Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Strong Story And Alan Ladd's Performance Make This A First Rate Western, November 26, 2005
"All my life I've been a snake...lived by my wits...gotten what I've wanted any way I wanted it. Just lately, I've been wonderin'...if...just for once...I could do somethin' straight...do somethin' a little decent."
Choya (Alan Ladd) finds himself in the middle of a cruel con, and then finds he has a conscience. In Branded, a very good Western, Ladd plays a man who has always done what he wants, a loner at heart. "You got any friends?" an old man asks him. "My guns," Choya says. "Kinfolk?" "My horse."
Choya meets P. Jefferson Leffingwell (Robert Keith), who shows Choya how he can claim to be the lost son of the Lavery family, wealthy ranch owners. The son was kidnapped more than 20 years ago and has never been heard of since. Richard Lavery (Charles Bickford) renews each year a $100,000 reward in the hope of hearing something about his son. Choya and Leffingwell plan to split the reward, and with Choya accepted as the son, Leffingwell points out that in time he'll inherit the cattle ranch as well...and maybe to speed things up they'll even help Lavery into an early grave.
A tattooed birthmark and Choya's own cleverness do the trick. Lavery and his wife, fragile emotionally since the child was taken, and the Lavery's daughter, Ruth (Mona Freeman), accept Choya completely. Then something happens that now drives the movie into a new direction. He falls for Ruth and he is changed by the decency and openness of the Laverys. He decides to redeem himself by trying to find the real son and then disappearing. This sets off yet more unexpected developments.
Branded, in my view, is an excellent Western. There's great scenery, of course, and plenty of action. What gives this movie a dramatic wallop, however, is a strong story, the drama of a lost son, of twists that involve family feelings and the issue of what makes a real father. Not the least of its strengths is Alan Ladd's performance. Ladd may not have been much of an actor, but something about his on-screen personality brought out the image of a loner with a code of honor. That quality of silence combined with strength, of righteousness that could be aroused to do right, is what he brought to his best roles and which still make so many of his movies worth watching.
Bickford, as so often, plays a strong, decent man. Keith is first rate as an utterly amoral and greasy crook. And Joseph Calleia does an outstanding job as a man, like Bickford, who has to decide what loving a son really means.
The DVD color transfer is in great shape. There are no extras.
The theme of a long lost heir who returns and who may not be true is an old one It's always good for a strong story. If you like mysteries, I recommend Josephine Tey's book, Brat Farrar. Brat is the long lost son who reappears and who may not be who he claims. One of the complications is that Brat has a twin...who refuses to accept him.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
razor sharp like cactus, June 14, 2005
this is one of the best western i have seen.where alan ladd's performance is powerful, razor sharp with a whip lashing command in his voice. who went to rob the cattle baron charles bickford of their fortune as their long lost son -somewhere along the line he had a change of heart and brings home their real lost son who was removed from the family when he was only 5 yrs old and given to a mexican bandit across the river who raised him as his own.i think it is one of the must have movies.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Thanks to a strong story and some enthusiastic performances, "Branded" remains as one of Alan Ladd's top westerns..., January 27, 2009
The opening scenes set the tone of the film... Ladd, an itinerant gunman known simply as Choya and with the aid of a tattooed birthmark, passes himself off as the lost son and is accepted wholeheartedly by the parents (Bickford and Royle) and Ruth (Freeman), the man's sister...
Ruth had responded to his arrival on the ranch as any pretty woman would respond to a mysterious, handsome stranger, but she rapidly sets right to the fact that he is a relative...
As soon as he is welcomed as Richard Jr, however, something happens to Choya... As a member of a loving family, Choya experiences feelings denied him by his own childhood and became increasingly sickened by his contribution in the tricking...
Leading a cattle drive to El Paso, Choya decides to give up his charade revealing his true identity to Ruth, who turns on him with consternation and antagonism... There remains only one way to redeem himself and make up for the distressing emotion he has caused the Lavery family: To find their real son...
All the elements in "Branded" are taken directly from the straight-shooting school of Western movies... Choya, despite his confession to Ruth that he is a "four-flushin' thief," is true-blue outlaw hero... The smart Leffingwell has him classified correctly: "You won't hit an older man. You ain't the kind that'll draw first, or shoot a man in the back." Even with the rules thus outlined, Ladd still has a chance to present his standard beguiling bad guy early in the film, merely holding back a victorious smile as he pretends confusion over the elder Lavery's excited reaction to his birthmark...
Besides its other values, "Branded" is a visual delight... In fact, the movie's one drawback as a Western entertainment is a lack of big action highlights...
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