Sat 12 Jan 2019
A Western Movie Review by David Vineyard: RIDE THE MAN DOWN (1952).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[20] Comments
RIDE THE MAN DOWN. Republic Pictures, 1952. Brian Donlevy, Rod Cameron, Ella Raines, Forrest Tucker, Barbara Britton, Chill Wills, J. Carroll Naish, James Bell, Taylor Holmes, Jim Davis, Paul Fix, Roy Barcroft, Jack La Rue, Douglas Kennedy, Chris-pin Martin Screenplay by Mary McCall, Jr. based on the book by Luke Short (Doubleday Double D Western, hardcover, 1942; Bantam Books # 82, paperback, February 1947; first published as a Saturday Evening Post serial, April 4 through May 16 1942). Directed by Joseph Kane.
Maybe it is because it is based on a novel by Luke Short (Frederick Glidden), but this fast moving tale of a range war has enough characters and plot for half a dozen films, and yet somehow never seems crowded or off balance, and that certainly has to do with an all star B cast and the sure hand of veteran Republic oater director Joe Kane at the helm.
Shot in TruColor, this one boasts a literate script, tough almost hard-boiled characters (not surprising from Short who was one of the leading exponents of the hard-boiled Western and whose books inspired two of the better noir Western films — Blood On the Moon and Stations West), and solid motivation all around, and in this one it feels less like the old West than Capone era Chicago with horses and cowboy hats, as everyone in the countryside is out to steal from or kill the handful of good-guys. Odds against the hero of one of these have seldom been higher.
This is one of several Rod Cameron and Forrest Tucker worked on at the studio with Cameron usually the hero and Tucker the heavy, though here he is only one of a formidable group surrounding the embattled Cameron and his handful of allies.
The time is the early thaw of 1892 when Phil Evarts, owner of the Hatchet Ranch has just died, frozen to death in the harsh winter. Evarts was an unpopular man who carved his land out by sweat and bullets and few mourn his passing, particularly not Bide Marriner (Brian Donlevy), a fellow rancher, and neighbors Paul Fix, Roy Barcroft, Jack La Rue, and Douglas Kennedy, who all want the Hatchet grazing land, and Evart’s son-in-law-to-be Sam Danfelser (Forrest Tucker) who has other reasons to want Hatchet broken up. Even Sheriff Joe Kneen (J. Carroll Naish) is no mourner, and likely to be little help.
Add to that Red Courteen (Jim Davis) as a renegade who sells whiskey and guns to the Indians and wants his piece of the pie, and there is a who’s who of Western bad guys gathered to destroy the Evarts legacy. Even the proprietor of the local general store Mr. Priest (Taylor Holmes) father of Lottie, the girl Hatchet foreman Will Bartlett (Rod Cameron) wants to marry (Barbara Britton), wants to get in on the deal. The Hatchet Ranch is surrounded by venal and violent vultures who want to feed on the body before its dead the characters almost as venal as a revisionist Western from a much later era.
In fact, the only people who seem to care about Evarts and Hatchet are his weak brother John (James Bell), Phil’s strong daughter Celia (Ella Raines), and foreman Will Bartlett, and it quickly looks as if it will be the latter two against the whole territory as they fight to keep the Hatchet together against impossible odds and enemies inside and out.
Sub-plots abound. Sam is jealous of Celia Evarts devotion to Bartlett; Lottie is jealous of Bartlett’s devotion to Celia; Sheriff Kneen is in Marriner’s pocket but the fit is increasingly binding; Ray Kavanaugh (Paul Fix) murders John Evarts and is witnessed by weak rancher Joe Kennedy (Jack La Rue) who flees the country pursued by Bartlett; Marriner wants Kavanaugh arrested and tried tying up the Hatchet in court and with it certain the locals who hate the Hatchet Ranch will set him free; Red Courteen (Jim Davis) hates the part Indian Bartlett who humiliated him; Lottie’s father Mr. Priest has bought interest in cattle owned by Courteen and now being held by the Hatchet because they were grazing on Hatchet land and he’s losing money; and, the only help Bartlett can hire is a couple of drifters top hand Ike Adams (Chill Wills) doesn’t trust.
Meanwhile Sam tries to undermine Bartlett and force Celia to give into Marriner because he is unmanned by her wealth and power and resents her strength.
That’s quite a bit of plot to work into just over ninety minutes and still get in a satisfying amount of action and gunplay, and granted Donlevy doesn’t really get as much film time as he might need to really make an impression as the bad guy, what with Tucker and Davis taking up so much of the bad air..
And tough action there is, more brutal than you might expect from a Western of this era, but also room for the redemption of Sheriff Kneen and a shootout between him and Marriner; a couple of well done set pieces — a nice one of Bartlett trapped in the town run by Courteen having to shoot his way out against a small army of enemies — and enough bits here and there for the large cast to keep all the actors happy.
It’s no lost classic, and frankly the print I saw was at best only serviceable, but it is a good example of what Republic could do with the Western, given a bit more to chew on than the usual oater script. The fact that the crowded plot never seems constrained by the running time and no one in the cast gets slighted shows capable hands at work. Just getting all those plot elements from the Short story into the screenplay without losing track of any of the characters or their arcs was no small achievement.
