Mon 1 Dec 2014
A Western Movie Review by David Vineyard: THE HANGING TREE (1959).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[14] Comments
THE HANGING TREE. Warner Brothers, 1959. Gary Cooper, Maria Schell, Karl Malden, George C. Scott, Karl Swenson, John Dierkes, Virginia Gregg, with Ben Piazza as Rune. Screenplay: Wendell Mayes & Halstead Welles, based on the novella by Dorothy Johnson. Music by Max Steiner. Title song sung by Marty Robbins. Directed by Delmer Daves and (uncredited) Karl Malden.
The Hanging Tree was Gary Cooper’s last western other than the documentary The Real West, and appropriately it is one of the best of his career, and one of the best of the 1950‘s, the golden age of the Hollywood Western. It’s based on the novella by Dorothy Johnson (A Man Called Horse, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) and directed by Delmer Daves (3:10 to Yuma, Jubal), or it was supposed to be directed by Daves until he fell ill and Gary Cooper, whose company was also producing the film, asked Karl Malden to take the helm. It proved a remarkable collaboration and the start of a friendship and mutual admiration society that lasted until Cooper’s death.
Like most good westerns the story is simple, Doctor Joe Frail follows the 1873 Montana Gold Trail to a small mining community, mostly tents and mud, where he sets up practice. When a boy, Rune (Ben Piazza) is shot for stealing from a sluice Frail saves him and makes him his bondsman, a virtual slave, blackmailing him with the bullet that proves he was the sluice thief.
It’s a rough little town not improved by glad-handing backstabbing miner Frenchy (Karl Malden) who knows Doc Frail from another mining camp, knows how fast he is, and about the fire Frail may have set that burned his wife and her lover alive.
This is a very adult adult western.
When Frail wins a gold claim from gambler Society Red (John Dierkes) all seems set, and no one much listens to Grubb (George C. Scott) a fanatic faith healer who hates Frail and knows his history. There is only one element left, and that arrives when the stagecoach is held up and the horses panic. Everyone dies but a young woman who suffers severe wounds and exposure, Elizabeth Mahler (Maria Schell), a Swiss immigrant come west with her now dead father.
Frenchy finds her and feels a proprietary interest in her, as well as undressing her with every lewd look. Frenchy has other bad habits than backstabbing. But Doc takes on her care with young Rune, and while Doc seems a hard man there are signs he is more than that. Frankly Rune just can’t read him and neither can Elizabeth: a man with secrets like he carries becomes remote, even his name is false. He took the name Frail because he figured all men were frail and he was the frailest.
When Elizabeth is well she tires of Frail’s bossiness, especially when he tells her he is sending her back to Switzerland because he can’t live near her. She runs away, Rune rebels, and Doc secretly backs them through store owner Tom Flaunce (Karl Swenson), the only decent man in this little mud hole Sodom of the west despite his shrewish wife, Edna (Virginia Gregg).
Backed by Doc Elizabeth and Rune team with Frenchy who knows gold digging though he isn’t very good at it, and though they find nothing Doc keeps backing them whenever they need money.
When a rainstorm fells a tree on their claim they find the glory hole, a vein of nuggets in the roots of the tree and beneath. Now they are rich and rush to town to celebrate.
But Frenchy hasn’t forgotten Elizabeth and when he tries to rape her, Doc arrives just in time and kills him. No, that’s an understatement, because in one of the most brutal scenes in any American western of its era, Cooper empties his gun into the fleeing Frenchy, who dies at the edge of a cliff, and Doc then kicks his corpse over.
The grim Frail as he coolly walks down the pleading running Frenchy putting bullet after bullet in him is a scene you won’t soon forget. Perhaps only Cooper’s brutal beating of Jack Lord in Man of the West and throwing Cameron Mitchell into the fire in Garden of Evil come anywhere near it. And, I’m little ashamed to admit it, it is a very satisfying scene as well, Malden is always a very killable bad guy.
Grubb and Society Red and a group of drunken miners drag Frail to the hanging tree to lynch him, and have the rope on his neck and Grubb at the horse’s reins when Elizabeth and Rune arrive and buy his life at the cost of their claim. As the drunken miners battle over the claim Rune frees Frail and Elizabeth turns to leave but Frail calls her back and kneels in the buckboard to embrace her. Fade to the Marty Robbins theme. He literally found his love at the hanging tree.
The Hanging Tree has more than enough virtues and might be Cooper’s best if not for High Noon. Frail is a complex character who is never just a hero, just a good man, just misunderstood. Life and fate have bred a rattlesnake mean streak in him and it is clear he fears it though he fights it more successfully than he knows.
