Customer Reviews

Man of the West

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
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Gary Cooper stars in this intense Western as a former outlaw, now reformed, who finds himself trapped by circumstances with his former gang. Cooper is on a train that is held up by the gang, and left behind, he, Julie London, and Arthur O'Connell meet up with the gang and witness firsthand their brutality and violence. The gang is headed by Cooper's uncle, Lee J. Cobb, who is pleased to see Cooper return. He's planning a big bank heist, the heist to end all heists, and wants Cooper to be a part of it like old times. Of course, Cooper must find a way out.

The tension in the film never lets up, as the threat of violence hangs in every scene. Cooper is fine in one of his last performances, portraying a man who has tried hard to overcome his past, finding himself in a situation where he must literally fight for his survival. London also does well as the saloon singer finally experiencing love, giving a quietly moving performance. Cobb is explosive as usual, helping to give the film some of its tension and edge.

Man Of The West is well photographed in colour, with empty spaces looming everywhere in the backdrop of the struggle. Director Anthony Mann keeps everything simple, if not elemental, not shying away from portraying the brutality of the characters and the situation. Other than an obviously "stagey" fight between Cooper and one of the gang (lots of easy to spot fake punches), there is a dark realism throughout the movie.

Man Of The West may not be a very well known Western, but it deserves to be seen.

This is truly a magnificent film. Acting -- especially Gary Cooper's Link Jones, a man who is drawn back into his earlier life as a killer -- and direction and script and cinemaphotography, they are all flawless. The only flaw is in this video, from MGM/UA. I've written them, trying to get them to release this in letterbox and DVD, all to no avail. Do not buy this pan-and-scan version, since director Anthony Mann took full advantage of the wide screen to tell his story. In the pan-and-scan version, Cooper is missing from much of the action. This is because it is a typically tight-lipped Cooper performance, thus he is lopped out of the frame -- even though he is central to every single scene in the entire film! This is a magnificent film which is deserving of a better fate than MGM/UA video distribution. TCM shows it in letterbox, catch it there.

Man Of The West is a classic. Gary Cooper dominates a sterling cast with his powerful portrayal of Link Jones, a former killer who has long since suppressed the demons within. However, when he meets up with his Uncle and former partner, Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb, brilliant) he is forced to confront the fact that there is still a killer inside him. There is a brutal fight between Cooper and Jack Lord which is one of the meanest, most vicious fights I've ever seen in film. The only flaw, as others have pointed out, is that this video version is not letterbox. Avoid it and wait for TCM to show it in its original widescreen format. Better yet, why doesn't MGM/UA simply release a letterbox version? Cooper made this back-to-back with another classic, The Hanging Tree. But Warner Home Video has seen fit to remove it from distribution here in the U.S. It's available in Europe and Canada, but not here. Idiots!

Here's a brilliant western. More than 30 years before Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven", Gary Cooper, writer Reginald Rose and director Anthony Mann explored the same violent terrain -- that of a reformed killer forced to face the monster within one more time. Mann had made several wsterns with Jimmy Stewart, but this is his masterpiece. Almost Shakespearean in its grand, tragic themes, "Man Of The West" deserves mention with the greatest westerns of all time.

Mann's cycle began in 1950 with "Winchester '73," continued up to 1958 (his pallid remake of "Cimarron" in 1960 hardly counts here) with "Man of the West," and included a remarkable body of work as "Bend of the River," "The Naked Spur," "The Far Country," "The Man from Laramie," "The Last Frontier," and "The Tin Star."

"Man of the West" starred Cooper instead of James Stewart, and its highly charged story of the conflict between two one-time partnered outlaws, one now reformed, carries strong overtones of sex and violence, the one motivated by the presence of Julie London, the other taken care of by Lee J. Cobb's particularly repulsive villain... The film is replete with interesting, complex characters and exciting situations...

Gary Cooper, in the Arizona of the 1870s, sets forth from his little town with six hundred dollars to hire for it a teacher... A trip on a train introduces him to a comely saloon singer (Julie London), to a card sharp (Arthur O'Connell), but also to a bit of his past he'd rather forget... For when the train is held up it is all too soon apparent that the gang is one to which he'd belonged in the bad old days, led by a villainous kinsman (Lee J. Cobb) and containing another member of the family (John Dehner).

The reformed Cooper's only chance of a getaway--and the girl's chance too--lies in him convincing Cobb and Co., that his loyalties lie with them... Fine, says Cobb, in effect, but do something to prove it.

The 'something' is joining in a stage bank hold-up...