It’s not exactly true that Republic never made a bad Western as they used to assert when I was a kid growing up, but they didn’t make many of them, and they hit the bulls-eye for more often than you might expect. This is a surprisingly meaty small A film with a Western fan’s dream cast, and more going for it than any fan has the right to expect. You got a lot for your dime or quarter in those days and no Western fan, kid or adult, was likely disappointed in this one.
January 12th, 2019 at 10:45 pm
I love the film, believe your review just super, but I would not call it a B. Just because Clark Gable, or someone near or at his level, isn’t playing Rod Cameron’s part, who is simply fine, does not diminish. All these people, all without exception, are better than pretty good and I do not believe Ride The Man Down went out at the bottom half of a double bill.
January 12th, 2019 at 11:37 pm
I don’t consider this film a B western but I don’t think David Vineyard considers it a B either. At the beginning of the review he mentions a B cast but then at the end of the review he refers to the film as a “small A film”.
I checked my copy of Garfield’s WESTERN FILMS and he has a nice entry on the movie. His book covers A films only(with a very few exceptions). So I would say this is definitely a small A film.
But it borders on criminal that this fine movie is not on dvd.
January 13th, 2019 at 12:27 am
Barry, Walker,
I only meant the cast were mostly B level stars and character actors (Donlevy is the biggest name, an A name, and gets top billing even though he has little screen time), hardly a knock because I happen to think this cast is as good or better than most big Westerns from bigger studios, obviously Republic put some effort into this one, and never meant it to fill the bottom of a bill.
January 13th, 2019 at 12:49 am
That is fair and right, David.
January 13th, 2019 at 1:34 am
I just watched this movie again but this time on Youtube. The print quality was not that good but it was watchable. Excellent film with a great cast.
January 13th, 2019 at 7:59 am
I enjoy Republic’s “A-” features of this period, my only objections being the sorry state of prints these days and Republic’s habit of shooting all the outdoor scenes in long shot with doubles, then doing medium shots and close-ups of the players on studio sets with back projection.
January 13th, 2019 at 3:52 pm
I’d never heard of this film. Thank you!
Director Joseph Kane has attracted a lot of interest in recent years from auteurist film historians. This has been spearheaded by that expert’s expert Dave Kehr.
Many of the films and TV episodes directed by Kane I’ve managed to see are indeed above average. Perhaps the best is the Cheyenne episode “Big Ghost Basin”, based on a story by Steve Frazee.
January 13th, 2019 at 4:11 pm
I could be wrong, but have the strong impression:
The difference between A and B films is one of budget, especially shooting schedule. B films had much lower budgets than A’s, and were shot very quickly – sometimes in just 5 or 10 days.
It’s not a matter of quality or effort. Some B films were indeed shot in utter contempt. But the great Joseph H. Lewis made countless B’s at the start of his career. He would pre-plan them for weeks. And try to turn out masterpieces, even though the film had a brief shooting schedule and cheap sets. Many are terrific – better than many A’s. But they are still B movies.
There are good A movies and bad A movies. There are good B movies and bad B movies. Whether a film is A or B is entirely a matter of budget and shooting schedule.
January 13th, 2019 at 4:31 pm
You are not wrong Mike about A and B budgets, but add to that the manner in which films were distributed. A films were on a percentage/guarantee, whereas B films were sold/rented to exhibitors on a pre-determined fee.
January 13th, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Mike stated that whether a film is A or B is entirely a matter of budget and shooting schedule. I think attitude also played a part. With A films you had a more mature and adult audience and the films were definitely aimed at this more mature viewer.
But the B western often, not always, but quite often, were aimed at a younger and perhaps a teenage audience. Sometimes even younger, especially when you study the silly sidekicks and juvenile humor that the B’s often utilized.
Some of these sidekicks were so silly and stupid that time after time I groan as they go through the same old, cliched pratfalls and comedy routines. A young viewer finds these scenes funny and amusing but an older, more mature viewer has to be bored and not amused at all.
January 13th, 2019 at 8:17 pm
These are all good points!
January 13th, 2019 at 9:26 pm
With Republic the difference between the A and B Western was clearly the audience it was aimed at. Some of the Roy Rogers, Rex Allen, and Monte Hale Westerns from Republic have fairly big budgets, but the audience they are aimed at are a mixed lot of primarily kids and some parents where the more mature films are clearly aimed at audiences looking for more mature characterizations and not really designed for Saturday morning matinees.
Some of the Rogers films of the same era as this one probably weren’t far off the same budget, but they were aimed at far different audiences.
January 13th, 2019 at 11:05 pm
Gene Autry often thought of his audience as primarily kids and he dreamed up what is often referred to as The Cowboy Code or The Cowboy’s Ten Commandments. I just looked it up on google and was going to list the ten so called commandments but it is such condescending bullshit that I can’t bring myself to list them.
He preached that a cowboy always told the truth, was clean in body and mind, helped women and the elderly, and was an all around nice guy.