It is not until he comes clean that the viewer knows for certain he did not set than fatal fire. Malden, fresh off his Oscar, is quite good as Frenchy, but as a director he is a revelation. This film is as well directed as any major western of the era, a worthy rival for Ford, Mann, Hawks, Daves, or any of the other iconic Western directors. IMDb says he finished the film, but Daves became sick early, and Malden directed the bulk of the film
Ben Piazza as Rune is a little lost in this cast of veterans, but not badly lost, and Schell is fine in a tough no nonsense non-glamorous role that is both physically and emotionally demanding. And then there is that New York actor making his Hollywood debut on screen, George C. Scott. He has only a little time on screen, but he makes the most of every scene as the fanatic, cowardly, venal, murderous Grubb. If he had never done anything else you would remember him from this. I did for years, though I didn’t really know who he was or connect the star of television’s East Side, West Side with the part.
But like almost any film he is in this is Gary Cooper’s film and there is never a moment you don’t know it, whether he is on screen or not. I recall seeing this on the big screen (it was the debut of Technirama) and being bowled over by Cooper. He’s still impressive on the small screen though in this one, Malden seems to have staged it to shoot Cooper from a lower angle making him seem even taller and more commanding than he was to begin with.
The Max Steiner score is fine, and surprisingly, considering the title, the Marty Robbins theme song turns out to be one of the best of the era and one of the best western themes ever. “To really live/ You must almost die …†proves haunting if you may not want to think about it too much and “I found my love at the hanging tree†is a tough lyric to pull off even in a western song but Robbins succeeds.
Brian Garfield suggested they should have stopped making westerns when Cooper died and this should have been the last of its kind. I don’t know that I agree with him, but his point is well taken. In many ways this is the last and one of the best of its breed. Screen westerns never really reached this height again; in my opinion, they were never this good again, not at this level. Whatever Cooper brought to the western, went with him.
If you have never seen this one then find it. It shows up on TCM now once in a while and is available from the Warner’s Archives to own or watch on line if you are a subscriber. You can also listen to the Marty Robbins song and see the titles and end scene on YouTube.
This is quite simply one of the best westerns of the 1950‘s and one of Gary Cooper’s best westerns, which makes it one of the best westerns ever made.
December 1st, 2014 at 11:28 pm
I saw this in the theater in 1959 with some other kids. I must’ve been impressed at the time because I still remember the circumstances and two of the other people I saw it with. I haven’t seen it since, but I still remember bits of it vividly.
December 2nd, 2014 at 4:55 am
One thing that impressed me in this film was that the characters always seemed to be climbing up some steep incline or standing near some precipice: the perfect visual metaphor for a tale of struggle and redemption. Add the great cast and off-beat ending, and you get a film that’s hard to beat.
One of my most cherished possessions is the
Italian poster from this film:
http://randall120.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/936full-the-hanging-tree-poster.jpg
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:15 am
Malden won his Oscar in 1951 for STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. This film was made in 1959.
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:39 am
This was a film I have made a point ‘not’ to see — and despite all the critical encouragement, will continue that program.
December 2nd, 2014 at 3:18 pm
Ray
I suppose what I should have said was Malden’s career was still largely based on that win though Cooper asked him to direct based on his debut as a director not terribly long before this.
I said I thought this was Cooper’s best Western save HIGH NOON, but since in a real way HIGH NOON is a political allegory about modern times and not particularly true to how the West actually was (Something Ford and Hawks both pointed out, the violent end of the Daltons being a good example)this film could technically be his best Western.
Visually this film has stayed with me since 1959 when I saw it as a boy. I went a good thirty years before I saw it again and when I did I was impressed that I not only remembered whole scenes accurately but the way the film is shot. Cinematography is a character here as it should be in a Western.
Like you I notice the upward struggle and that Cooper lives on the hill high above the rest, his god like view of humanity in his isolation another thing keeping him from becoming human again. Even the end when Cooper kicks Malden’s corpse from the top of the cliff it’s a bit like Lucifer being cast out of heaven in its implications.
The film portrays the men and women of the little unnamed mining camp as bestial, suspicious, gossipy, and paranoid. Only Cooper and Swenson are what anyone would call good men save for Schell and Piazza who come as strangers, and at the end Cooper, Schell, and Piazza stand alone — you know Joe Frail will be moving his practice again, he just won’t be alone again.
It’s a great western without any of that, but it is nice when the subtext is there. It’s a very literate Western as well, but Daves often chose subjects drawn from books and stories for his films — an Elmore Leonard story for 3:10 FROM YUMA and Paul Wellman’s novel JUBAL TROOP for JUBAL.
This took forever to come to VHS and almost as long to DVD, but it is one of the decades outstanding Westerns, one of Cooper’s best, and its a thinking man’s western as well.
