Mon 11 Aug 2014
A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE LAW AND JAKE WADE (1958).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[6] Comments
THE LAW AND JAKE WADE. MGM, 1958. Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva, De Forest Kelley. Based on a novel by Marvin H. Albert (Gold Medal, 1956). Director: John Sturges.
The Law and Jake Wade has many of the requisite elements of an above average 1950s Western. Directed by John Sturges, whose Last Train From Gun Hill I reviewed here, the film boasts an impressive cast and an even more impressive natural scenery of the Alabama Hills and the High Sierras. There are some incredibly well shot action sequences to boot.
Overall, the film has a quite stark and gritty feel to it. This dovetails nicely with the film’s plot about a man seeking a domestic, morally upright life far removed from both his wartime experiences and his criminal past.
Yet, despite all this, the film nevertheless ends up feeling as something of a letdown. It’s not so much that the plot doesn’t work, as it is that outlaw-turned-lawman Jake Wade, as portrayed by a taciturn Robert Taylor, just isn’t all that a compelling Western protagonist.
Instead, the film’s evilly grinning villain, played by Robert Widmark, ends up being the movie’s center of gravity. Without him as an antagonist, the viewer might find it very difficult to care about Jake Wade.
The film begins with Jake Wade (Taylor) breaking Clint Hollister (Widmark) out of jail. He does it out of a perhaps misplaced sense of loyalty to the man, because as it turns out, the two men used to be partners in crime. That is, until Wade accidentally shot and killed a young boy in a bank holdup (or so he believes). Wade’s left the criminal life behind him and has set up shop in a new town with a lovely girl and a job enforcing the law as opposed to breaking it.
But Hollister and his men aren’t about to let Wade walk out of their lives so readily. There’s the pesky matter of stolen cash that Wade, now a Marshal, allegedly buried, and Hollister wants his share of the loot.
So he kidnaps Wade and his fiancée, Peggy Carter (Patricia Owens), with the goal of forcing them to take him to where the money is buried. Assisting him in his endeavor is his gang, including the lanky sociopath Rennie (Henry Silva) and the violent but loyal Wexler (Star Trek’s DeForest Kelley in a great role). It’s Widmark’s character that makes the movie increasingly suspenseful.
The rest of the movie follows this ragtag expedition as they traverse mountain paths, hole up in a ghost town, and do battle with Comanches.
And, naturally, there’s a final shootout between Jake Wade and Clint Hollister. Wade ends up killing his former partner, allowing him to at least have an opportunity to put his dark past behind him once and for all.
It’s only too bad that the character of Jake Wade was never developed beyond what is essentially a stereotypical Western anti-hero, a former Confederate soldier and outlaw who wants a fresh start.
August 11th, 2014 at 9:23 pm
I would disagree about Taylor’s performance, because I think it was needed in comparison to Widmark. I think if Taylor was more colorful it would make the perversity of Widmark’s Hollister less noticeable.
The movie is very good at suggesting that the relationship between the two was always like this, Taylor an anchor to Widmark’s wildness, yin to his yang. In a sense Taylor has the unrewarding role of playing the only adult in the film much like Gary Cooper in MAN OF THE WEST which this resembles.
This is one where I think you are critiquing the movie it might have been, maybe better, and not the movie we have. We all do it, but it isn’t really fair to pile too many what might have beens on the plot. For me Widmark and Taylor here represented exactly what they were supposed to and nothing more. I think this one is an excellent use of Taylor and his once almost beautiful face, now rugged and a bit haggard, reflects the hard won birth of the new Jake Wade.
Widmark’s death is Taylor’s final passage, the death of the man he was as much as of Hollister. This is meant to be a show case role for Widmark, that is clear from the script. Taylor’s role is to be just dark enough and just reformed enough to suggest his past and the tenuous nature of his reform so long as Widmark’s Hollister lives.
This kind of film is seldom about the hero, he always has a thankless role. All he has to be is just intriguing enough we see a little of what attracted Widmark to him.
I would rank this as a very good role for Taylor since his strength as a mature actor was often to show that dark side without ever letting it truly get out.
This is a solid entertaining western, memorable and intelligent, I don’t think anyone ever intended anything more than that. Sometimes they are just well written oaters and have no deeper intent than that.
Good review though, made me think about Widmark and Taylor in this, and that’s half the battle
August 12th, 2014 at 4:00 am
Definitely Widmark’s film, but as you noted, Taylor does a good job of keeping it anchored, and the rest of the cast fills in ably. And Sturges’ feel for action scenes was never better. This would make a fine double-bill with BEND OF THE RIVER.
August 12th, 2014 at 7:47 am
I kind of lean toward Jon’s point of view on this one. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I remember thinking Robert Taylor underplaying his role more than I thought he should have. And since he’s the title character, I thought the movie suffered for it, even though Richard Widmark was there to carry the film on his shoulders as only he can.
But David and Dan, you make such a good case for Taylor’s performance that I definitely have to see the movie again.
August 12th, 2014 at 12:04 pm
I think critics and viewers are about evenly split on Taylor’s performance in this one.
I do agree with everyone that Widmark’s character/performance is the centerpiece for the film. For what it’s worth, I found Widmark’s self-assessment of the film and his part therein instructive:
“bad picture, good part” (Glenn Lovell’s biography of John Sturges, “Escape Artist” has more on this)
August 12th, 2014 at 4:21 pm
I actually think that Widmark is good enough and this, and the rest of the cast competent to good enough to make this a good movie.
I don’t usually recall minor to bad westerns as vividly as this one, but it may just appeal to me.
August 12th, 2014 at 4:59 pm
DeForest Kelley also gave a solid performance