the money back is leading them all to almost certain death at the hand of hostile Indians.

A nighttime fight with the Apaches, a little help from one of the old gang who still feels some friendship toward Jake, and a final showdown between Clint and Jake make up the cimax of the movie.

Terrific location filming in the Alabama Hills at the base of California's Mount Whitney and in Death Valley add to the quality of the picture.

It'll never be considered one of the best westerns ever made, but it's a good story and an entertaining flick.

Ordering a used movie was not the best idea in our minds, but it made the most sense when compared with other prices. However, when the DVD arived, we were delightfully pleased to find that not only was the case made to look brand new, but the advertising on Amazon about that particular DVD was correct, and it had scarcely any fingerprints at all. It was in tip-top shape!
The movie is one of our family favorites, and we looked long and hard to finally find it again. It is Western story telling at its best, and Richard Widmark gives one of his best classic performances as the outlaw. If you're not already a Robert Taylor fan, you will be at the end of this movie! The last scene at the end, in the graveyard, marks the nature of the entire film, and the ending is happily satisfying. We are a family of 10 that watches an "old" movie every night for family fun, and take it from the folks who have seen them all... this one rates right up on top in the tales of the old west!

John Sturges' 1958 THE LAW AND JAKE WADE offers plenty of star power in the presences of Robert Taylor in the title role and Richard Widmark as his nemesis Clint Hollister, truly stunning Cinemascope color photography by Robert Surtees, a solid and literate screenplay by William Bowers (from a novel by Marvin H. Albert), and a wonderful supporting cast that includes Henry Silva and DeForest Kelley in typical if very nicely played henchmen roles. Sturges puts it all together with zest and economy, punching out a compelling story of a reformed bad guy (Wade) having to deal with his past while protecting his fiancee as best he can, all in a very speedy 86 minutes.

The film opens with some lovely shots of the Alabama Hills in California, location for a great many of the most famous westerns of this period including most of the Randolph Scott/Budd Boetticher films which were made at exactly the same time. A lone man on horseback, the usual beginning...it soon turns out to be Wade, who has come to break bandit Hollister out of jail. But Wade and Hollister are no longer friends, and Wade leaves the man a horse but no gun in the middle of the mountains, each man more or less promising to kill the other if they come in contact again. We don't have much more than an hour to go in this taut piece of work, so that'll be soon; shortly after we find out that Wade is actually a marshall in another town, Hollister and his gang come looking for him, and in equally short order they've kidnaped Wade and his fiancee Peggy (Patricia Owens) and are forcing them to lead the outlaws to a fortune in stolen gold.

The bulk of the film is this journey, with the five bandits trying to push Wade into leading them to the money through threats and intimidation against him and Peggy, with Hollister having to keep the younger and less disciplined members of the gang (especially Silva's psychopathic Rennie and Kelley's vengeful Wexler) in check time and again - and having to watch out for the tricky Wade's escape attempts. Eventually the group winds up in a ghost town, but due to some less-than-intelligent gunplay they've attracted the attention of some local Comanches, and so the recovery of the gold will prove to be more complex than it should have been. The ultimate showdown is kept until almost the last moment, by which point the odds aren't what they were at the beginning of the film.

Sturges made more than a dozen westerns, many of them fairly large-scale and prestige productions, over more than 30 years, and why this one isn't among his better-known films is a mystery to me. I guess it lacks the obvious gloss and macho overload of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, and it's not based on a famous story like GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL or HOUR OF THE GUN; but still it strikes me as a film that should be better known. There's a goodly amount of action (Sturges' real forte) for such a short film, and the characters are well-defined enough by the screenplay that he doesn't have to do much to keep them interesting. Romantic complexities weren't the director's strong point, and here he's got a faithful woman who stands by her man but doesn't get in the way of the action or the real story - the history between Wade and Hollister; and Widmark and Taylor although playing pretty much to type are both excellent as the friends-turned-adversaries, and their backstory is painted in just enough detail to be believable and involving.

Really, it's hard to find any serious flaws at all in the thing; perhaps the score (there's no composer credited, so presumably it's all stock music) is a little ordinary but that's about the only "problem" that comes to me. So I guess it really comes down to it not standing out enough amongs the dozens of great westerns of the period. In any case, this strikes me as probably the best of the 8 Sturges westerns I've seen, and while not quite a masterpiece it definitely falls into the must-see category for any serious western aficionado I think. The DVD doesn't have any extras, but it's a nice enough widescreen transfer.

There is a nice interplay between Widmark and Taylor throughout the movie. Well acted and nicely told story about old outlaw buddies meeting up after one has gone straight and become a lawman while the other has gone totally bad.

The ending battle with Indians is really pretty lame but does not distract too much from the rest of the film

Great director,beautiful scenery,and great acting. This film is a must for your westerns collection. Tayor is at his stoic best and Widmark is at his smart-aleck best. The supporting cast is also excellent. The high desert terrain with the snow capped high sierras in the backdrop makes you feel a part of the scenery and the action. I've watched hundreds, maybe a thousand westerns and this one is right up there. Top fifty at worst and for many probably much higher. One of Taylor's and Widmark's best western performances.......