December 2nd, 2014 at 5:38 pm
Unlike Bill and you, David, I didn’t see this back in 1959, and for some reason or another, I’ve never caught up with it again. You’ve convinced me, though. My charge card is reaching my limit (mine, not theirs) this month, but I’ll see what I can do about obtaining a copy right after the next billing cycle comes around.
December 2nd, 2014 at 6:29 pm
Barry–
Howcum?
Steve—
Say the word (or send me an email) and I’ll lend you my DVD for Christmas
December 2nd, 2014 at 6:43 pm
Jon tells me that his copy is here in the house. In a box or on a shelf. That narrows it down!
But maybe it’s on top or in front.
December 2nd, 2014 at 7:35 pm
Dan,
I’ve thought about that. Nothing at all wrong with Cooper in my mind, but I have never related to him on screen. The Hanging Tree specifically seemed to me back in 1959 as a story of pathetic failure, a kind of cowboy Barfly — an experience I would not repeat. I like the cinema of mythology where the good guys, flawed as they may be, come right from Mt. Olympus into my ‘heart’.
December 2nd, 2014 at 8:11 pm
A great review of a great picture, David. I actually would call it Cooper’s greatest Western, even when judged against High Noon–which I like, but which I think more than a bit overrated.
The comments about the emphasis on steep slopes throughout the film are very perceptive–as is the excellent one about the final expulsion of French echoing the fall of Lucifer; the whole film has what J. R. R. Tolkien or C. S. Lewis would have called a “mythic” aura (as distinct from an allegorical one). The characters have their own very real identities, and don’t directly represent anything else (unlike the characters in an allegory), but they do frequently parallel other, eternally resonant stories. Another example: though Frail is far from a perfect character, his actions often echo those of Christ–his ministration to the dying prostitute (the “redhead,” referred to obliquely), his healing of the blind woman, and his near-execution by an angry mob–a mob led by a hypocritical “priest” (Scott’s character) who condemns Frail as a sort of false prophet.
December 2nd, 2014 at 10:00 pm
Daniel
Though not an allegory the Christ like figure goes further with Scott’s character the ‘temple priest’ condemning him and trying to execute him. As I said there are all sorts of possible interpretations and subtexts in the film, none of which is needed to enjoy this one as a western.
Barry
Not trying to change your mind, you feel how you feel, but you don’t get much more Olympian than Cooper’s Joe Frail, a man above humanity and god like in virtually Christ like ways. Even his execution of Malden, and execution is what it is, is godlike. Even his speed with a gun is mythic in this one.
True he has flaws, but they are the kind of mystery man thing pretty common in Westerns. Far from pathetic Frail is very nearly a tragic hero out of Greek literature who just barely escapes dying without overcoming his fatal hubris. It literally takes a noose around his neck to change him.
You just believe watching this that he might be godlike enough to have burned his wife alive. If he is frail he is a frail god.
He’s as iconic here as Scott or McCrea in most of their westerns, and actually I could see either of them play the part though without the star power and prestige Cooper’s name carried then.
Oh, and I was a bit off on his ‘last’ western since he did a walk on in Bob Hope’s ALIAS JESSIE JAMES along with Jay Silverheels, Roy Rogers, and several others.
But ironically Olympian is exactly how I would describe Cooper’s Joe Frail.
December 2nd, 2014 at 11:17 pm
David,
You have changed my mind, at least to the point I am ordering dvd. I see the Cooper mythology, and always have, but not my religion. Have long been at the altar of Scott, Wayne and Autry, perhaps a conversion is in order.
December 3rd, 2014 at 3:20 pm
Barry at least two interesting ties between Scott and Cooper; Scott was the voice coach for Cooper in the 1929 VIRGINIAN and replaced Cooper in the Zane Gray series of films.
My understanding was that he was new to Hollywood, was invited to the set of THE VIRGINIAN, and more or less drafted when they heard his accent.
I hope you enjoy the film, it is more drama than action film, but there are some well staged scenes and good even great performances.
February 9th, 2016 at 12:32 pm
I remember it as a boy, I liked westerns best of all, Gary Cooper & John Wayne were my hero’s as they almost always seemed, good, honest & well intentioned, which seems a good way to be? IMHO. I never seen the film since 1959 when it came out, except for today, February 9th, 2016. What nuanced, fine performances from the whole cast, especially Gary Cooper, no wonder all of Hollyweird never had a bad thing to say about Gary Cooper. Gary Cooper should have won an academy award for this performance, plain & simple. Funny when you get older & revisit films you saw when you were younger, you see things you never seen before! Oh yeah, even as a young boy I KNEW this was a great film & thank the film Gods for allowing us poor mortals to see it again in all it’s former glory & I think even better with all the modern, technical enhancements! A 12 out of 10 stars!