From this moment, the theme is familiar in Mann Westerns and here the mechanics of the 'purging' and the power of it get their best expression... Mann's picture shifts from half-comedy to tense melodrama... Cooper stops being a hick and starts acting serious and clever... "You've changed," O'Connell observes. "You act like you belong with these people."

The clash of family loyalties soon makes itself felt... The old man brought him up when he was a boy--the old man still obviously thinks something of him, since he stops an attempt on his life... But the old man is also a villain, and villainy is his prevailing climate and that is why Cooper initially made his breakaway...

The difference between Cooper and his depraved relatives was significant when it comes across in the way they treat Billie (Julie London). Most Western heroes distrust women, but Cooper respects at least two: his wife and the pretty saloon singer... It makes no difference to him that in Billie's shady past she has probably taken off her clothes for many men and gone much farther than that... When Jack Lord forces Billie to disrobe, Cooper realizes her humiliation... After beating Lord, Cooper makes him cry by stripping off his clothes in front of Billie, reminding him of how he insulted the dancehall girl: "How does it feel?!"

Gary Cooper must take part in two gunfights at the end of the film... The first one in Lassoo, a ghost town which represents the life Cooper left behind... Here, Cooper reveals the very bad talents Cobb taught him... And after finding the saloon singer has been raped, Cooper goes off to find Cobb... Mann typically sets his final gun duels far away from civilization, off in the wilderness, away from all eyes...

Released in CinemaScope and Technicolor, this visually beautiful dramatic Western gained instant notoriety, in 1958, because of the scene in which Julie London strips for the Tobin gang...

Just to let you know, the new DVD is anamorphic widescreen. On top of that it has been remastered and cleaned up quite a bit. Its a great transfer of a great film.

Its a shame there isn't any special features about this landmark western, however regardless of that fact, this DVD is a must own for any fan of the genre.

This Western stands far above 95% of the other films in this genre. Why? Great direction, flawed and therefore interesting characters, quirks, twists, classic conflicts, Julie London at the height of her mythic beauty, memorable dialogue, enigmatic situations, wonderful actors and performances. This is most definitely not a formulaic picture. When is the last time you saw a fight in a western where one guy rips the clothes off of another, just for humiliation sake?

Gary Cooper is topnotch as usual, here toward the end of his long and glorious career, but taking some chances by playing a once-super nasty hombre who's now gone straight. My friends and I memorized long passages of the dialogue, particularly the lines spat out by gang leader Doc Tobin, played magnificently by Lee J. Cobb. Here's Doc waxing nostalgic, upon first recognizing Link after many years : "Uvalde.....Saltillo.....Black Fork! Remember them times?? We killed that bank guard together. You held him and I took the top of his head off?" Later Link complains that Doc makes him stay in a room with the creepy mute Trout, played by one of filmdom's alltime great psychos, Royal Dano. Doc again: "Being with Trout is like being alone!" If you don't know about Royal Dano, think of Crispin Glover to get an idea. The two are probably related somehow.

What a great supporting cast as well, featuring, besides Dano, some of the dirtiest and most lowdown badguys ever: the frightening John Dehner as Cousin Claude, and that unsung antihero of countless westerns, snarling Robert J. Wilke. And we would be remiss if we did not mention the guy who got his pants ripped off and ends up shedding tears of humiliation: Jack Lord!

I recently saw a gorgeous widescreen print of this film on TCM. This grim, brooding tale of disillusionment in the old west, like Sam Fuller's "Forty Guns" one year before it, shattered many of the conventions of the Western and helped reinvent that genre, a decade before "The Wild Bunch" or Leone's "Man With No Name Trilogy". Yes, Anthony Mann's films are violent (his direction always exhibits a brutal directness), but the body count is much lower than in any John Ford movie I've seen. It's just that Mann understood that dead bodies are heavy, they have weight, and must obey certain laws of gravity. I don't think it was the killing that alarmed most people, but the effects of that killing, as both heard in the loud thud of bodies hitting the ground and as seen in the way men must writhe around and mix with the earth as they die. Though MAN OF THE WEST was filmed in glorious CinemaScope, the only version available on vhs is an abysmal pan&scan, which is particularly unacceptable in a picture that aims to express the distance between men, and the barrenness of the landscape, by dislocating much of the action to the extreme edges of the frame. This works only if the action is shown in wide angle, but MGM, unfortunately, has shamefully compromised Mann's vision. If TCM has access to a print of the film that preserves the proper CinemaScope ratio, why can't MGM release it on DVD in anamorphic widescreen? I highly recommend MAN OF THE WEST, but don't bother with this pan&scan vhs version.

