Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's a Randolph Scott film........, October 14, 2005
...what more do you need? Scott does what he does best in this above average western made with high production values and a touch of angst. Good classic supporting cast and good locations as well as excellent direction make this oater stand alone and stand out in Scott's film's from the 50's.Good,clear DVD issue make this a must.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better Randy Scott Western, August 14, 2005
MAN IN THE SADDLE (1951) is a very fine little Western, directed by the underrated director Andre De Toth, with a fine screenplay written by Kenneth Gamet. Despite the formulaic story line, the film never drags or dawdles. Randy Scott illustrates, once again, all the fine acting characteristics that made him one of the top ranking "Western" actors of all time. Alexander Knox, an interesting choice for the villain, adds much to the story. Other members of the cast, including Alfonso Bedoya and John Russell, round out this solid oater, well worth investigating. Finally, the title song is sung by none other than "Tennessee Ernie Ford," and remains in the memory long after the movie's images are gone....
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rattled by the rush., July 12, 2007
This is a spectacular Western. I can easily see a day coming when Andre DeToth's star will be in the ascendant, and Boetticher's will have fallen into oblivion.
I recently saw almost all of Boetticher's westerns with Randolph Scott in a local theater, and you could tell people wanted to chuckle at all the "A man could do this" and "A man can do that" dialogue, but somehow had convinced themselves they were watching high art. But isn't Boetticher's macho code a form of paganism, of a self-serving survival of the fittest philosophy? Nowhere is this more apparent than in Seven Men From Now, where Gail Russell's husband is considered some sort of eunuch just because he's a nice guy, and he has to get shot in the back to prove his manhood. Then Randolph gets his girl, of course.
Andre DeToth's westerns are no different, meaning they also take place in a pagan world, except that through savvy highlighting and exaggeration, DeToth pushes the sex and violence of the genre into the forefront, forcing them on your attention and making them seem unheroic and ignoble. DeToth has a very distinctive style that is almost like a Bresson film on fast-forward -- the delivery of lines is near-robotic, the angles seem canted and off-kilter even when they're not, character is always in flux, and so is nature. What this does is create a world where events fly by almost too fast for the characters to process, yet this doesn't stop them from being sure of their goals, which upon reflection, would seem insane.
"If you're still thinking of Laurie, you're gonna get yourself killed!" one of Randolph's friends says before the final showdown. "My mind's clear," Randolph replies. The irony of this is that his mind is never clear. His battles make no sense. Ostensibly he's trying to start trouble with Alexander Knox, the biggest rancher in the territory, because Joan Leslie has left him for Knox and money. But -- SPOILERS AHEAD -- even after his nemesis is dead and Joan Leslie has forever severed ties with him, he still keeps fighting, like a clockwork toy that has been wound-up to go on forever.
Leslie herself is driven entirely by her own mercurial loins, fluctuating between Scott and Knox constantly. She's not worth killing a beetle over, let alone another human. In one scene she proudly escapes Knox's ranch by intimidating one of his henchmen with her expert marksmanship, but DeToth cleverly mutes the proto-feminist aspect of this. Considering that this woman is about as stable as the San Andreas faultline, the idea of her with a gun is about as appealing as Hilary Clinton with her finger on the button. Usually films with strong female heroines are seen as ahead of their time, but this one seems much closer to the truth, to me, of their fickle and mutable character, and how almost of all of human progress and aspiration is built on men beating each other senseless over their whims.
DeToth's direction throughout creates such an impression of unstoppable momentum and speed that you almost want to rush in there and start shooting yourself. And that is exactly the point. "Sitting on my porch night after night was getting boring anyway," Scott says, shortly before blowing a million holes in a cabin full of outlaws. Boredom is the enemy of all these people, their real fear, the shadow that stalks them and which they'll sell their souls to avoid. The paradoxical moral of this exhilarating movie, then, is just this -- in boredom lies salvation.
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