Mon 9 May 2016
A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: RAWHIDE (1951).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[5] Comments
RAWHIDE. 2oth Century Fox, 1951. Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Hugh Marlowe, Dean Jagger, Edgar Buchanan, Jack Elam, George Tobias, Jeff Corey, James Millican. Director: Henry Hathaway.
Tyrone Power isn’t exactly what you’d call a Western icon. He’s no Gary Cooper or a James Stewart, let alone a Joel McCrea or a John Wayne. But that doesn’t stop Henry Hathaway’s Rawhide from being an excellent, if not widely heralded, Western film about a man forced out of his daily life and into a dangerous maelstrom.
Filmed in crisp black and white, in which many frames seem like exquisitely staged photographs, Rawhide avoids many of the melodramatic pitfalls that made far too many early 1950s westerns bland and altogether forgettable movies about good guys battling bad guys and love triumphing over hate. There’s not much in the way of lighthearted banter or comic relief in this film. The movie is brooding and claustrophobic, not lighthearted and warm. Romance takes a back seat to fear and violence. To that extent, the film can be seen as a precursor to Budd Boetticher’s dusty and gritty Westerns starring Randolph Scott.
The plot is relatively straightforward. Power portrays Tom Owens, the educated son of an Overland Mail Company executive who’s learning the family business. To that end, he’s living and working at a relay station for the stage called Rawhide Station. Owens isn’t a particularly tough guy; he’s just there to learn the ropes. But when he learns that there are escaped convicts in the area, he becomes determined to make sure that stage passenger Vinnie Holt (Hayward) doesn’t fall into their grasp.
A noble effort, but a failed one, given that pretty soon the outlaw escapee gang lead by Zimmerman (Hugh Marlowe) invades Rawhide Station and takes Owens and Holt captive. Making matters worse is the fact that one of Zimmerman’s partners in crime, Tevis (Jack Elam) has his predatory eyes on Holt. Elam plays the sociopath Tevis with such skill that it’s occasionally difficult not to like this rakish villain, even though you know better.
Although set out West in the midst of solid desert and howling coyotes, Rawhide plays out less like a Western than a home invasion film, a story of a man and a woman who are forced to confront evil in the most domestic of settings. It’s a gripping portrayal of a man forced to his limits and one which ever so subtly asks the questions: What would you do in a situation like this? How brave are you?
May 9th, 2016 at 3:14 pm
Hugh Marlowe was a revelation is this film. Before this I’d always seen him as the dullard in Sci-Fi movies, but he played the heavy here with edgy intensity.
On a loosely related note, I have always LOVED the sound of gunfire in Fox Westerns; somehow the gunplay in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, GARDEN OF EVIL, YELLOW SKY and others always sounded more REAL than the shooting at other studios.
May 9th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
The fact Power isn’t Wayne or McCrea or Scott works for this one since the suspense derives in part from how he will manage to handle the problem the outlaws pose. The fact we don’t have a history with him on screen as a tough guy actually adds to the suspense.
And this one is as much a suspense film as a Western, only really making use of the wide open outdoors as a place that doesn’t offer much cover or protection for the hero.
But, as Jonathan points out, what makes this work is that it deals with human evil and human good and not archetypes or supermen. Ironic considering how much Power and Hayward personify Hollywood glamor, that in this film they manage to seem fairly ordinary people caught up in violence and terror.
May 11th, 2016 at 5:27 pm
Susan Hayward was a very beautiful woman. I’d rather see her in a movie like this (and I did) than some of the more serious dramas she was in. She really didn’t seem out of place at all.
July 11th, 2017 at 11:14 pm
I just love this movie, I’ve seen this movie many times and I just love all of cast in the movie, I would love to be her, being locked in a room with a handsome man like Power.
August 30th, 2019 at 9:54 pm
I have long been a fan of this crisp, Western film. I’ll not parrot what others have said about its underrated place in film history. I was just at the Alabama Hills a few days ago. While many set locations are identified on the Movie Road tour, including Yellow Sky, Rawhide’s extensive use of the Hills’ backdrop gets no mention on the tour map. And at the Lone Pine Film Museum, a must stop as well, I missed finding a mention of Rawhide or its poster.