Not only Gene and Roy played to the kids but also Hopalong Cassidy and others who were very reluctant to shoot the villain or kill the bad guys.
Watching these B westerns can be fun and nostalgic but they are not often that true to life.
The ironic thing of course is that Gene never really acted as a real cowboy at all. The real cowboys were hired hands that did the hard work on the ranch. They were often very young guys and not always white like in the movies. If we read the histories and diaries left behind, many cowboys were black, indian, Mexican, etc.
January 13th, 2019 at 11:34 pm
Walker,
As someone pointed out the other day cowboy was actually an insult, the term for drifters and bums who followed the seasonal work on ranches. Actual skilled workers were called Hands or Cowhands, and often had full time jobs and worked on one ranch for their whole career.
Most cowboys didn’t even own a gun much less a horse or saddle. Many worked only for food and sometimes enough to acquire a gun a horse and saddle. The outfit provided the gun of needed usually as well as the horse and rig.
Similarly gunfighter referred to a lawman and gunman to a criminal good with a gun. There was never very many of any of them. Maybe ten thousand working cowboys and hands through the entire twenty years of the actual Old West of the great cattle drives, Indian Wars, and gunlaw.
Save for the rare film like MONTE WALSH, RED RIVER, JIM KANE, THE ROUNDERS, SHANE, or WILL PENNY few Westerns for adults or children had much to do with the real Old West.
MY great grandfather was a gunfighter, cow hand, Texas Ranger, Pinkerton, and Foreman on the King Ranch in charge of security,and even he is a far cry from most of the Hollywood version of the West. He may have looked the part, and Saturday nights my grandmother may have been sent down to the saloon to fetch him home from a poker game and a few drinks, but beyond that he was mostly a family man whose work just happened to involve being better than most with a gun, or on a horse and with a rope.
I won’t blame Gene alone for the “code” though since that started back in the silent era with the idea of Tom Mix as a “Straight Shooter,” and even the Dime Novels turned Buffalo Bill, Jesse James, Deadwood Dick, Wild Bill, and such into paragons of virtue despite their history.
January 14th, 2019 at 12:01 am
I thought the Cowboy Code just great. Not a thing wrong with it. Gene Autry grew up on a farm,, if not a ranch, and at the height of his starring career, went overseas, flew transport, contending with a changing reality upon his return. He is indeed a hero. The movies are not reality, they are scripted and staged plays. What do you think the real ‘cowbo9ys’ smelled’ like? Much less any the rest of it.
January 14th, 2019 at 11:44 am
Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code
1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. He must always tell the truth.
4. He must be gentle with children, the elderly and animals.
5. He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. He must help people in distress.
7. He must be a good worker.
8. He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.
9. He must respect women, parents and his nation’s laws.
10. The Cowboy is a patriot.
January 14th, 2019 at 8:34 am
David Vineyard–
What a coincidence – my grandmother was a horse thief!
January 14th, 2019 at 5:09 pm
Dan,
Being a Texas Ranger often implied a certain looseness with the law at some point in your life. My great-grandmother’s favorite saying was “it takes a thief to catch a thief”, and likely not without reason.
Barry,
I have no problem with Gene and the cowboy code or with Hollywood Westerns, just pointing out the real thing was quite a bit different than our image, which is true equally of most historical periods.
“Frontier Courtliness” was an actual thing, and it is surprising how “knightly” many cow hands, gunfighters, and ordinary citizens of the West could be, how sentimental about women and children, and how flowery their language compared to the image we have from most films (TOMBSTONE gets that part right). You only have to listen to old songs sung to keep the cattle quiet on a drive to catch on just how sentimental and romantic they could be.
When most hands hit a cowtown their first stop was a bath, their best clothes, and enough cologne to knock a dog over before they hit the bars. They dressed and acted the image as colorfully as Roy or Gene ever did, the only change Tom Mix made was to have them working in those clothes.
To some extent the people actually living the Old West bought into the romance of the Frontier and it did effect their actions. There was a ‘code’ of behavior though it was often flexible.
Buffalo Bill may have invented the popular view of the Old West out of Remington and Russell by way of Owen Wister and Ned Buntline, but it wasn’t created out of whole cloth. Teddy Roosevelt lived it, and so did many others.
Private Eyes and Secret Agents are an invention too, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t the likes of Ray Schindler and Eddie Chapman or Sidney Reilly around. Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are romantic figures, but Dr. Joseph Bell and Dr. Edmund Locard were real enough. Ironically Dr. Thorndyke appeared before his real life counterpart Dr. Bernard Spilsbury became famous.
But I’ll go further, the whole Cowboy Code, the idea of men living by a code of behavior and upholding it, affected me and many in my generation (sounds like you too). Even when we grew up and knew better some of that straight shooting – a man’s a man for that – mindset stayed in, and often to our betterment.
I can’t say as an adult I stopped and asked myself what Gene and Roy would do, but it was there in that six year old kid we all once were, and has never really gone away.
January 14th, 2019 at 5:51 pm
David, thumbs up for everything above.
January 14th, 2019 at 5:58 pm
Very well said, David.