When the subject of Anthony Mann's contribution to the western genre is explored, it is his cycle with James Stewart that is inevitable brought up. Indeed the Stewart collaboration Naked Spur (1953) remains Mann's highest praised achievement in the great American genre. However, it is his nearly forgotten and last true western, Man of the West (1958) starring Gary Cooper that is his most strikingly modern. A telling sign of this film's greatness lies in its still debated status.

Mann's casting of Cooper is nothing less than inspired brilliance, although it probably cost the film box office revenue. Mann and Stewart had fallen out during the making of the previous year's Night Passage, but by then audiences had come to accept Mann's reinvention of Stewart's on-screen persona. Starting in 1950, under Mann's direction Stewart had been portrayed as violent, selfish, cynical and remarkably complex.

In 1958, Gary Cooper was nearing the end of his career and no director had manipulated Cooper's screen personality in such a way as Mann had done with Stewart. Andre de Toth, a competent journeyman director who, never the less, lacked a real consistent vision, had come closest in Springfield Rifle (1952) by portraying Cooper's character as an accused coward in the first half of that film. However, that turned out to be an undercover ploy to smoke out the real traitors, so Cooper retained his pure as the driven snow nobility after all. Still, even then, neither audiences nor critics bought it. Laconic simplicity and nobility were Cooper's well established personality trademarks. Mann took advantage of what was already established and manipulated it with a darkly hued underbelly. Under Mann's direction, the "Yup" mannerisms of Cooper's Link Jones convey evasiveness in an attempt to hide a less than noble past.

Link Jones is about to catch a train, heading for Texas. He is on a mission to find a school teacher for his small town's new school and is carrying the funds to pay for her. A Marshall at the local train station thinks he recognizes Link, asks Link his name, inquires into Link's past and asks him if he knows the fugitive Doc Tobin (Lee J. Cobb). Link cautiously shakes his head, lies, squints, and evades the Marshall's penetrating looks. Mann's expert manipulation of Cooper's personality traits is so subtle as to be believable and, thus, unnerving. It was unsettling enough for 1958 audiences to reject it, and even contemporary critics have often lamented the casting of Cooper, as opposed to Stewart, in this film. Stewart would not have worked nearly as well simply because his casting would have been acceptable, even expected.

Cooper's Link Jones consistently plays dumb throughout the film, first to evade discovery, then out of sheer necessity for survival. It can well be believed that Link Jones hides a sordid past. Link's train trip is cut short when bandits rob the train. Link, saloon singer Billie (Julie London) and the con man Sam (Arthur O' Connell) are left stranded by the train. Link recognizes the nearby area as his one time home. Knowing the nearest town is 100 miles away, Link leads his fellow two passengers to the hidden farmhouse of his uncle and onetime foster father Doc Tobin. Link is surprised to find Doc there with his white trash gang. It is the same gang that robbed the train. Doc is even more surprised to see his prodigal son, Link. Doc reminds Link of a murder they committed together. Link looks away, vulnerable, embarrassingly exposed as if naked in front of the gang. Cobb expertly captures the trashy Doc without resorting to over-the-top, mannered melodramatics, such as the type Donald Pleasance' resorted to with a similar character in the otherwise well done Will Penny (1968) directed by Tom Gries.

Man of the West becomes a reversal of a biblical melodrama, with a dash of Oedipus thrown in for good measure. Here it is the father figure who needs redemption, but he is too unyielding, too far gone down the wrong path, too broken to find it. The prodigal, who has found his first redemption, away from his uncle/father, will eventually have to commit patricide in order to survive and secure his redemption. Billie and Sam have unwittingly joined the intentionally monikered "Link" on an existential journey that will transform them as well. The prodigal's cousins/step-brothers resent Link and feel betrayed that Doc still favors Link, even though they have proven more loyal and did not abandon their father the way Link did.

One of the gang has been mortally injured from the train robbery. Doc wants to display his still strong leadership and "family pride" to his returned prodigal. Doc orders his men to shoot and kill their wounded comrade. Neither cousin Punch (Robert J. Wilke, memorable in High Noon) nor cousin Trout (the always impressive Royal Dano) can do it. They are not real men, according to Doc. Link attempts to hide his smile, pleased that the first sign of Doc's lack of loyalty is blatantly apparent to all. Vicious cousin Coaley (Jack Lord) will do it.

