“Shane” is one of the greatest Westerns and has held that assessment since it first came out in 1953. It’s near the top of most lists along with films like “The Searchers” and “High Noon”. This is because everyone involved in it was at the top of their game and believed in the picture. Paramount gave it an enormous (for a Western) 1.5 million dollar budget and assigned its top people to the project. Director George Stevens, one of the greats of the classic era, was one of those versatile directors like Howard Hawks who could handle any genre. On the surface, a director known for thirties comedies and films like “Alice Adams”, Katharine Hepburn’s breakthrough film and “Swing Time” the greatest of the Astaire/Rogers musicals would not seem to be the guy to direct a Western, but he had the skill and did it superbly.
The writers of the screenplay and the book it was based on were both steeped in the genre and both wrote major Western novels. The original novel by Jack Schaefer was an expansion of his three-part serialized story, “Rider From Nowhere”, published in Argosy magazine in the summer of 1946, which contained all of the essential characters and plot elements. It stood out from the beginning for its serious tone and language in what was basically a pulp magazine. Schaefer wrote over a dozen Western novels including “Monte Walsh”. A.B. Guthrie wrote the screenplay and was brought in just for the film. He was not normally a screenwriter but a well-known Western novelist who was known for “The Big Sky” and the Pulitzer Prize winning, “The Way West”. Guthrie’s novels were usually set in the Montana-Wyoming area and he lived on a ranch in Teton County, Montana.
Alan Ladd was at the peak of his career at this time. He had spent many frustrating years in Hollywood until his agent and future wife Sue Carol got him a contract and his breakout role in “This Gun for Hire” (1942). He had to fight against the industry’s ideal of the tall, dark leading man as he was relatively short (5’7”) and blond. For this reason he was paired in seven films with the 5’2” Veronica Lake, with whom he also had great chemistry. He became a major star playing tough guys in noir and action films, aided by his deep and resonant voice and ability to play troubled characters. He brings strength, mystery and a kind side to Shane, a man with an unknown past that seems to have included being a gunfighter. He’s the man with no name - we never learn if he’s using his given name - one of the archetypes of Westerns and hero tales in general.
Jean Arthur had been one of the queens of screwball comedy, so she seems an unlikely choice for a Western, but Stevens had directed her in two films and liked her. Though very subdued compared to her early performances, she’s warm and tender as Marian Starrett, a more complex character than the usual pioneer mother as she is obviously very attracted to Shane but also totally devoted to her husband and child. At one point she tells her son, “He’s a fine man. Yes, I like him too, Joey” with all the nuance that the boy can’t pick up but the audience can. This was her last film role. Van Heflin is Joe Starrett, husband and father and the man who sees good in Shane and allows him to stay with the family on their homestead. He played every type of role in the 1940s and after and is convincing as the kind of man who would bring his family to settle in 1880s Wyoming Territory. Fans may notice that once again he has to see his cinematic wife dance with another man as he did in 1949’s “Madame Bovary”, only this time under more pleasant circumstances. Their son, Joey is the teller of the story in the novel and contrary to the usual movie, here is a central character who develops a hero-worshiping relationship with Shane. This is a big part to entrust to a ten-year-old child, but Brandon deWilde came through with wonderful reactions and sincerely spoken lines, especially his famous last words. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his work (it was an honor being put in with the adults but I’d have preferred them giving one of those small statuettes they formerly awarded child actors without competition). Jack Palance had just gotten his big break in the previous year’s “Sudden Fear” and cemented his villainous image in “Shane”. He’s frightening as gunslinger Jack Wilson in his black hat as he slowly saunters into town and when he first enters the bar, even the dog gets up and leaves. He doesn’t overplay it either, being menacingly quiet much of the time and seems to find killing a game. He too was nominated as Best Supporting Actor. In a smaller role, Western stalwart Ben Johnson adds to the film as a bad guy with a change of heart.
