Customer Reviews

Tribute to a Bad Man [VHS]

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Except for the Colorado scenery, this is not your standard Western. The emphasis is on character rather than action. James Cagney plays a tough rancher who is actually not such a bad man. There is an interesting romantic triangle involving Cagney, Irene Pappas, and Don Dubbin. There is an excellent supporting cast, including Lee Van Cleef, Stephen McNally, Vic Morrow, and Jeanette Nolan.

Justice is one of the main themes of this excellent film. Cagney is a loner who is used to delivering his own peculiar kind of justice. Once Cagney gets the "hanging fever" nothing can stop him, Irene Pappas comments. In the end, the film has much to say about love, justice, and humanity. Most Westerns deliver much less.

A Wyoming horse breeder (James Cagney) is callous in his treatment of rustlers... He hangs them from his trees in the Colorado Rockies and forces horse thieves to march barefoot over rocky terrain...

Into the wild frontier of the 1870s rides Don Dubbins, a young grocery clerk from Pennsylvania, who stays to grow up under Cagney's tutelage...

Dubbins seeks the love of Irene Papas (completely wasted in her first Hollywood debut), a woman Cagney has befriended, but learns she really loves the older man... Through their relationship the 'bad man with bad teeth, broken bones, a double hernia and lice' learns that justice should be tempered with mercy and reveals a warm heart that few suspected he had...

Beautifully photographed in CinemaScope and Technicolor and with a sweeping musical score by Miklos Rozsa, "Tribute to a Bad Man" is a convincing picture of life in the Old West...

The sole presence of James Cagney in the leading role is more than enough to watch this singular film, the central personage is a real bulwark in what concerns to the employment of ruthless tactics to deal with the enemy. A feats for the eyes, and additionally directed by Robert Wise; watch to Irene Papas in the feminine role and Lee Van Cleef as villain.

Cagney will not hesitate to play hard in order to retain his vast possesions.