Sat 18 Jul 2015
A Western Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: HIGH LONESOME (1950).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[7] Comments
HIGH LONESOME. LeMay-Templeton / Eagle-Lion Films, 1950. John Barrymore Jr., Chill Wills, John Archer, Lois Butler, Kristine Miller, Basil Ruysdale, Jack Elam and Dave Kashner. Written and directed by Alan LeMay.
Alan LeMay is best remembered as the author of the novel basis for The Searchers (1954) but he started writing Westerns in 1927 and did his first Western (sorta) screenplay in 1940: Cecil B. DeMille’s Northwest Mounted Police. In between times he authored or co-authored screenplays for Along Came Jones (1945), The Walking Hills (1949), and others worthy of note, and in 1950 he turned his hand to directing as well as writing High Lonesome.
LeMay’s direction is serviceable, but it’s not the sort of work that would worry John Ford. His story, on the other hand, is definitely intriguing. The movie opens with young Barrymore pursued by two shadowy figures on horseback who (we learn later) involved him in a murder. Caught pilfering a cookhouse, he’s tentatively adopted/detained by rancher Basil Ruysdale and his daughters (Butler & Miller) and nick-named “Cooncat†which is the only name we ever know him by, and surely the most unlikely moniker ever given a Western hero.
No one completely trusts him though (and with good reason: Barrymore’s playing verges on hysteria) and when he tells them about the killing (now about a week old) they take him to the scene of the alleged crime, only to find it deserted, disused and dust-covered. Moreover, when he describes his shadowy pursuers, the others immediately recognize the description as that of two local outlaws—who were killed in a range war fifteen years earlier.
Well that’s a nice creepy start, and LeMay builds on it well; when a real murder is discovered, Cooncat is naturally blamed and almost lynched. The mysterious dead men (Jack Elam and Dave Kashner) flit about in the shadows while prairie discord and ranchland romance spread across the plains in equal measure and we get a couple more murders, one of them pretty shocking even by today’s standards, whatever those are.
The acting here is uniformly good, but it’s mostly a case of able players taking advantage of well-written character parts. John Drew Barrymore (billed here as John Barrymore Jr.) goes over the top too often, but he’s got that Youthful Angst thing down nicely, and he even looks a bit like young Sean Penn. Basil Ruysdale (you might remember him as the Confederate reverend leading his child-soldiers against John Wayne’s cavalry in The Horse Soldiers — or the befuddled detective who loses his shirt to Harpo in The Coconuts) projects real authority as the rancher/patriarch; Lois Butler conveys vulnerable adolescence nicely, and it goes without saying (but I’m saying it anyway) that Jack Elam creeps around with appropriate loathsomeness.
Hey! Come to think of it, howcum nobody ever made a movie where Jack Elam and Peter Falk played brothers?
July 18th, 2015 at 7:52 pm
Back in 1950, I would have gone to see any movie with Roy, Gene or any other B-western star of the day. I would have gone to see a western with Randolph Scott, Alan Ladd or even Jimmy Stewart, among a whole host of many others.
I would NOT have gone to see a western starring John Barrymore Jr.
July 18th, 2015 at 11:02 pm
This film received mixed reviews on IMDB and amazon and it appears the only reason that Barrymore, Jr. got the role was because of his father’s name.
However, I see that copies are available on dvd for only a couple dollars plus postage, so I’ll buy it and see if it’s as bad as everyone says.
July 20th, 2015 at 6:26 pm
Barrymore Jr. over acts badly but the movie is still worth seeing.
If Peter Falk, Jack Elam, Sammy Davis Jr., and Karen Black all stood looking at each other would any of them actually see the other?
Sorry, I apologize profusely, I’m a bad person for asking, but wouldn’t you like to know?
November 29th, 2015 at 7:58 pm
I finally got around to watching this film and I’m with Steve on this one. John Drew Barrymore is terrible in it. I did not enjoy this film at all.
July 22nd, 2017 at 11:08 pm
My mother was an extra in this movie. She was one if the square dancers. She hammed it up almost as much as Barrymore. I liked the story and think if anyone tried they could do a really good remake. It had one really good visual effect with the bones of hundreds of cattle where they died in a blizzard because barbed wire had them hemmed in.
July 23rd, 2017 at 11:32 am
Patrick
That’s a great story about your mother. Thanks for sharing it with us!
July 5th, 2018 at 1:00 pm
I liked it. The mystery makes it more than a B-movie. Although the overacting John Barrymore jr. is trustworthy as a troubled young man with problemen due to the horror he witnessed. Would like to watch it one more time.