The story is set during the historic Range War known as the Johnson County War, a setting for several other films. It’s the frequently told conflict between farmer settlers and cattle barons and the issue was fences and water. (Historically this was the opposite of the usual in places from Ancient Rome to Medieval Europe where wealthy landowners increased the size of their holdings by enclosing public land with fences while here it was the farmers putting up fences, legally according to the Homestead Acts). This was a regional “war” going on in Montana and Wyoming with a mix of organized rustling gangs, wealthy and politically connected ranchers and European settlers who the ranchers didn’t mind being included with the rustlers when they began hiring gunslingers. It’s too long to go into here but eventually it even included President Benjamin Harrison sending in the cavalry to rescue gunmen who were trapped on the ranches by a posse of over 200 men sent by the State Legislature. The scope was narrowed, of course, because they wanted to make a dramatic film, not a documentary.Though the film takes the side of the homesteaders, who after all, were following the law and not hiring gunmen, it does give big rancher Morgan Riker a chance to explain the ranchers’ side, “We built the range”.
A big part of the film is its magnificent location, and the cinematography by Lloyd Griggs, which was the only winner among the film’s six Academy Award nominations. It was the year of “From Here To Eternity” which won 8 of the 13 categories and was more Academy-friendly in the early 50s when Westerns were considered a lesser type of film). The jagged Tetons give the film a mythical aspect and they are almost always present in the background. They are as important here as John Ford’s Monument Valley. It’s a setting for gods and heroes, not mortal men. Finally there’s the wonderful score by Victor Young, one of his best known and most beautiful. Titled “The Call of the Faraway Hills” it’s in the earlier folk-based style of western music before “The Big Country” (1958) and “The Magnificent Seven” (1960) established Aaron Copeland-styled music as the sound of the film Western. It is open and beautiful and seems to flow all around you. It in fact, plays almost throughout the film at an almost unheard level, only asserting itself when necessary. The music absolutely soars during the tree stump scene and becomes a menacing, brassy and pounding march when Shane goes to town for the final showdown. For Marian he inserted a sweet Polish dance tune originally titled “La Varsovienne” and in 19th century America “Put Your Little Foot”, representing feminine warmth and domesticity.
There is so much going on in this film and so many nice touches. It’s Joey who first sees Shane approaching while he is about to shoot a deer (we do not know yet that his rifle isn’t loaded and so are tense about it). Shane is shown to be a heroic, almost magical hero by the deer being “saved” by running away when it hears him approaching. The camera then shows Shane from Joey’s perspective in one of its most famous shots, looking up at a larger than life figure against a vast blue sky. When Shane begins to teach Joey how to handle a gun and shoot, he shows amazing dexterity with it, signaling as did his reaction to hearing Joey cock his rifle earlier, that he has far more familiarity and skill with it than even the average cowboy. Later in the scene he notes, “A gun is just a tool. A gun is as good as the man using it, Marian. No better or no worse than any tool, an ax, a shovel, anything. Remember that.” This is the only peek we get at his possible gunfighter past. It’s brought up again when Ryan tells him, “Gunfighter, your time is over.” To which Shane answers, “What about yours? The difference is I know it.” Shane is different from the homesteaders and can’t settle down with them. Within the film he feels that “There’s no living with a killing” But beyond that, as a mythic hero he’s done. He came where help was needed and now he must move on.
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Reviews with images
Shane is the Gold Standard of Westerns
Shane is a western that meets all of the requirements for a good, solid movie. Fortunately for us, Shane goes one step further. We could all sit for hours and argue about what that " extra step" is, is it Alan Ladd's quiet, handsome hero? You know all the while he's fallen for his friends wife but he does everything he can to hide it. Is it the beautiful color and scenery of the movie? Really, it is unmatched. Van Heflin is genius. Jean Arthur is utterly believable as a frontier wife and mother. When she's begging her husband not to heave to fight the bad guys, you feel every twinge of her anguish. Brandon DeWilde is arguably the best child actor I've ever seen. His performance is absolutely flawless. He's so clear in his characters belief of right and wrong and conveys that through a childish innocence that breaks your heart. Jack Palance is the ultimate in long legged, chiseled featured, mean looking gun slingers. You know from the minute he rides into town that he already has a bullet with Shane's name on it. Yes, this movie is a thriller too...a nail biter beautiful and so good. Even if you aren't a big fan of Westerns, it'd be a shame to miss Shane.
Top reviews from other countries
Fernando Garza
Shane es un clásico del género western
Reviewed in Mexico on February 28, 2018Amazon Customer
Help us to know what we want to know.
Reviewed in Australia on November 28, 2019Gerhard Grabbe
Mein großer Freund - ein Taugenichts?
Reviewed in Germany on June 9, 2014