Thu 3 Jan 2019
A GREGORY PECK Western Review: YELLOW SKY (1948).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[6] Comments
YELLOW SKY. 20th Century Fox, 1948. Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, Robert Arthur, John Russell, Henry [Harry] Morgan, James Barton, Charles Kemper. Based on a story by W. R. Burnett. Director: William A. Wellman.
How would you like to be Gregory Peck asthe leader of an outlaw gang that has someone like Richard Widmark as mamebr it? Not much, you say, and you’d be right. It goes about as well as you’d expect. As it turns out, though, they end up with two different goals in mind. Peck wants the girl (Anne Baxter), while Widmark wants the gold she and her grizzled old grandfather have dug out of their mine.
The setting is a deserted old mining town named Yellow Sky, located right on the edge of Death Valley, which Peck and his men have just crossed. With her tight shirt and jeans, “Mike” is a sight for sore eyes, but not right away. All the outlaws want at first is water, and lots of it.
Eventually, though, they begin to wonder what the girl and her grandpa are doing there, totally isolated as they are, miles from any sign of civilization. This is where — you guessed it — thoughts of the gold come in, and this is also exactly when rifts between the members of the gang begin.
This is a well-constructed western movie that makes perfect use of its setting. It may be just a bit talky, but toward the end there’s plenty of gunplay and action for anyone who’s looking for that; after all, that’s what the whole film is building up to.
As for Gregory Peck vs. Richard Widmark, you know exactly how that’s going to come out, and except for an ending that seems to be tacked on to satisfy the Movie Code, Peck does it quite convincingly.
January 3rd, 2019 at 4:48 pm
Yes, a highly satisfying Western, Steve. Somehow Fox in those days got all the best western skies,and I love the sound of gunfire in all their Westerns:flat and authoritative.
Burnett’s novel (or novelization of his screenplay) is readable, but it doesn’t have Greg Peck & Dick Widmark.
January 3rd, 2019 at 8:30 pm
Unusually tough minded Western, with Peck no better than he has to be and Widmark in full bad guy mode. This one is as much a character piece as a action movie, but does both well.
I’m a fan of Burnett’s Western’s and this is no exception.
January 3rd, 2019 at 9:19 pm
I’ve looked to see what work by Burnett the film was based on, and the best I’ve found is that it was an “unpublished novel.”
No matter. When you have a story is as good as this one is, it’ difficult for a director as good as Wellman was to mess it up, and he didn’t.
January 4th, 2019 at 1:24 am
The screenplay for YELLOW SKY was based on an early version of Burnett’s novel, STRETCH DAWSON (Peck’s character’s name in the film), published by Gold Medal in 1950.
January 4th, 2019 at 11:08 am
Right you are, Bill, and thanks! I guess you could say that I what I found out about it, that it was “unpublished novel” was true, too, since it hadn’t been published yet at the time when the movie was released, which was two years earlier.
The book itself is Gold Medal #106, which gives it the distinction of being the first Gold Medal western. I’ll add an image of the cover below. I think this is a scarce book. I don’t have a copy myself, nor do O remember ever seeing a copy, but I could easily be wrong about that.
There is a review of the book online by an Amazon reader. The book follows the movie extremely wee, he says, except for the ending. I think it is safe to quote at least this much from what he says:
“Editor’s note: Stretch Dawson has an interesting publication history. In 1947, Burnett sold the rights to his (unpublished) story. It was rewritten by screenwriter Lamar Trotti, and filmed in 1948 as “Yellow Sky” (with Gregory Peck!). The ending is quite dramatically different – the morally superior Half Pint makes it through the final battle (not Lengthy) and the film concludes with the surviving gang members giving back the money from the original robbery. Burnett’s 1950 denouement is either a late addition or something the studio judiciously ignored.”
https://www.amazon.com/Stretch-Dawson-Gold-Medal-Western/dp/0449001067
January 4th, 2019 at 7:36 pm
An oddity is how many of Burnett’s big crime novels were recast as really good Westerns, HIGH SIERRA as COLORADO TERRITORY and ASPHALT JUNGLE as BADLANDS. I would argue the former Western version is better than the original crime film, and while the latter is no where near the classic film noir it is a damn good caper film and Western on its own.