When Coaley does the deed, Link's tension is felt. Indeed, this is a film of diaphanous tensions. We do not know just how long Link can continue his act or whether he will be able to protect his fellow passengers from harm. At greatest risk is Billie. Julie London invests an internal sexual tension in her character that she is sickened by. The sex appeal of London has often been compared to Elvis Presley, but it is London's complexity that renders Presley comparatively banal. Billie is as frightened for Link as he is for her. Thankfully, the romance that one keeps expecting to blossom between the two, never does, which only heightens the sexual tension. She knows full well what these men are capable of doing to her since she has dealt with types akin to these for years. "You are not like these at all" Billie tells Link. "I was. There was no difference." He tells her. Link's fear parallels Billie's fear. It is not the fear of the unknown, but the fear of what they both know all too well that threatens to consume them. Both characters resonate authenticity. Neither of them could survive their tormentors if they did not understand them and, in Link's case, if he had not once been that himself. This will lead to a second redemption for Link, in finally coming face to face with what he has been attempting to outrun for so long. Billie was on the verge of her escape when she boarded the train, but escape cannot be equated with redemption. When she left for Texas, Billie was on the verge of spiritual bankruptcy, from having seen and experienced too much. Now, out of necessity, cynicism and coldness have been replaced with co-dependency, vulnerability, and faith in someone else. Sam does not have enough firsthand experience in familiarity to ensure survival. However, he too must find redemption. Sam the con man is ready, willing and able to abandon Billie in escape. Sam does not need Billie, but he needs Link, only Link will not resort to such selfishness. Link's inspired example will provide Sam his own opportunity for an unselfish choice.

Cousin Claude (John Dehner) returns to the lair, having heard Link was on the train. When he finds Link alive and well with Uncle Doc, he is embittered, knowing that Link is only pretending to go along with Doc's dream of a full reconciliation between himself and Link. Claude loves Doc, especially in light of Doc's increasing senility and alcohol-induced nostalgia for older, better days, which he knows Link is taking advantage of in order to survive. Claude begs Doc to kill Link, even though he knows Doc, who truly loves Link, will never allow it.

Link, echoing the Davidic Absalom, takes revenge upon Coaly for his intended violation of Billie. Link humiliates Coaley in the same manner that Coaly humiliated Billie, in front of the "family." In the earlier sequence, Coaley forced Billie to expose herself by stripping down to her corset as he held a knife to Link's exposed throat. Drained and vulnerable, Billie collapses in abject humiliation. That earlier sequence is, by turns, titillating, repulsive and unbearably tense. In retaliation, Link now similarly exposes Coaly, stripping him down after a savage beating. Link identifies all too well with Billie's vulnerability. They both felt naked and humiliated in front of this family. The retaliation scene is equally tense and well executed. Doc is so proud of Link's raw humiliation of Coaly, that he slaps, father-like, Link on the back. Doc's number one boy is back. It is more than Coaley can endure and he tries to shoot cousin Link. Ready, willing, and able, Sam intentionally takes the bullet meant for Link. The dying Sam tells Link, "I don't know what came over me. I never would have done that before." Sam tires to pooh-pooh his sacrifice," It was a shrewd move of me. If they had killed you, they never would have allowed me to live." Link knows better than to accept Sam's half-hearted downplay of what he just gave up. Inevitably, Link and Billie will join Sam, unless an opportunity soon arises.

Doc wants to consummate the old father-son relationship with a bank job in the nearby town of Lassoo. The senile Doc is unaware that Lassoo is now a ghost town, but Link is aware of it and sees this as the opportunity to reverse the situation for Billie and for himself.

Billie is raped (off-screen) by Doc (shades of the biblical Lot) while, simultaneously, Link is killing Doc's "sons" in Lassoo. In the showdown between Link and Doc, Link tells his father, "I have killed your sons. Lassoo is a ghost town, like you. You are a ghost who has outlived his usefulness." Man of the West is brutal poetry and may well the best film of Mann's entire oeuvre. Par for the course, MGM has issued it in a "ho-hum" release.

MAN OF THE WEST is one of the greatest of all westerns. Dismissed for being too violent, too dark, too grim and downbeat when it first opened back in the fall of 1958, its reputation has been growing ever since. Unfortunately, the video available from MGM/UA is in pan-and-scan, and unless you see MAN OF THE WEST in letterbox, you aren't really seeing the film as it was meant to be seen. Turner Classics shows it in letterbox, so I recommend forgoing this video and waiting until TCM shows it in letterbox. Toward the end of his career, Cooper through off the shackles and took on several dark characters, characters deeply flawed and deeply wounded. Whatever the merits of some of these final films, Cooper's performances are stunning, at times even shattering. MAN OF THE WEST is one of those performances. The metamorphosis his Link Jones goes through shows just what range Cooper possessed as an actor. This film is one of the real champs.