Sun 8 Jan 2017
A Western Movie Review: DAY OF THE OUTLAW (1959).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[14] Comments
DAY OF THE OUTLAW. United Artists, 1959. Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise, Alan Marshal, Venetia Stevenson, David Nelson, Nehemiah Persoff, Jack Lambert, Frank deKova, Lance Fuller, Elisha Cook Jr., Dabbs Greer. Screenplay by Philip Yordan, based on a novel by Lee E. Wells. Director: André De Toth.
What begins as a routine story of homesteaders vs. the local cattle baron (Robert Ryan) in Day of the Outlaw shifts without warning (unless you’ve read a review like this one) to another tale altogether. Before going any further, let me add this. There is something that suggests that if not interrupted, the initial plot may have gone somewhere else very interesting: the wife of the leader of the farmers (Tina Louise) has had an affair with the cattle baron.
From this point on, you have a decision to make. Read on and learn more about the story than I had any idea about before I watched this film, or stop right here with my telling you that this one of the bleakest black-and-white westerns I have ever seen. It ends with a 30 minute trek through a mountain pass that may not exist, with snow up to the saddles on the horses, the leader of the men dying from a bullet wound, but all of them have run out of other options.
In between, what happened? A gang of seven men who come to town, led by former army officer Jack Bruhn, the stentorian-voiced Burl Ives, the Cavalry hard on their trail, held up only by the weather. It is the middle of winter Only by Bruhn’s firm command of his band of outlaws are they kept from completely destroying the town, in all likelihood killing the men and raping the women.
Bruhn’s men are brutish, sadistic killers — all but one — and to watch them dance wildly with little restraint with the town’s women later that evening — the only entertainment that Bruhn will allow them — is a sight to behold.
It is up to Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan), tough as they come but weary-faced and tired, but who is damned if he will allow the town he helped create be destroyed, to avert disaster. How he does it is the crux of this fascinating small gem of a movie.
January 8th, 2017 at 1:59 am
This is one of my favorites and one of the best westerns ever made. Bleak indeed and very hard boiled. Robert Ryan is great as usual and Burl Ives has one of his very best roles. A great movie to watch during a winter snow storm!
January 8th, 2017 at 12:39 pm
Perfect, then, for yesterday’s snowstorm here in the Northeast, Walker? Turns out, though, that I watched the movie last summer and the review’s been idling away in the To Be Posted folder ever since.
January 8th, 2017 at 9:58 am
This one surprised me. I thought it was going to be one of those cramped, town-bound westerns, then they rode out into the blizzard and the whole thing changed!
January 8th, 2017 at 10:46 am
Day of the Outlaw seemed like a picture that might have been made in the USSR during Stalin’s early days, had the politburo decided to make a western.
January 8th, 2017 at 1:28 pm
You got a point there, Barry.
January 8th, 2017 at 4:53 pm
This is the second time recently that comparisons have been made here to Soviet montage cinema of the 1920’s and 1930’s. The first was when the exam in THE PARALLAX VIEW was linked to montage.
I’m not so sure that DAY OF THE OUTLAW is in the montage tradition. The sheer isolation of the town does recall the equally isolated shack in BY THE LAW (Lev Kuleshov, 1926).
All the snow in DAY OF THE OUTLAW echoes a Swedish silent film classic that influenced both Fritz Lang and Soviet directors like Eisenstein: SIR ARNE’S TREASURE (Maurice Stiller, 1919). The ferocious snow backgrounds might well have been an influence on DAY OF THE OUTLAW.
They likely helped inspire the Soviet ALEXANDER NEVSKY (Sergei Eisenstein, 1938), with its battle on the ice and procession.
January 8th, 2017 at 4:54 pm
Thank you, Mike.
January 10th, 2017 at 5:10 pm
One of the truly bleak virtual noir Westerns with fine performances in the kind of film best appreciated when you are either iced in, or it’s 110 out and the AC off.
True to Western film tradition the snow is a character in the film. I can think of a handful of other Westerns that use cold weather as effectively, THE TALL MEN, TRACK OF THE CAT, CHEYENNE AUTUMN, THE SEARCHERS, and THE LAST HUNT, and none of them as sustained as OUTLAW.
January 13th, 2017 at 2:13 am
Steve mentions the sadistic dance that the degenerate killers perform with the town’s women. I just watched THE BLACK WHIP (1956) which was reviewed recently on MYSTERY FILE and there is a similar scene. The outlaw gang party and dance with the four girls including Angie Dickenson and Coleen Gray. Angie almost gets raped on a bed but manages to shoot her attacker.
Pretty strong stuff for the 1950’s and the movie code.
January 13th, 2017 at 2:32 am
I wonder if whoever was in charge of enforcing the Code let Westerns get away with more than they allowed in other films.
January 13th, 2017 at 11:32 pm
That is a really interesting question, Steve — but I believe the answer is probably not, but that the westerns may have slipped through the cracks, in part because they were westerns, and equally the producers, those particular people in charge of these projects, were able to present, or finesse the situation.
January 14th, 2017 at 3:40 am
My thoughts exactly. I wish I had time to look into this some more. Maybe some day!
May 20th, 2018 at 10:23 pm
Do you think it had an influence on McCabe and Mrs. Miller?
August 26th, 2018 at 12:13 pm
All this talk of the Politburo seems pretty silly, what with TRUMP cozying up to Putin now. Philip Yordan, (who presumably actually wrote this screenplay) had been a frequent front for blacklisted writers.